The LP Model to Optimize the Biofuel Supply Chain

The heavy dependence of the EU countries from the imported oil, a growing economic vulnerability caused by wider and almost unforeseeable price changes of the crude oil commodity, the global warming are some of the reasons that have induced the policy makers to incentive the production of domestic biofuels derived from agricultural biomasses. This paper analyzes the supply chain model of biofuel production by focussing the economic and environment potential benefits that production and use of these biofuels might have for the primary sector and the society. The suggestions are that biofuels can be a promising renewable sources of energy; the positive perceived advantages are: less dependence on turbulent exporting countries, higher security from diversified domestic sources of energy, some environmental benefits derived from the capture of GHG emission. This paper is structured as follows: paragraphs 1 and 2 describe the scenario and the theoretical background; paragraphs 3 and 4 illustrates the problem specification and the algebraic formulation of the LP model addressed to test the sustainability of the supply chain named Biorefinery under the three assumptions hypothesized at the beginning, paragraph 5 reports some of the experimental results with comments and paragraphs 6 describes the main conclusions. This model of cogeneration is more efficient in terms of energy compared to other biofuel chains, and is more socially acceptable because fuel and food productions are complementary each others. The partial energy balance of the fuel and biogas are positive while the livestock energy balance is heavily energy consuming, the total energy balance is neutral.