Application of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Tools for Assessing Biogas Plants: A Case Study in Reykjavik, Iceland

Abstract

The European Union is planning a new program to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. In this context, the Icelandic government plans to ban new registrations of fossil fuel cars after 2030 as one of the strategies to make Iceland a carbon-neutral country by 2040. Upgraded biogas can be directly used in vehicles with CNG engines, reducing CO2 emissions by 80%. In this paper, several alternatives of biogas plants, simulated in previous research, were evaluated by considering techno-economic and environmental criteria through the application of multi-criteria decision-making tools. Twelve alternatives were analyzed using the Definite 3.1 software. A weighted summation algorithm, which transforms all criteria into the same scale by multiplying them by weights and then summing them to obtain the results, was used in the analysis. The multi-criteria analysis of the twelve proposed alternatives included eleven criteria (three technical, five economic, and three environmental) whose weights were changed in a total of eleven scenarios. From a global perspective, when all criteria were considered (9.1% weight) the best alternative with a score of 0.58 was the single-stage biogas plant working with municipal solid waste. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses also demonstrated that the multi-criteria results obtained were robust and reliable.

The Importance of International Collaboration to Enhance Education for Environmental Citizenship

“…Being a member of the European Economic Area, the Nordic community, the Arctic Circle, and having close ties to North America, Iceland has a long history of intense exchange with both, Europe and North America. With the high potential of renewable energy sources (water resources for hydropower production [10], geothermal sources for thermal energy [11], and optimal wind conditions for wind-farms), Iceland can also export expertise and knowhow on renewable energy production as well as side products such as power-to-X [12,13], added value form residual streams and sustainable management of fish resources [14].…”

Water and Circular Cities

“…Additionally, to evaluate the level of circularity of resources' management in cities, appropriate indicators are proposed by the COST Action and presented in this Special Issue [7]. Other papers included in the Special Issue focus on several aspects of using NBS for creating circular economies in cities, i.e., green roofs and vertical greenery systems [8,9]; production of food in cities [10,11], vacuum toilets generating blackwater [12] as well as biogas plants [13].…”

“…We thank all authors for contributing to the Special Issue and thus making it a success. Last but not least, we thank COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology; www.cost.eu (accessed on 2 December 2021)) for funding the APC of seven papers [6][7][8][9][10]12,13].…”