dc.description.abstract | As industrial development matures, life has thus become very convenient. On the other hand, the excessive use of petrochemicals and the burning of fossil fuels have however brought earth-shattering global warming, and extreme climate such as summer snowing in the downunder Australia, and raging flood and snowstorm in the northern hemisphere. China also has recently suffered the worst snowstorms in decades. In view of this, scientists have been trying to develop biomass energy to hope to replace fossil fuels, including what we are familiar with, the biodiesel made from palm oil, and the bioethanol from soybean and corn, etc. Under this premise, we hope to study whether the variation in the price of international bulk commodity relates to the price fluctuation of international crude oil. In the study, we adopt the consumer price index from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to further strengthen the credibility of the correlations found between the economic indicators and our results, for according to Wikipedia the OECD is a major and one of the most trustworthy providers for global economic and social statistical data.
The results of our study indicate significant correlations between crude oil price and both the price indices of palm oil used for making biodiesel, as well as corn and soybeans for making bioethanol fuels. This means that when the price of crude oil fluctuate under the influence of supply/demand or political/economic conditions, the price of biomass fuel that can be used to replace crude oil varies correspondingly, and toward the same direction. As long as crude oil price increases, the demand increases for the agricultural products used to make biomass fuels, and so the prices. This then increases the price of global agricultural commodities . | en_US |