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ronmental consequences of biobased production are expected to be largely positive to neutral, assessment of environmental impacts from biobased products should be continued.

Rural Employment

Farmers and rural communities could benefit from the employment and business opportunities that would result from production of biobased industrial products, by either growing new raw materials or providing locations for processing plants. Biobased industries will probably be sited near where feedstocks are grown in order to reduce transportation costs. Thus, industrial opportunities for biobased products would tend to appear throughout agriculturally productive areas of the country. While there may be some potential for biobased industries to increase job opportunities, there are insufficient data to make accurate predictions of the impacts of biobased industries on future employment trends.

Currently the entire chemicals industry (not the fuels industry) employs roughly 1 million people with annual sales of about $250 billion dollars. A ratio of labor employed to annual sales will yield a multiplier of about $250,000 in annual sales per job. An Economic Research Service study on the crambe industry (ERS, 1997b) showed $10 million in total sales giving 42 new jobs, which is almost the same ratio, $250,000 in annual sales per job. Considering the multiplier effect, for every primary job in manufacturing, approximately four new jobs are created in service and supplier industries. Ultimately, there would be a lot of processing plants, and this committee can envision around a million jobs based on processing agricultural and forest raw materials to chemicals only, without taking such fuels as ethanol into account. However, new employment opportunities provided by the biobased industry would to some extent be offset by decreases in employment in the petrochemical industries. This is a topic that warrants further research.

Diversification of Petroleum Feedstocks

Current and potential oil reserves are substantial, and exploration continues to open new petroleum supplies for the world market (eg., Caspian Sea). There does, however, remain an open question as to the size of petroleum reserves and the future cost of petroleum products. Experts estimate that two-thirds of the world's proven reserves are located in a single geographic region, the Persian Gulf, and this area will continue to serve as a dominant source for oil exports (USDOE, 1998). However, some geologists report that oil reserves could be depleted in only 20 years (Kerr, 1998). According to the American Petroleum Insti-