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Dr. Bruce McCarl

By: Emily Velez and Aubree Smith - August 20, 2024
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Harvesting Hope: The role of agriculture in tackling climate change

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that global energy consumption will increase between 16% to 57% by 2050 over 2022 energy demands as a result of population growth, manufacturing and higher living standards. While renewable and nuclear energies are projected to meet new energy demands through 2050, these resources are not sufficient to decrease global energy-related emissions under current laws and regulations, according to EIA (EIA, 2023).

In an era marked by climate change and the urgent need for sustainable energy solutions, agriculture provides environmentally safe resources and significant opportunities for economic growth. Nobel Laureate Dr. Bruce McCarl, Texas Agrilife Senior Fellow, Regents Professor and University Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University, along with Texas A&M Energy Institute Faculty Affiliate, is a pre-eminent Texas A&M University faculty member investigating policy, economic analysis and agricultural-based strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change through the utilization of agriculture management strategies such as producing feedstocks for biofuels and capturing carbon in agricultural soils.

Bruce McCarl

Climate change is a complex issue with effects on what we produce and how we live. It raises a need to adapt to limit effects and exploit opportunities, and a need to mitigate the future extent through greenhouse gas management.

Dr. Bruce McCarl

Dr. McCarl received his Bachelor of Science in Business Statistics at the University of Colorado in 1970 followed by a doctoral degree in Management Science from Pennsylvania State University in 1972. He began his career as an Assistant and Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University and was then promoted to Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at Oregon State University.

In 1985, Dr. McCarl came to Texas A&M University as a Professor of Agricultural Economics. Over his 39-year tenure, he has become one of the most distinguished and accomplished scholars at Texas A&M recognized at the highest levels with honors including Texas Agrilife Research Senior Fellow, Regents Professor, University Distinguished Professor and Presidential Impact Fellow, among numerous other awards and honors.

Research

As an internationally recognized agricultural economist, Dr. McCarl has made significant contributions to agriculture, climate change and environmental economics. He has been involved in more than $100 million in research projects. His models have been adopted by U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Dr. McCarl’s life work on climate impacts was instrumental in his 2004 appointment to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC objectively researches and informs governments about the state of climate change caused by human activities, including natural, economic, and social impacts and risks and potential solutions. In 2007, Dr. McCarl’s IPCC team along with Former Vice President Al Gore were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for laying the foundation on measures required to allay further climate impacts. Leading up to his nomination to the IPCC, Dr. McCarl was involved in the first national level appraisal to measure the impacts of climate change on agriculture, prices, and markets. He also participated in the first national appraisal of agricultural participation in controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) is an integrated approach to “transform agri-food systems toward green and climate resilient practices” that supports global efforts to reduce net emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide (CO2), the most prevalent greenhouse gas (Bell et. Al., 2023). Agriculture plays a critical role in the reduction of heat trapping CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere by limiting emissions. Agriculture can also produce biofuels that can recycle emissions for electricity or gasoline replacing emission intensive fossil fuels. Furthermore, agriculture practices can also increase absorption or “sequestration” of significant CO2 gases into soils and plants, removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Biofuels

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, “Replacing fossil fuels with biofuels—fuels produced from renewable organic material—has the potential to reduce some undesirable aspects of fossil fuel production and use, including conventional pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions, exhaustible resource depletion, and dependence on unstable foreign suppliers” (EPA, 2024). Biofuels can be used as feedstock for electricity generating power plants or to produce substitutes for fossil fuel-based gasoline, thereby reducing net greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. McCarl’s research highlights these benefits of biofuels as an alternative energy source versus the economics behind biofuel production.

“For biofuels to serve a significant role to offset greenhouse gas emissions, forces will have to arise that will make them economically competitive,” says Dr. McCarl.

Dr. McCarl has spent his career studying the economics, policies, and efficiencies of biofuel production. Four primary benefits of biofuels and biofuel subsidies that drive his research include:

  • Biofuel subsidies serve to support agricultural prices by adding to demand for feedstock commodities and, in turn, supporting agricultural incomes. 
  • The biofuel product, ethanol, has desirable environmental/health attributes relative to petroleum-based fuels, which play a role in meeting clean air standards. 
  • Increased biofuel use reduces dependence on petroleum extending the life of existing stocks and possibly reducing reliance on nondomestic supplies.
  • Biofuel combustion substantially offsets net greenhouse gas emissions relative to fossil fuel combustion.

Carbon Sequestration

2021 U.S. Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis emphasizes the role of agriculture in combating the climate crisis and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, by sequestering carbon into soils, grasses, trees, and other vegetation. Dr. McCarl’s research has demonstrated that CSA practices such as reforestation, livestock management, tillage alteration, and nutrient management practices can decrease greenhouse gas emissions if market or subsidy programs can economically reward sustainable farming. According to Dr. McCarl and his research collaborators in a recent study (Bell, et.al, 2023), some of the benefits and challenges of carbon sequestration include:

  • Climate-smart agriculture provides opportunities for sustainably meeting food, fiber, and feed production needs.
  • CSA approaches are site specific.
  • Carbon sequestration potential varies geographically with climate, crop/soil management, and irrigation capacity.
  • Strategies to increase soil carbon sequestration may have co-benefits, such as cleaner water and increased ecosystem services.
  • A key agricultural challenge is the sustainable allocation of increasingly scarce water resources.

Texas A&M Energy Institute Collaborations

Texas A&M Energy Institute Seed Grants for Preliminary Research

Dr. McCarl has served as a scientist on three Texas A&M Energy Institute Seed Grants, which are periodically provided to Texas A&M University faculty to develop preliminary data for interdisciplinary energy research.

  • 2015 Seed Grant: Production/Logistics/Processing Design for the use of Agricultural Feedstocks for Liquid Fuel Production: Case Study in Two Regions: Project lead Dr. McCarl in collaboration with Dr. Neil Geismar, Department of Information and Operations Management, Mays Business School; and Dr. Steve Searcy, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, received Texas A&M Energy Institute seed funding to address logistics and costs involved in using agricultural feedstock to produce liquid fuels. Challenges associated with logistics and costs vary depending on the location of production, densification, hauling, storage volume, storage loss, moisture, depots, and feedstock diversification. The study developed a comparative budgeting analysis across some simple alternatives and conceptualized a model to handle diverse alternative logistical, production, and processing scenarios. The costs of major logistic alternatives, potential benefits of adding densification and depots, storage losses, moisture costs, and the value of diversifying feedstocks was assembled for a southern Corn Belt location and East Texas. The results of this study provided the preliminary data for United States Department of Energy and Sun Grant funded projects totaling over $2 million. More information can be found here.
  • 2015 Seed Grant: Energy Development Under Water Scarcity and Climate Change: A Case Study in the San Antonio, TX Region: Project lead Dr. Rabi Mohtar, Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and Department of Civil Engineering, in collaboration with Dr. McCarl received Texas A&M Energy Institute seed funding to investigate the interdependencies of how the availability and predictability of water resources directly affect operations across energy and food sectors. The study enhances informed decision-making for capabilities for resource management through improved data and analytic proficiency with regard to agriculture and energy production, municipal and industrial supply and demand in the face of altered climate. As a result of this study, a platform was built for the San Antonio region of Texas to inform the city’s planning implementation of multiple water supply projects in preparation for the boom in shale oil and gas production at the time of the study. This work allowed Dr. McCarl to lead a $2.4 million National Science Foundation project titled, INFEWS/T3: Decision Support for Water Stressed FEW Nexus Decisions (DS-WSND) that analyzed improvements arising from FEW Nexus-aware decision utilizing case studies in the San Antonio, Texas and Los Angeles/San Diego, California regions and developed analytical systems for Nexus decision evaluation. More information can be found here.
  • 2018 Seed Grant: Extreme Weather and Gulf Coast Energy Systems: Present and Future Threats, Vulnerabilities and Path to Adaptation: Project lead Dr. McCarl, in collaboration with Yangyang Xu, Assistant Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences received Texas A&M Energy Institute seed funding to address natural disasters along the Texas Gulf Coast that have shown the vulnerability of Gulf energy assets to extreme weather events. As a result of this study, the research team estimated the localized nature of both current and projected threats through high-resolution climate modeling; estimated the economic consequences to the energy industry (extraction, processing, generation, transmission and associated transport) through current and future predictions; and performed a preliminary survey of possible adaptation strategies including an implementation cost estimate, and an estimated economic evaluation of major adaptation possibilities.

Texas A&M Academic Courses

Dr. McCarl’s academic influence is as impressive as his research accomplishments. He has mentored six post-doctoral students, 102 doctoral students, and 25 Masters of Science students. Dr. McCarl has recently taught two Texas A&M Energy Institute affiliated courses along with eight other graduate level courses:

  • Texas A&M Energy Institute Economics of Energy: Masters level course through the Texas A&M Energy Institute Masters of Energy Program. The course exposes students to basic economic concepts to include energy markets, insights gained for energy operations from economics of supply and demand, government policy effects on the energy economy, energy economic implications of climate change, and economics of bioenergy production.
  • Texas A&M Energy Institute KAPSARC Environment and Energy: Professional development course instructor for King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC) professionals contracted through Texas A&M Energy Institute international educational offerings with a concentration on links between energy industry operations, prices, costs and environmental quality/policy.
  • Quantitative Techniques for Decision Making in Agribusiness II
  • Applied Mathematical Programming
  • Agricultural Risk Analysis
  • Frontiers in Resource Economics: Climate Change Economics Module
  • Special Topic in Computable General Equilibrium Modeling
  • Advanced Production Economics
  • Climate Change Considered
  • Homeland Security: Economics Issues and Implications for Policy Design

Texas A&M Energy Institute Interdisciplinary Academic Council 

Dr. McCarl also serves on the Texas A&M Energy Institute Interdisciplinary Academic Council (IAC) since its inception in 2019. The IAC comprises prominent faculty members from colleges and schools across Texas A&M University departments. Dr. McCarl and his IAC colleagues serve as an advisory body to the director of the Texas A&M Energy Institute on research and academic matters and cultivate relationships with faculty members across campus to enhance an interdisciplinary ethos and advance Institute initiatives.

Texas A&M Energy Institute Lecture Series Presenter

The Texas A&M Energy Institute hosts an annual Distinguished Lecture Series that includes prominent energy leaders from across many energy disciplines and topics. Dr. McCarl was a featured speaker at the Texas A&M Energy Institute in 2020 and 2021.

Accomplishments and Recognitions

Dr. McCarl has made significant contributions to science. His work is evident in over 1100 publications including journal articles, books, reports, proceedings, and other papers since 1971. Additionally, he has served in editorial positions for the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Water Resources Research, Choices, Climatic Change and Economics E-Journal.  Beyond his Nobel Prize, McCarl has received numerous notable recognitions. The following are only a few notable career highlights:

  • American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, 2024  
  • Presidential Impact Fellow, Texas A&M University, 2017
  • Southern Agricultural Economics Association Lifetime Achievement Award, 2012 
  • Texas AgriLife Research, Senior Fellow, 2012  
  • Agricultural and Applied Economics Association Bruce Gardner Memorial Prize for Applied Policy Analysis, 2009
  • Texas A&M University Distinguished Professor, 2008
  • Texas Monthly list of “35 People Who Will Shape Our Future,” 2008
  • Nobel Peace Prize participant, 2007 through award to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as designated by IPCC
  • American Agricultural Economics Association President’s Award, 2007
  • Texas Agricultural Experiment Station Fellow, 2005
  • American Agricultural Economics Association Distinguished Fellow, 2005
  • Texas A&M University Regents Professor, Faculty Senate, 2002

References

  • Bell, J., DeLaune, P. B., Fischer, B. L., Foster, J. L., Lewis, K. L., McCarl, B.A., & Outlaw, J. L. (2023). Carbon sequestration and water management in Texas—One size does not fit all. Agrosystems, Geosciences & Environment, 6, 1–20.https://doi.org/10.1002/agg2.20372
  • Environmental Protection Agency, (2024). Biofuels and the Environment. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, www.epa.gov. April 22, 2024.
  • U.S. Energy Information Administration, (2023). EIA projections indicate global energy consumption increases through 2050, outpacing efficiency gains and driving continued emissions growth. Washington, DC www.eia.gov press release. October 11, 2023.
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