Integrated and sustainable forest biomass supply chain planning

在加拿大，人们对利用森林生物量生产生物能源的兴趣日益浓厚。森林生物质是一种可再生的清洁能源。将其用于能源生产可以减少对化石燃料的依赖及其对环境的负面影响，创造就业机会，并为社区提供可持续的国内能源。此外，利用森林生物量的好处是为加拿大的森林工业提供了新的收入来源，尽管它对我们的经济产生了重大影响，但在过去二十年中一直面临着许多挑战。加拿大，特别是不列颠哥伦比亚省拥有大量的森林生物量。最近在不列颠哥伦比亚省内陆的森林中，山松甲虫的侵扰导致了累计7.23亿立方米的枯木。为使森林工业保持竞争力，提出的一项解决办法是利用大量可利用的森林生物量生产生物能源和生物产品。生物能源/生物产品项目的可行性取决于能否以具有竞争力的成本和理想的质量长期提供森林生物量。森林生物量供应的数量和质量（水分含量和热值）随时间变化。它的运输成本很高，供应链也很复杂。考虑和优化整个森林生物质供应链的数学模型有助于确保以低成本持续交付所需的原料。一些研究模拟和优化了森林生物质供应链对生物能源生产的经济效益。除了经济效益外，为了实现可持续发展，在供应链模式中还必须考虑社会和环境目标。另一个关键方面是确保多目标模型的长期决策在操作层面上是可以实现的。文献综述揭示了研究人员在可持续发展模型中使用确定性数学规划方法来优化供应链、随机规划和模拟来纳入不确定性、多目标优化来考虑经济效益之外的社会和环境目标的关键尝试。当生物质在优化模型中通过供应链移动时，将生物质质量的变化纳入其中是一项挑战。此外，在解决实际情况下的优化模型时存在计算复杂性，因为它们通常是非常大的问题。迄今为止，还没有关于考虑供应链中可持续性因素（经济、社会和环境影响）以及不确定性（特别是与森林生物质质量有关的不确定性）的森林生物质供应链建模和优化设计和管理的已发表工作。此外，目前还没有综合研究来确保通过优化模型对森林生物质供应链的规定设计在操作层面上是可行的和可实现的。由于参数的可变性和不确定性，战略或战术模型规定的决策在操作层面可能不可行或无法实现。因此，关注森林生物质供应链，开发一体化、可持续的优化模型是十分必要的。拟议的提案将解决这一差距和具有挑战性的问题。该研究的目标是：1)考虑参数和可持续性因素的不确定性，优化可在操作层面实现的森林生物质供应链设计（这将通过开发新的综合模拟和优化模型来完成）；2)求解综合模型；3)将其应用于加拿大的实际案例场景。

There is a growing interest in using forest biomass to generate bioenergy in Canada. Forest biomass is a renewable and clean source of energy. Its utilization for energy production reduces dependency on fossil fuels and their negative environmental impacts, creates jobs and provides sustainable and domestic energy for communities. Moreover, utilizing forest biomass has the benefit of providing a new revenue stream for the forest industry in Canada, which despite its significant impact on our economy has been facing many challenges during the past two decades. Canada and especially British Columbia have large amount of forest biomass. The recent infestation of mountain pine beetle within the forests of interior BC has resulted in a cumulative total of 723 million cubic meters of dead wood. One proposed solution for the forest industry to remain competitive is to utilize the large amount of available forest biomass to produce bioenergy and bioproducts. The feasibility of bioenergy/ bioproducts projects depends on the long-term availability of forest biomass at a competitive cost and desired quality. There is variability in the amount and quality (moisture content and heating value) of forest biomass supply over time. Its transportation is costly and it has a complex supply chain. Mathematical models that consider and optimize the entire forest biomass supply chain are helpful to ensure consistent delivery of desired feedstock is possible at a low cost. A few studies have modeled and optimized the economic benefits of forest biomass supply chain for bioenergy production. In addition to economic benefits, social and environmental objectives have to be considered in the supply chain models in order to have sustainable development. Another key aspect is to make sure that the long-term decisions from multi-objective models are attainable at the operational level. The review of literature reveals the key attempts by researchers to use deterministic mathematical programming approaches to optimize the supply chains, stochastic programming and simulation to incorporate uncertainties, and multi-objective optimization to consider social and environmental objectives in addition to economic benefits in the models for sustainable development. It is a challenge to incorporate variations in biomass quality as biomass moves through the supply chain in optimization models. In addition, there are computational complexities associated with solving optimization models for real case scenarios as they are usually very large sized problems. To date, there is no published work on modeling and optimizing the design and management of forest biomass supply chains considering sustainability factors (economic, social and environmental impacts) as well as uncertainties, especially those related to the quality of forest biomass, in the supply chains. Moreover, there is no integrated study to ensure that the prescribed design of forest biomass supply chains by optimization models is practical and attainable at the operational level. Due to variability and uncertainty in parameters, decisions prescribed by strategic or tactical models may not be feasible or achievable at the operational level. Therefore, it is timely to focus on forest biomass supply chain and develop integrated and sustainable optimization models. The proposed proposal will address this gap and challenging problem. The objectives of the proposed research are 1) to optimize the design of forest biomass supply chains that are achievable at the operational level considering uncertainties in the parameters and sustainability factors (this will be done by developing new integrated simulation and optimization models), 2) solve the integrated models, and 3) apply them to real case scenarios in Canada.