An investigation of the environmental sustainability of palm biomass supply chains via dynamic simulation modeling: A case of Malaysia

Abstract

With the ever-increasing need for clean and accessible energy sources, biomass has long been considered as a potential prospect. Malaysia is one of the leading suppliers and has the largest palm oil plantation in the world. Therefore, biomass from the palm oil industry appears to be a very promising alternative source of raw materials, including for renewable energy, in Malaysia.However, ensuring the environmental sustainability of the biomass supply chain (BSC) is one of the major challenges faced by the biomass industry. Therefore, this paper aims to assess the effect of changing the efficiency of transportation technology (TT) and production technology (PT) on the environmental sustainability of the palm oil BSC. We developed a dynamic simulation model to explore the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for 50 years (2000-2050) for three palm biomass suppliers (Johor, Perak and Pahang) in Malaysia. Results show that supplier in Perak produced the highest rate of GHG emissions in the whole system. Also, suppliers in Johor and Perak had the highest GHG emissions with 180-240 million tonnes (mt) CO 2 equivalent (CO 2 e) and 375-400 mt CO 2 e, respectively, from transportation of empty fruit bunches (EFB) product. In terms of production, the supplier in Perak had the highest (and constant value) of GHG emissions (up to 160 mt CO 2 e). The analysis shows that the supplier in Pahang generated the lowest level of GHG emissions. Our findings suggest that improvement of the transportation and production efficiency of BSC should be the priority to work towards the sustainable development of the palm biomass industry.

Dynamic Optimized Cleaner Production Strategies to Improve Water Environment and Economic Development in Leather Industrial Parks: A Case Study in Xinji, China

“…This study has contributed to the existing literature by presenting three viewpoints that comply with the demands reported in recent studies [29][30][31]. We presented a comprehensive measurement tool to evaluate the cleaner production capacity within the Xinji leather industrial park.…”

“…The goals of dynamic optimization in terms of leather industrial parks were to maximize economic development, minimize environmental pollution, and minimize investment. The multi-objective optimization programming method was able to solve problems associated with the optimization of numerous contradictory and incommensurable objective functions [23,25,31,32]. Therefore, by establishing a multi-objective programming model and solving it, we can obtain a set of optimal solutions that will provide policy-making decision support based on our simulation results.…”

An Insight into a Sustainable Removal of Bisphenol A from Aqueous Solution by Novel Palm Kernel Shell Magnetically Induced Biochar: Synthesis, Characterization, Kinetic, and Thermodynamic Studies

“…The PKS biochar was obtained from AMR Environmental Sdn Bhd, located at Johor, Bahru, Malaysia. and environmental nuisance [55].…”

“…Besides, the specific characteristics of PKS-BC (palm kernel shell biochar), particularly its porous structure, enhancement of functional groups, its huge specific surface area, and improved mineral component, make it suitable for use as adsorbent material [42]. Despite this huge potential, PKS is considered as biomass waste, generating superfluous waste of resources and environmental nuisance [55].…”

A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Incentive Effects for Agribiomass Power Generation Supply Chain in China

“…As rich and sustainable renewable transportation energy, agribiomass has gained wide attention in the recent past due to its advantages. Because of its abundant yield and that it can be used to generate heat, electricity, biofuels, biogas, or a combination of them, agribiomass has been considered as a promising alternative to fossil fuels [1,2]. Reports and researches have shown that the heating value of a ton of agribiomass is equivalent to the heating value of 0.5 tons standard coal, but the average sulfur content is only 0.38%, compared with coal with a sulfur content of about 1%, which has good economic, environmental, and social benefits [3,4].…”