Director of BIC, Bruce Babcock on NPR Morning Edition discussing the loss of the ethanol subsidy.
Babcock named Iowa State’s Cargill Chair and leader of the Biobased Industry Center
Contacts:
Bruce Babcock, Economics and Biobased Industry Center, 515-294-5764, babcock@iastate.edu
John Schroeter, Economics, 515-294-5876, johns@iastate.edu
Robert C. Brown, Bioeconomy Institute, 515-294-7934, rcbrown@iastate.edu
Mike Krapfl, News Service, 515-294-4917, mkrapfl@iastate.edu
AMES, Iowa – Bruce Babcock is ready to focus on the bioeconomy as Iowa State University’s next Cargill Endowed Chair in Energy Economics and director of the university’s Biobased Industry Center.
Babcock, an Iowa State professor of economics and current director of the university’s Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, assumes his new position Oct. 1. He succeeds James Bushnell, who is now an associate professor of economics at the University of California Davis.
An interim director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development is expected to be named soon.
“I’m looking forward to the new position,” Babcock said. “I’ve been moving toward bioenergy analysis and policy for the last few years. And this is a good opportunity for me to focus directly on bioenergy.”
As director of the Biobased Industry Center, Babcock will also work with 15 companies and organizations – from fuel producers to agribusinesses to auto manufacturers – interested in the latest bioenergy research. The center was established in 2008 and is part of Iowa State’s Bioeconomy Institute. It supports interdisciplinary studies of the business, policy, infrastructure and supply chain issues facing the bioeconomy.
“I’m also looking forward to engaging more companies in the Biobased Industry Center and getting some research started that addresses the costs and benefits of advanced biofuels,” Babcock said. “We want to learn how the marketplace will play out with both corn ethanol and advanced biofuels.”
Babcock’s goal is for the Cargill Chair and the Biobased Industry Center to develop complementary research programs that investigate policy and market issues.
John Schroeter, Iowa State professor and interim chair of economics, said he’s happy to see Babcock taking the Cargill Chair.
“I think this is an ideal fit,” he said. “Bruce is a distinguished scholar and nationally recognized for a long research career in agricultural economics, energy economics and the economics of biofuels.”
Babcock has been at Iowa State since 1990 and has directed the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development since 1998.
Robert C. Brown – an Anson Marston Distinguished Professor inEngineering, the Gary and Donna Hoover Chair in Mechanical Engineering, the Iowa Farm Bureau Director of Iowa State’s Bioeconomy Institute and a member of the executive team of the Biobased Industry Center – said he’s pleased Babcock will be the next Cargill Chair.
“The essence of the Biobased Industry Center involves its ability to evaluate the economic potential of the bioeconomy,” Brown said. “Bruce is extremely well qualified to lead this effort and explore new opportunities for the center.”
Nation’s Leading Economists Weigh Climate Policy Options
Many of the nation’s leading environmental and energy economists gathered in Washington D.C. to discuss the results of a year-long project focusing on the design and implementation of U.S. climate policy. The project is an effort of the National Bureau of Economic research, the nation’s leading nonprofit economic research organization.
The project has gathered more than two dozen economists working on 20 different aspects of climate policy implementation ranging from regulatory policy design and enforcement to energy consumption in buildings and vehicles. The results will be compiled in a forthcoming book to be published by the University of Chicago Press and edited by Don Fullerton (University of Illinois and NBER) and Catherine Wolfram (U.C. Berkeley and NBER)
Iowa State University’s James Bushnell has contributed a chapter on the economics of carbon offsets. While carbon offsets hold great potential to extend active climate policy to regions and sectors unlikely to fall under direct regulation, the mechanisms have also been very controversial. Much of the criticism has been directed at funding of projects whose reductions are not truly “additional” to what would have resulted without offset payments. However, Bushnell argues that the regulatory focus on additionality tends to paint these problems with too broad a brush.
The collected chapters are available online at: http://www.nber.org/confer/2010/DICPs10/summary.html