The demand for biofuels continues to increase due in part to government standards and promotion as well as the ambitious goals set by various companies and industries. Camelina is considered to be an ideal energy crop because of its low input requirements, suitability for marginal soils, and naturally competitiveness with weeds. A partial equilibrium model with a break-even price approach is used to estimate the potential supply curves for Camelina in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. The supply curves are used to determine if the 50 million gallon goal set by the "Farm to Fly" initiative can be met. Given the current price of Camelina, $0.15/lb, the estimated supply of Camelina in all 4 states is 1,756,076,887 lbs and 1,493,684 acres. This estimation assumes that if the wheat-Camelina rotation is more profitable than the current crop rotation, then all of the acres will be converted to a wheat-Camelina rotation. When a 5% adoption rate is applied to the low and the intermediate rainfall zones and a 1% to the high rainfall zones, the number of acres converted to Camelina decreases to 72,213. These results suggest that given current market conditions, the supply of Camelina in the Northwest is not enough to meet the biofuel goal without an increase in yield and government promotion. / Graduation date: 2013
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/33836 |
| Date | 14 September 2012 |
| Creators | Stein, Lukas (Lukas Colin) |
| Contributors | Diebel, Penelope |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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