Plant capacity level and location as a mechanism for sustainability in biomass supply chain
- PDF / 2,634,699 Bytes
- 35 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 32 Downloads / 201 Views
Plant capacity level and location as a mechanism for sustainability in biomass supply chain N. Muhammad Aslaam Mohamed Abdul Ghani1,2,3 · Joseph G. Szmerekovsky2 · Chrysafis Vogiatzis4 Received: 30 January 2019 / Accepted: 4 October 2019 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Biomass is an important energy source that has the ability to reduce dependencies on fossil fuels, while providing a greener source of energy and helping achieve sustainability. Among the most commonly used biomass feedstock is corn stover, corn residue remaining in the fields after harvesting. One of the biggest challenges of using corn stover as biomass feedstock is that burning it in field is the fastest and cheapest way for many growers so as to remove it and grow new crops. This leftover corn stover could be, instead, converted to bioethanol. In this work, we propose a decision support system for expanding existing biorefineries or building new ones to help stakeholders design a supply chain network model that converts all of the available corn stover to bioethanol. Two configurations presented in this study which is the existing plant expansion (EP) configuration and the combination of existing and new plant configuration (ENP), by exploring the incentive and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission price value for the bioenergy plant to achieve the goal. The aim of converting all corn stover is successfully achieved along with the other goals of achieving sustainability by reducing the amount of GHG emissions in the supply chain. Our results reveal that we can achieve a minimum amount of GHG emissions, while maximizing profit from the supply chain, when expanding existing plants and building new plants (ENP configuration) leading to a reduction of GHG emissions by 4%. Keywords Biomass · Sustainable supply chain management · Incentives · Optimization · Facility location
* N. Muhammad Aslaam Mohamed Abdul Ghani [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
N. M. A. Mohamed Abdul Ghani et al.
1 Introduction Biomass is a renewable energy source derived from plants and animals, and it is used to produce different forms of energy such as biofuels and biopower. We have observed an increase in the use of biomass as an alternative energy source around the world, due to its potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) while simultaneously reducing our dependency on fossil fuels. It has been shown that substituting fossil fuel production and consumption with biofuels can mitigate the impact of C O2 emissions [1]. The use of biomass energy can also reduce a country’s dependence on foreign oil, as well as support its own agricultural and forest product industries. In the United States, biomass consumption for biofuel production in 2016 originated from agricultural residues (48%), wood (41%), and municipal waste (11%) [2], which shows that biomass from agricultural residues is an important resource [3]. In addition, the depletion of fossil f
Data Loading...
