Open AccessOperational modeling of a sustainable gas supply chain
Author(s) -
Bekkering Jan,
Broekhuis Ton A.,
van Gemert Wim J. T.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
engineering in life sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.547
H-Index - 57
eISSN - 1618-2863
pISSN - 1618-0240
DOI - 10.1002/elsc.201000066
Subject(s) - digestate , biogas , supply chain , environmental science , sustainability , production (economics) , greenhouse gas , biofuel , manure , anaerobic digestion , biomass (ecology) , bioenergy , environmental engineering , waste management , environmental economics , business , engineering , economics , chemistry , microeconomics , marketing , ecology , oceanography , organic chemistry , methane , geology , biology
Biogas production from codigestion of cattle manure and biomass can have a significant contribution to a sustainable gas supply when this gas is upgraded to specifications prescribed for injection into the national gas grid and injected into this grid. In this study, we analyzed such a gas supply chain in a Dutch situation. A model was developed with which the cost price per m n 3was presented as a function of scale level ( m n 3 /hr). The hypothesis that transport costs increase with increasing scale level was confirmed although this is not the main factor influencing the cost price for the considered production scales. For farm‐scale gas supply chains (approximately 150–250 m n 3 /h green gas), a significant improvement is expected from decreasing costs of digesters and upgrading installations, and efficiency improvement of digesters. In this study also practical sustainability criteria for such a supply chain were investigated. For this reason, the digestate from the digester should be used as a fertilizer. For larger scale levels, the number of transport movements and energy use in the supply chain seem to become a limiting factor with respect to sustainability.