Biohydrogen development in United States and in China: An input-output model study

Marcoeconomic models can be applied to forecast economic changes under particular scenarios. The input-output (IO) model, a macroeconomic model, can characterize interactions among all sectors in an economy using readily available IO databases. However, the main drawback of the conventional IO model is its inability to forecast economic changes recursively. This study extended the conventional IO model by incorporating a weighted share of new productivities and demands into the technical coefficients matrix and applied this novel IO model to forecast how investment will enhance production technology progress and how economic structure reformation will affect biohydrogen industry development in the US and China. Simulation results reveal that, although economic structures in the US and China differ markedly, progress for the biohydrogen industry is generally independent of economic structures or whether produced biohydrogen is used to power fuel cell cars. Conversely, the rate of development of the biohydrogen industry depends heavily on investment. By 2040, total production values from biohydrogen investments will be US$83.1 and US$67.0 billion in the US and China, respectively, generating investment multipliers of 9.30 and 8.96, respectively. © 2011, Hydrogen Energy Publications, LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.