DRU - Social, Economic, and Political Aspects of U.S. Ethanol Policy

美国乙醇政策的社会、经济和政治方面-Duane T.Wegener(PI)，Wallace E.Tyner(Co-PI)和Amp；Leigh S.Raymond(Co-PI)普渡大学世界面临着严峻的能源挑战；在保护环境的同时满足日益增长的能源需求。围绕哪些替代燃料将变得可持续和经济可行存在很大不确定性，人们可能很难比较可能鼓励各种替代燃料发展的不同政策选择。在美国，乙醇似乎将成为一种更重要的能源，但政策选择仍将在很大程度上决定乙醇的性质和规模。一个由多学科研究人员组成的团队将研究最有可能的美国乙醇政策形式的经济后果，以及公众和政治对这些政策的反应。经济建模将确定提高或降低投资者风险的条件，以及为支持乙醇行业而给消费者增加或消除财务负担的条件。焦点小组和调查研究将确定普遍的公共环境价值观，以及对可能的乙醇政策的反应，并预测谁持有某些观点。采访将直接比较公众和政治精英对影响乙醇使用的各种问题的看法，包括支持补贴、排放交易和使用转基因植物生产生物燃料。建模、焦点小组和调查研究还将为与乙醇相关的决策过程的实验室研究提供信息。这项实验室研究将考察人们现有的价值观和态度如何影响他们在替代乙醇政策或支持不同政策的政客之间的选择，这两种方式既有启发式的，也有更深思熟虑的。这项研究将有助于推进农业经济学、政治学、社会心理学和决策理论的基础科学，其结果也可能有助于为州和联邦一级的政策决策提供参考。对经济学和公众/政治观点的研究也可能影响自然科学中的相关研究，因为能源作物的遗传特征可能会被专门修改，以使能源生产在经济上更可行，或者使该技术更容易为公众/政治所接受。这些活动都解决了一个重要问题，即人们最终何时以及如何采用新兴能源技术，以减少我们对有限和对环境造成污染的来源的依赖。

DRU - Social, Economic, and Political Aspects of U.S. Ethanol PolicyDuane T. Wegener (PI), Wallace E. Tyner (Co-PI), & Leigh S. Raymond (Co-PI)Purdue UniversityThe world faces a daunting energy challenge; to supply increasing energy demands while preserving the environment. Much uncertainty surrounds which alternative fuels will become sustainable and economically viable, and people are likely to have difficulty comparing the different policy options that might encourage development of various alternative fuels. In the US, ethanol seems poised to serve as a more significant source of energy, but policy choices continue to substantially determine the nature and scale of ethanol's role. A multi-disciplinary team of researchers will address the economic consequences of the most likely forms of US ethanol policy and the public and political reactions to these policies. Economic modeling will identify conditions that enhance or reduce risk for investors and that place or remove financial burden on consumers for support of the ethanol industry. Focus group and survey research will identify prevalent public environmental values as well as reactions to possible ethanol policies and predictors of who holds certain views. Interviews will directly compare public perceptions with those of political elites regarding a variety of issues affecting ethanol use, including support for subsidies, emissions trading, and the use of genetically modified plants to produce biofuels. The modeling, focus group, and survey research will also inform laboratory research on decision processes related to ethanol. The laboratory research will examine both "top of the head" (heuristic) and more thoughtful ways in which people's existing values and attitudes influence their choices between alternative ethanol policies or between politicians who support different policies. This research will help to advance basic science in agricultural economics, political science, social psychology, and decision theory, and the results may also help to inform policy decisions at the state and federal level. Research on economics and public/political perceptions may also influence related research in the natural sciences, as genetic features of energy crops may be modified specifically to make energy production more economically feasible or to make the technology more publicly/politically acceptable. These activities all address the important question of when and how people ultimately adopt emerging energy technologies in order to decrease our reliance on limited and environmentally polluting sources.