Design of automotive bioethanol supply chain using mixed integer programming

The purpose of this research is to design an optimum automotive bioethanol supply chain in Japan. In this research, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model provides the optimal design of bioethanol supply chain with the objective of minimizing the cost of supply chain. Furthermore, the model can optimize biomass species, cultivation and traffic volume of biomass, locations and scales of the bioethanol production plants and traffic volume of bioethanol. The transportation cost of feedstock and bioethanol are optimized using Geographic Information System (GIS). Optimized supply chain is evaluated bioethanol production cost, energy profit ratio (EPR) and CO₂ reduction. Tohoku area was selected as a case study. The bioethanol production cost, which uses first generation bioethanol plant is 203 JPY/L, where first and second generation bioethanol plants are installed is 168 JPY/1, where first and second generation bioethanol plants are installed and technological development was considered is 92 JPY/L. EPR of each case are 1.66, 2.49 and 3.40, and CO2 reduction are 277 kt-C, 288 kt-C and 305 kt-C, respectively. It is necessary to decrease cultivation cost of energy crops and increase bulk density of crop residue to reduce the bioethanol production cost, increase EPR and CO2 reduction.