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ewarner edited this page Oct 12, 2013 · 17 revisions

Welcome to the BioLuc wiki!

(WORK IN PROGRESS. Estimated Completion in Spring 2014)

I. Model Overview

II. Additional Guidance for Using BioLUC

A. General BioLUC Guidance

Please look at the BioLUC model's above for basic directions for using BioLUC.

B. Guidance for Using Stella

Please use documents and trainings available from ISEE Systems systems for guidance in using the Stella software.

C. Data Processing and Documentation

Please use the Excel spreadsheet called BioLUC Data Processing and Model Inputs_2013-10-01.xlsx for detailed questions about data.

D. Variables Model Developers have Found Useful for Testing and Analysis

AP commodity consn

AP food consn

AP net export

AP production

Abandoned

Abandoned Land

Actual Forage Land

Animal Product Inventory

Avg AP Prodn Shortfall

Avg Commodity Prod''n Shortfall

Built Up

Built Up Land

Commodity Inventory

Crop

Crop Land

Crop Land Alloc to Energy Crops

Crop Land Alloc to Fallow

Crop Land Alloc to Fiber

Crop Land Alloc to Other

Crop Land Alloc to VFN

Latent

Latent Land

NPL

Near Pristine Land

Other yield

Population

Set Aside

Set Aside Land

TOTAL desired AP exports

TOTAL desired AP imports

TOTAL desired CP exports

TOTAL desired CP imports

Total AP Prodn Shortfall

VFN yield

animal product demand

commodity crop demand

commodity crop yield

commodity production

crop land forage yield

direct commodity consn

fiber yield

net commodity export

per capita animal product demand

per capita commodity crop demand

potential exports

potential imports

total crop land allocated to all other uses

total crop land allocated to commodities

III. Known Modeling Limitations and Data Issues

This section summarizes some limitations and issues with the BioLUC model and the data that is used that users of BioLUC should be aware of. The list included here should not be considered a complete list.

A. Stella Mouse

It is possible using STELLA 10.0.3 to lose control over the mouse when opening the BioLUC model. This can occur under conditions such as the following a) you have multiple monitors b) program such as the windows task manager is open in one monitor b) you launch the model by double-clicking it.

This is a known problem with STELLA, and is scheduled to be fixed in a version subsequent to 10.0.3. This problem does not occur if you first launch STELLA and then open the BioLUC model from the File menu.

B. Inconsistency between population and calculated total commodity crop demand demands in BioLUC.

Miscellaneous crop commodities for industry, seed, etc. comes from static disposition data from FAOSTAT. In the model, changes in population on not linked to these relatively smaller uses of crop commodities.

C. In flows to the Set Aside Land Category in BioLUC

The "latent to set aside" and "pristine to set aside" flows are set to zero. These flows are intentionally turned off in the default settings of the BioLUC model. Users are meant to override this for scenarios in which policy protects ("set-asides) land that are protected and would not be used for agriculture.

Please see data documentation for definitions of land categories, if needed.

D. "Built-Up Land"

So called "built up" land data does not well match actual land that has been built up for human use. The "built up" land category is generated from the FAOSTAT's Land Resource data's "Other" land category. We were able to remove "abandoned" land from that category, but we could not separate out barren land such as tundra and deserts. Therefore, our "built up" land category does not include only built up land. Inflows of land into the "built up" land category are either based assuming that historic growth is mostly from the building up of land for human uses or that growth should be mirror to similar regions. These two methods were applied in cases of historic growth or decline in the "built up" land category, respectively.

Please see data documentation for additional details about this issue.

E. Zero Yields

Some regions have zero yields for some commodities. BioLUC does not include explicit economic or climate components and dynamics so the zero yields are how BioLUC manages commodities that should not be grown.

F. Prioritization of Land Use

The BioLUC model prioritizes land for biofuels over other commodities and generally prioritizes commodity use for food over the use for feed

Because BioLUC is not an economic model the former assumption was implemented so that multiple alternative biofuel scenarios could be run in BioLUC. In essence, the requirement of land for biofuel can be thought of a a policy induced event that can't be circumnavigated.

G. Stella Memory Leak

Running BioLUC multiple times (~5) will eventually cause it to crash. This issue will be fixed in Stella 10.0.4 which should be available sometime in October/November. We will be converting the model to that version when it is released. In the meantime save often.

IV. FAQ

(please submit questions to [email protected] or create a ticket