1. INFORMS 2012, Phoenix AZ
Colin Murphy, Nathan Parker

2.  Air pollution compliance costs often cited as an
obstacle in construction or operation of
biorefineries.
 Costs of compliance with air pollution regulation
are added to the Geospatial Bioenergy Systems
Model (GBSM).
 Parker, N., Tittmann, P., Hart, Q., Nelson, R.,
Skog, K., Schmidt, A., Gray, E., et al. (2010).
Development of a biorefinery optimized biofuel
supply curve for the Western United States.
Biomass and Bioenergy, 34(11),

4.  Existing work has focused on
technoeconomic assessments, resource
assessments and spatial modeling.
 Spatially explicit models developing steadily
 Concern over sustainability, need for further
study
 High computational burdens
 How to integrate environmental concerns
with cost-based modeling?

5. Previous GBSM Work
Engineering/Economic
Models of Biorefineries
Spatially Explicit
Resource Assessment
Supply Chain
Optimization Model
GIS-based
Transportation
Cost Model
Air Pollution Cost Data
Nonattainment Zone
Maps

6.  Forest Resources
 Unused mill residue
 Slash and thinnings
 Pulpwood
 MSW – 50-75% of organic fraction
 Energy Crops – Non-Irrigated Switchgrass
 Agriculture residue – Corn Stover

7.  Biochemical Lignocellulosic Ethanol
NREL 2011 Process Design (Humbird et al, 2011)
 Fischer-Tropsch Diesel
Swanson et al. (2010)
 FAME Biodiesel
Haas et al. (2006)
 Corn Ethanol
Parker et al. (2010) based on ANTARES 2009
model.

9.  Dominant regulation is Clean Air Act, which sets
standards for maximum allowed air pollution levels
and requires state/local compliance.
 Areas exceeding maximum are in “non-attainment”
 Main pollutants of interest:
 PM2.5 – Combustion byproduct, responsible for cancer,
heart disease, lung disease
 Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) – Ground-level Ozone precursor

10. Ozone Nonattainment Areas Areas
PM 2.5 Non-Attainment

11.  PM Control
Dry
Electrostatic
Precipitator
 NOx Control
Selective
Catalytic
Reduction
 Includes 60%
Indirect costs.
All values in 000’s of 2002 US Dollars.

12.  Air pollution control costs added to fixed and
capacity dependent costs (ai and bi
respectively), if the facility is sited in a
relevant nonattainment area.

14.  Corn ethanol limited to 15 Billion gal/yr (RFS2
Max)
 Switchgrass is planted on 50% of both
cropland idle and cropland pasture acres
 Forest from federal lands is not allowed
 Fuel demand constraint requires each
terminal receive its fair share of each biofuel.
 Blend wall raised to 15%

19.  Small reduction in production
volume & system profit.
 Bio-refineries in non-attainment
areas reduce capacity slightly, those
outside increase slightly.
 In one instance (Phoenix, AZ) a new
bio-refinery opens outside of a
nonattainment area, where none was
under baseline conditions.

20.  Air pollution control costs appear to have a
relatively small effect on net biofuel system
production, price and spatial distribution.
0.3% Reduction in total volume produced at $3.10
ethanol selling price.
 MSW is the most affected feedstock.
 Monetizeable environmental considerations
can be incorporated into profit-maximizing
optimization modeling

21.  AHB-PNW Study of biofuel production from
hybrid poplar in OR, WA, ID, CA
 Add agent choice at feedstock producer and
biorefinery operation level
BCAM feedstock modeling
 Generate nationwide spatial air pollutant
emissions inventory

22. cwmurphy@ucdavis.edu
ncparker@ucdavis.edu

24. No federal lands
All lands

29.  50% of paper currently landfilled can be separated
for fuel production
 75% of wood currently landfilled can be separated
for fuel production
 75% of yard wastes currently landfilled can be
separated
 50% of food wastes currently landfilled can be
transitioned to a source separated collection
method
 75% of the remainder of of the organic fraction of
MSW (including plastic, etc) can be used for fuel
production
 Only biogenic fraction is reported in the results

30.  Only consider non-irrigated switchgrass
 Yields from ORNL study
 We use upland yields
 The study predicts the 95 percentile of
switchgrass yields based on field trials.
 Land base assigned based on NASS statistics
 Cropland (Idle) – 25% or 50%
 Cropland (Pasture) – 25% or 50%
 Pastureland – 0% or 5%

32. Projected yields Projected yields*land area