4 Presentations

• 
  03:30 PM - 03:55 PM

  Forest residue transportation planning considering uncertainty

  • Soroush Aghamohamadi Bosjin, presenter,
  • Taraneh Sowlati, Department of Wood Science, University of British Columbia

  Storage, transportation, and pre-processing are important operations within the forest residues supply chain. Harvesting, pre-processing and transportation of biomass account for a considerable amount of the total cost of bioproducts. In addition, the interdependency of supply chain operations and uncertainty related to machine breakdown, maintenance, and weather condition can impact the scheduling and routing solutions. Hence, addressing the impact of uncertainty in daily and monthly based plans for forest-based biomass transportation and storage is important in real cases. Previous studies mainly focused on strategic and tactical aspects of forest-based biomass supply chain. Some papers considered operational decisions alongside strategic and tactical decisions. Moreover, majority of previous studies did not consider the uncertainty in their analyses for transportation and scheduling of inter-dependent tasks for daily decisions. This study focuses on forest-based biomass supply chain planning at the operational level while considering uncertainties and disruptions
• 
  03:55 PM - 04:20 PM

  Viability of syngas production from forest-based biomass considering carbon pricing and government regulations

  • Sahar Ahmadvand, presenter, University of British Columbia
  • Taraneh Sowlati, Department of Wood Science, University of British Columbia

  Viability of biomass projects depends on many factors including supply of biomass; supply chain efficiency; technology readiness; reference energy systems; and government regulations and incentives. Thus, to ensure the success of such projects, it is important to study, and where possible optimize, the impact of these factors on economic, environmental, and social outcomes of the project. We build on an economic feasibility study performed for production of syngas from forest-based biomass to replace the natural gas used in the lime kiln of a Kraft pulp mill. Although the project was estimated to have positive net present value with a three-year payback period, the syngas price and increasing carbon tax eventuated in negative cashflows halfway through its lifetime. Despite negative cashflows, the project could benefit from abundant supply of biomass and technology readiness while reducing waste and emissions; diversifying product portfolio; and creating additional revenue and employment. It is worth investigating the changes in project terms and conditions that could realize its potential benefits. Thus, we develop an optimization model that determines the optimal syngas and carbon price which would turn all cashflows positive for the syngas producer while minimizing the syngas purchase cost for the gas utility over project’s lifetime.
• 
  04:20 PM - 04:45 PM

  A Robust Framework for Waste-to-Energy Technology Selection: A Case Study in Nova Scotia, Canada

  • Mostafa Mostafavi Sani, presenter, Research Assistant at Dalhousie University
  • Hamid Afshari, Assistant Professor at Dalhousie University
  • Ahmed Saif, Dalhousie University

  With recent advances in waste-to-energy technologies, the integration of municipal solid waste in energy recovery systems is becoming a promising alternative. However, it is still unclear how these technologies can be optimally combined, especially when the future price of energy and the quantity of waste are uncertain. This paper studies a multi-carrier energy infrastructure to generate energy from municipal solid waste, aiming to optimize the selection and size of waste-to-energy technologies. To account for uncertainty in electricity, heat, and hydrogen prices, as well as waste supply in the future, a two-stage robust optimization model is proposed to minimize the total annual cost (including an environmental penalty) of the waste-to-energy facility. On a real test case in Nova Scotia, Canada, the solution obtained from the robust model led to a 19.9% decrease in emissions compared to that of the deterministic model, albeit with an increase in cost under the current prices. Plasma arc gasification is selected as the optimal technology in the deterministic case, but pyrolysis outperforms it when the cost of hydrogen sufficiently decreases. Furthermore, hydrogen production becomes feasible only when its cost decreases by 36% or the system energy operation costs are reduced by 90%.
• 
  04:45 PM - 05:10 PM

  Forest-based biomass supply chain planning considering supply chain risks and governmental policies

  • Kimiya Rahmani Mokarrari, presenter, Department of Wood Science, University of British Columbia
  • Taraneh Sowlati, Department of Wood Science, University of British Columbia

  Harvesting residues are typically piled at the roadside and burned to reduce the risk of wildfires in Canada. However, this practice harms the environment and local people while eliminating potential economic and social benefits that can be obtained by utilizing these residues. An alternative approach is to utilize these materials as biomass for production of bioproducts. The viability of using forest biomass depends on efficient management and planning of all stages of its supply chain, while taking the existing risks, and governmental policies and incentives into account. Therefore, in this study, a mathematical programming model is proposed to optimize the forest biomass to bioproducts supply chain, considering the impact of governmental policies and incentives as well as the potential risks such as disruptions and market fluctuations. The model will be applied to a real case study to compare and evaluate difference scenarios in order to facilitate reliable decision-making.