هزینه خالص از سوخت های زیستی در تایلند، تجزیه و تحلیل اقتصادی

Biofuels are expected to represent a growing portion of liquid fuel consumption in Thailand due to environmental and social considerations in conjunction with policy goals supporting their domestic production and consumption. This paper reviews the economic costs associated with biofuel policy implementation in Thailand in the short term target year of 2011. Internal (production) and external (environmental, social, etc.) costs and benefits are evaluated, and, where possible, monetized. Domestic production of biofuel is calculated to be 9.5 billion THB (317 million USD) more expensive than importing the equivalent amount of petroleum. The environmental benefits from GHG savings as well as losses due to increased ground level ozone formation and government expenditure to support the biofuel industry yield a total “net cost” of 8.6 billion THB or 121 THB (4.04 USD) per capita for the year 2011. This result is contextualized with the (non-monetized) consideration that although biofuels are somewhat more expensive in the short term, their domestic production allows virtually all of the money to stay within the Thai economy as opposed to being sent abroad. This fact, coupled with significant uncertainty in future petroleum prices, could strongly influence the direction of Thai policy with respect to biofuels.

Despite the global economic crisis of 2008, which has strongly depressed the gross domestic product (GDP) growth in Thailand and worldwide (FPO, 2008), Thailand's real annual GDP growth has, in past years, hovered around the 5% mark and is anticipated to rebound quickly with long term annual growth rates expected to be in the range of 4.5–6.0% (Gonsalves, 2006). This rapid GDP growth is reflected by drastic increases in energy use with growth in final energy consumption in Thailand during 2000–2008 at 4.1% (EPPO, 2009a). Oil consumption, a primary indicator of strong economic growth, has been increasing at a particularly high rate. From 2000 to 2008, for example, crude oil consumption has increased over 23% from 749,629 barrels per day to 925,432 barrels per day (EPPO, 2009b). At average oil prices of approximately 94 USD per barrel in the year 2008 (EPPO, 2009b), Thailand's 2008 net oil imports of 813,457 barrels per day would cost about 27.9 billion USD per year. At current prices, this equates to nearly 10% of the 2008 Thai GDP of 9.1 trillion THB or 300 billion USD and poses a major barrier to sustainable economic growth. Realizing their over-reliance on imported fuels, the Thai government has instituted a renewable energy policy centering on biofuel use and prioritized biofuel development as a matter of national interest. Thailand's current 15-year (2008–2022) alternative energy goals set production targets of bioethanol at 3.0, 6.2 and 9.0 ML/day and production targets of biodiesel at 3.0, 3.6 and 4.5 ML/day for short term (by 2011), medium term (by 2016) and long term (by 2022), respectively (DEDE, 2008a). However, a concern over the promotion of biofuels is that their production costs are generally higher than gasoline and diesel in either pure or blended form. Government incentive structures that have been put in place in order to meet short-term policy targets, such as mandatory blending for biodesiel and tax exemptions and subsidies for bioethanol, put the overall cost of the fuel substitution in question. Nevertheless, the increased use of biofuel not only facilitates a reduction in fuel imports, but could also have an ameliorating affect on the environmental and societal costs of petroleum consumption—termed “externalities” in the economic literature (Sundqvist, 2004). The external effects of biofuels can be both environmental and non-environmental, and their externalities can be either positive (external benefits) or negative (external costs) (Soliño et al., 2009 and Peters and Thielmann, 2008). For example, the potential external benefits of the increased demand for biofuels are job creation, income generation and stabilization of crop prices to farmers and the abatement of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Examples of the potential negative external effects of biofuel use are the emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that might pollute the atmosphere and adversely affect human health in the area of use (Milt et al., 2009), the impacts of land-use change in pursuit of higher feedstock yields and the loss of biodiversity. These externalities, while generally not accounted for within the market price, are vital to informed policymaking in order to reduce the negative impacts of Thai energy consumption and facilitate more sustainable biofuel production and use. In this study, economic analysis is utilized to contextualize and monetize the various effects of achieving the short-term biofuels program targets in Thailand (by year 2011) with the primary objective of determining the overall “net cost” of the program. The economy-wide impacts of both the parties involved and not involved in the biofuel production processes are analyzed, and the overall cost-benefit of the biofuels program is calculated. The external effects of biofuels are evaluated and included in the calculation by comparing biofuel blends to the corresponding conventional fuels, i.e. gasoline and diesel. The short-term targets of the biofuels program in Thailand are used as the baseline case, and only the existing, licensed biodiesel and bioethanol plants where operation can start by 2011 are considered. Therefore, only biodiesel produced from palm oil and bioethanol derived from cassava and cane molasses are considered in the analyses, even though there are a variety of feedstocks (including jatropha or even agricultural residues such as bagasse and rice straw) that could possibly be used for commercial biofuel production in Thailand in the long term.

4.1. Net cost of biofuel program in Thailand The final result of net cost is calculated by summating the internal and external benefits and costs as shown in Eq. (1). The total net cost is thus 8.6 billion THB or 285 million USD in additional cost for Thailand in the target year 2011 (as shown in Table 3). This can be converted into a rough estimate of per capita net benefit by dividing by the expected population of Thailand in the year 2011, predicted by extrapolating the last confirmed population count of 64.86 million in 2004 at the average annual growth rate of 1.3% (BOI, 2009). The estimated population of Thailand in 2011 is thus estimated at 71 million and the cost becomes 8.6 billion THB/71 million people=121 THB or 4.04 USD per capita in the target year. It should be noted that the absolute result that is reflected by the net cost figure is highly dependent on fossil fuel and feedstock prices at the policy completion date and, due to the volatility in the oil market, the 95% CI of the projections is quite large and could drastically affect the cost competitiveness of biofuel.In regards to the environmental calculation specifically, these results tend to uphold the prevailing concept that biofuels are “better for the environment” although it is interesting to note that inclusion of ground-level ozone formation significantly offsets the gains from reduced CO2 emissions. The valuation and normalization of the different environmental factors plays a major role in determining the total environmental impact of biofuels as compared to fossil fuels. Despite the fact that the environmental externalities section resulted in an overall savings, it cannot be safely concluded that biofuels are “better for the environment” than petroleum, as economic valuation based on willingness to pay is not always the best indicator of something's value. It should be noted that whatever be the net result for Thailand, the global effects of biofuel as a method for offsetting environmental degradation are debatable. This is discussed further in the Section 4.3. 4.2. Conclusions The study was carried out to determine the economic impacts of the biofuel policies in Thailand. The net economic costs and benefits of achieving the short-term biofuels program targets in Thailand (by year 2011) were analyzed: biofuel production costs, social benefits of petroleum consumption avoided, environmental benefits of GHG reduction, environmental impacts of ground-level ozone formation and the other cost factors, e.g. the tax income used to support the biofuel programs were simultaneously evaluated based on the overall process. The assessment showed the net internalized costs of biofuel (i.e. cost of petroleum consumption avoided minus the cost of biofuel consumed) to be 9.5 billion THB (320 million USD) per year in the anticipated case. These costs are offset, however, by environmental savings in the form of GHG emissions reductions due to carbon uptake in the biofuel production process. The greenhouse gas emission savings showed that biodiesel and bioethanol would result in reductions of 0.8 and 2.0 megatonnes CO2-equivalent, respectively, in the target year of 2011. This was valuated at 2.24 billion THB (75 million USD) in environmental cost savings as compared to the use of petroleum fuel. In contrast to the reduction in GHG emissions, the use of biofuels in motor vehicles is projected to increase ground-level ozone formation in the Bangkok metropolitan area over the 2011 “baseline” value by around 3.9 ppb or about 8.3%. This creates an external cost valuated at 1.3 billion THB (44 million USD) per year. The net cost, calculated by summating the internal and external savings and costs from biofuel use, was thus 8.6 billion THB (285 million USD) or 121 THB (4.04 USD) per capita for the policy target year of 2011. As discussed in the net cost section, although best efforts were made to predict the 2011 price levels as accurately as possible, there is a great deal of uncertainty inherent in the projections. Due to this fact, the essential conclusion that can be drawn from the results is that domestically produced biofuel at least has the potential to be cost competitive with imported petroleum. This could allow the benefits such as increased energy security and domestic job creation to tip the scales in favor of biofuel and its supporting policies. Additionally, as was addressed briefly in the direct economic impacts of biofuel on parties involved in the production processes section, the ability of biofuel to be domestically produced is a significant incentive, as, although the fuel may be somewhat more expensive, virtually all of the money stays within the Thai economy as opposed to being sent abroad. For Thai policy makers, this becomes a very important piece of information. 4.3. Recommendations and the global outlook for biofuels The economic viability of biofuel in the long term is dependent on careful control of the input prices. The primary factor affecting the end price and net benefit of biofuel production is the cost of the feedstocks. Thai policy concerning the pricing of domestically produced feedstock crops such as cassava and oil palm will dramatically affect the ability of biofuel to be competitive not only with oil but also with potential competing alternative energy technologies into the future. Price ceilings on the feedstocks would need to be coupled with careful land management practices to ensure maximum yields from current agricultural land, and there can be little doubt that additional land will need to be procured to meet the policy goals. New valuations will need to be included for this additional land requirement in future analyses. Ultimately, energy consumption will surpass the land's ability to provide, even with careful management and full utilization of the country's agricultural resources. Thailand's 2011 policy goals have a projected internal economic cost that is partially defrayed by significant projected environmental savings. The ability to produce liquid fuels domestically and renewably is a large incentive for Thailand to aggressively pursue its biofuel policy targets. The biofuel industry in Thailand will remain reliant on subsidies in the near future; however there is significant room for improvement in biofuels' cost competitiveness through increased yields (NCGEB, 2009). The cost of feedstocks is the dominant part of the calculation for the cost of consumed biofuel, and, as such, predicted yield increases coupled with diminishing oil supplies worldwide bodes well for future cost competitiveness. Further increases in competiveness will come from economies of scale in the milling and refining stages, which should continue to be supported by government initiatives. Land limitations, though not significant currently or in the short term, will be a major barrier to the continued development of the biofuel industry in the long term of 2022 and beyond. These limitations could prevent biofuels from being a long-term energy security solution, especially if the policies attempting to improve feedstock yields and procure an additional 2.5 million rai for oil palm plantations (DEDE, 2008a) do not succeed. Moreover, expansion of the biofuels industry in Thailand could cause a reduction of Thai food exports. This in turn could spur a global shortage of food crops, particularly cassava and sugar, of which Thailand is one of the world's leading exporters (OAE, 2008 and Sriroth and Piyachomkwan, 2008). For these reasons, it is advisable that the RTG invest in research and development for additional sustainable energy solutions, such as the next generation of biofuel technology, in order to meet demand past the 2011 policy goal. Putting the results of this paper into a global perspective, it should be noted that biofuel is increasingly criticized for being harmful to both the environment and the world's poor. Biofuel production competes directly with food production; land to grow feedstocks results in greater deforestation. The issue is that, especially in the short term, all of the agricultural production being diverted to biofuels is coming from the replacement of existing food crops, not from new agricultural space or as a result of higher yields. The resulting food shortage in the world market increases food prices for the supplies that remain, and ultimately means less food for the world's poor. From a humanitarian point of view, the energy vs. food dilemma is likely the most important economic consideration surrounding biofuels as they develop into a large scale energy source. Recent studies have also seriously considered the carbon released by converting natural vegetation into agricultural space for biofuel feedstock growth. These conversions cause a large, one-time emission of carbon that often far outweighs the carbon savings from the biofuel produced as a result (Fargione et al., 2008 and Searchinger et al., 2008). The conversion of tropical rainforests into oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia is highlighted as particularly problematic. However these impacts are not as significant in Thailand. The comparatively low occurrence of tropical rainforests in Thailand combined with the legal protections they are provided places these issues as a distant second to the food vs. fuel issue. Tropical peatland areas have also been historically targeted for conversion to feedstock growth, and these areas also cause significant carbon emissions when converted in this manner (Page et al., 2007). Once again, this issue is not as prevalent for Thailand, which only has an area of approximately 680 km2 as compared to countries like Indonesia with 270,000 km2 of peatland or about 47% of the global peatland areas (Global Environment Centre, 2008). The intuitive GHG savings obtained from biofuel use come from the carbon uptake during the growth of the fuel feedstocks. The issue at hand is that even when the land is not directly deforested for the growth of the biofuel (which in many cases it is) the land was almost always in use for something before being converted to feedstock production. The loss of this output results in market conditions that encourage deforestation elsewhere. Although the global implications of biofuel use tend to be ignored when examining an individual case, the global perspective is important when considering the far-reaching effects of biofuel production and global warming. Cause and effect are not restricted by the arbitrary lines that delineate countries. An examination of the global effects that would be associated with Thai biofuel use was outside of the scope of this paper, but further consideration should be given to the continued promotion of biofuels as a method for combating global warming.