Biorefinery site selection using a stepwise biogeophysical and social analysis approach

Abstract

A key factor in the production of economically viable and environmentally sustainable biofuels is biorefinery site selection. Facility location analysis has traditionally been driven by access to feedstock, proximity to customers, and local incentives. While economic constraints will always be major factors in site selection, incorporating social metrics may further reduce the cost of constructing a biorefinery. A community's disposition toward a biorefinery project may significantly impact implementation success: grassroots support can lower implementation costs while opposition may increase the costs of permitting blockages and other scale-up delays. The proposed biorefinery siting tool improves upon previous research by incorporating site-specific biogeophysical measures and more complete and comprehensive social measures of community innovation and capacity for collective action. A refined biogeophysical analysis assesses pulp mills for their potential as repurposed biorefineries. The social asset components of site selection are greatly improved by enhancing and disaggregating key metrics through the use of multiple indicators of community collective action capacity and propensity for change. The refined measures are integrated into a biorefinery site-selection tool. Pulp mills that rank highly in both the biogeophysical and social asset measures may be considered more suitable candidates for repurpose into a biorefinery. This enriched methodology has been applied to biorefinery siting decisions in the U.S. Pacific Northwest region; however, it is suitable for applications to infrastructure development projects in any region of the U.S.

Incorporating Social System Dynamics in the Columbia River Basin: Food-Energy-Water Resilience and Sustainability Modeling in the Yakima River Basin

“…While livelihoods and well-being are often conceptualized as outcomes of the FEW nexus, CCF explicitly frames capitals as both drivers and outcomes. For example, Schirmer et al (2015) operationalize the capitals and interpret the capitals as determinants of human well-being, while Rijkhoff et al (2017) and Martinkus et al (2017) utilize the CCF to inform decisions about site selection for bio-fuel development. Donoghue and Sturtevant (2007) describe how various projects have used community capitals indicators to estimate community capacity and resilience in towns and cities of the western United States (for related work see Haynes et al, 1996;Harris et al, 2000).…”

A Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis Approach to Facility Siting in a Wood-Based Depot-and-Biorefinery Supply Chain Model

“…The decision matrix presented here (Table 1) is based on work by Martinkus et al (2017b). The decision matrix defines facility siting criteria, weights, and scale values.…”

“…Capital construction cost savings may be found through repurposing existing facilities into a biorefinery when the infrastructure and equipment are compatible with the biorefinery design (Martinkus and Wolcott, 2017). Additionally, operational cost savings may be gained through the selective siting of depots and biorefineries based on location-specific costs such as energy rates and delivered feedstock cost (Martinkus et al, 2017b). Prioritizing capital and operational cost savings during site selection can enable biorefineries and depots to be constructed with reduced financial risk.…”

“…Production pathway scores were developed by multiplying criterion scaled values by their respective criterion weight. Martinkus et al (2017b) built on this approach by using economic and social metrics in a facility siting decision support tool (DST) to assess existing industrial facilities for their potential role as a repurposed biorefinery. Operational cost components that vary geospatially (such as feedstock cost or energy rates) were selected as the economic siting criteria.…”

Decision support systems for assessment of biorefinery transformation strategies

“…They can also reflect the practical aspects of decision making but use different tools at each step. Examples of the area of application include conventional fuel substitution by liquid biofuel, sustainability of biofuel production options, biorefinery technology identification, site selection, and performance assessment …”