System of Systems Model for Analysis of Biofuel Development
Publication: Journal of Infrastructure Systems
Volume 21, Issue 3
Abstract
This paper presents a system of systems (SoS) Biofuel model considering the interdependency among the systems involved in biofuel development, including biofuel refinery location, transportation infrastructure, agricultural production and markets, environment, and social communities. The model provides the optimal infrastructure development and land-use allocation for biofuel production in a region considering socio-economic and water quality and quantity effects. The optimal development plan quantifies economic and hydrologic outputs and specifies biofuel refinery locations and capacities, refinery operations, land allocation between biofuel and food crops, optimal shipments of products and feedstock, and transportation infrastructure. The model is formulated as a mixed integer linear program (MILP) and is solved by an algorithm developed specifically to cope with the large size of the optimization problem. In addition to the development of the SoS-Biofuel model, this paper demonstrates the functionality of the model and its ability to analyze the effects of interdependency among subsystems by applying it to a watershed in Illinois. The SoS-Biofuel model is used to investigate the effects of different biofuel polices on infrastructure needs and related environmental consequences, highlighting the interdependencies inherent in the optimal development of the entire system.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This work is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) (U.S. NSF grant EFRI-083598 led by XM Cai). The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments to the early version of this paper.
References
ArcGIS version 10.1 [Computer software], Redlands, CA, Esri.
Bai, Y., Hwang, T., Kang, S., and Ouyang, Y. (2011). “Biofuel refinery location and supply chain planning under traffic congestion.” Transp. Res. Part B, 45(1), 162–175.
Boulos, P. F., Lansey, K. E., and Karney, B. W. (2006). Comprehensive water distribution systems analysis handbook for engineers and planners, MWH Soft.
Chen, X., Huang, H., Khanna, M., and Önal, H. (2011). “Meeting the mandate for biofuels: Implications for land use and food and fuel prices.” NBER Working Paper No. 16697, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, MA.
Chen, X., and Önal, H. (2012a). “An economic analysis of the future U.S. biofuel industry, facility location, and supply chain network.” 〈http://ssrn.com/abstract=2084313〉 (Sep. 20, 2014).
Chen, X., and Önal, H. (2012b). “Modeling agricultural supply response using mathematical programming and crop mixes.” Am. J. Agric. Econ., 94(3), 674–686.
David, M. B., Wall, L. G., Royer, T. V., and Tank, J. L. (2006). “Denitrification and the nitrogen budget of a reservoir in an agricultural landscape.” Ecol. Appl., 16(6), 2177–2190.
Davis, G. A., and Sanderson, K. (2002). “Building our way out of congestion? Highway capacity in the twin cities.”, Minnesota Dept. of Transportation, MN.
Eksioglu, S., Li, S., Zhang, S., Sokhansanj, S., and Petrolia, D. (2010). “Analyzing impact of intermodal facilities on design and management of biofuel supply chain.”, Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, 144–151.
Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA). (2007). Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, 〈http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hr6〉 (Sep. 20, 2014).
Energy Information Administration (EIA). (2010). Annual energy outlook 2010 with projections to 2030, Washington, DC.
Foulds, L. R. (1976). Critical link identification in a network, Massey Univ., Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Hajibabai, L., and Ouyang, Y. (2013). “Integrated planning of supply chain networks and multimodal transportation infrastructure expansion: Model development and application to the biofuel industry.” Comput. Aided Civ. Infrastruct. Eng., 28(4), 247–259.
Heller, M. (2001). “Interdependencies in civil infrastructure systems.” Bridge, 31(4), 9–15.
Huang, Y., Chen, C. W., and Fan, Y. (2010). “Multistage optimization of the supply chains of biofuels.” Transp. Res. Part E, 46(6), 820–830.
Kang, S., Önal, H., Ouyang, Y., Scheffran, J., and Tursun, D. (2010). “Optimizing the biofuels infrastructure: Transportation networks and biorefinery locations in Illinois.” Handbook of bioenergy economics and policy, series: Natural resource management and policy, Vol. 33, M. Khanna, et al., eds., Springer, New York.
LeBlanc, L. J. (1979). “Global solutions for a nonconvex, nonconcave rail network model.” Manage. Sci., 23(2), 131–139.
Magis, K. (2008). “Community resilience measurement protocol: A system to measure the resilience of forest-based communities.” National Rep. on Sustainable Forests, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, DC.
Mahmudi, H., and Flynn, P. C. (2006). “Rail vs truck transport of biomass.” Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol., 129(1–3), 88–103.
McIsaac, G. F., David, M. B., and Mitchell, C. A. (2010). “Miscanthus and switchgrass production in central Illinois: Impacts on hydrology and inorganic nitrogen leaching.” J. Environ. Qual., 39(5), 1790–1799.
Ng, T. L., Cai, X., and Ouyang, Y. (2011). “Some implications of biofuel development for engineering infrastructures in the United States.” Biofuels, Bioprod. Biorefin., 5(5), 581–592.
Ng, T. L., Eheart, J. W., Cai, X., and Miguez, F. (2010). “Modeling Miscanthus in the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) to simulate its water quality effects as a bioenergy crop.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 44(18), 7138–7144.
Richard, T. L. (2010). “Challenges in scaling up biofuels infrastructure.” Science, 329(5993), 793–796.
Roess, R. G., McShane, W. R., and Prassas, E. S. (1998). Traffic engineering, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Searcy, E., Flynn, P., Ghafoori, E., and Kumar, A. (2007). “The relative cost of biomass energy transport.” Appl. Biochem. Biotechnol., 137–140 (1–12), 639–652.
Smith, C. M., et al. (2013). “Reduced nitrogen losses following conversion of row crop agriculture to perennial biofuel crops.” J. Environ. Qual., 42(1), 219–228.
Tishler, A., and Zang, I. (1982). “An absolute deviations curve fitting algorithm for nonlinear models.” Optimization in statistics: TIMS studies in management science, Vol. 19, S. H. Zanakis and J. S. Rustagi, eds., North Holland, Oxford, NY.
Tittmann, P. W., Parker, N. C., Hart, Q. J., and Jenkins, B. M. (2010). “A spatially explicit techno-economic model of bioenergy and biofuels production in California.” J. Transp. Geog., 18(6), 715–728.
Unnikrishnan, A., Valsaraj, V., and Damnjanovic, I. (2009). “Design and management strategies for mixed public private transportation networks: A meta-heuristic approach.” Comput. Aided Civ. Infrastruct. Eng., 24(4), 266–279.
Wright, M., and Brown, R. (2007). “Establishing the optimal sizes of different kinds of biorefineries.” Biofuel, Bioprod. Bioprocess., 1(3), 191–200.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 11, 2013
Accepted: Sep 5, 2014
Published online: Oct 27, 2014
Discussion open until: Mar 27, 2015
Published in print: Sep 1, 2015
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.