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280 Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future

blending characteristics and their compatibility with the current infrastructure
of fossil fuels (Eisentraut et al., 2011; European Biofuels Technology Plat-
form (EBTP), n.d.). In BSC design, the compatibility of biofuel to existing
infrastructure needs to be considered and investigated.

3 Multiple decision levels in BSC modeling

BSC design involves a large number of decisions related to biomass pro-
duction, biomass conversion, and biofuel production and distributions
to end-use customers. Depending on the complexity, scales (e.g., different
geographic and temporal scales), objectives (e.g., maximize economic
benefits), different decisions need to be made during BSC design. Based
on decision timeframe and complexity, those decisions can be categorized
into strategic, tactical, and operational decisions.

3.1 Strategic decisions
Strategic decisions commonly refer to long-term decisions that are hard to
be changed or modified in a short period (e.g., supply chain network design,
locations of biorefineries, the number of preprocessing plants) (Yue et al.,
2014). Generally, strategic decisions in BSC design include the following
aspects:
• Resource utilization and allocation. Selecting suitable types of biomass and
allocating the resources to meet the demand of biorefineries are critical
to design robust and cost-effective BSC (Sharma et al., 2013). Those deci-
sions commonly involve selecting biomass types (Avami, 2013), allocating
biomass resources (Akgul et al., 2012a), and selecting biomass supply sites
(Lin et al., 2012; Palak et al., 2014). Those decisions are typically made
based on factors related to biomass prices, biomass availability, and feed-
stock quality.
• Supply chain network design. Transporting low energy density biomass
across large areas can be expensive and time-consuming, making the
transportation network design crucial to overall effectiveness of BSC
(Yue and You, 2016). For transportation network design, decisions need
to be made on selecting biomass suppliers, locations, capacities of each
operational facility (e.g., preprocessing plants and biorefineries), trans-
portation modes, and related distribution channels. The design of a
transportation network always needs to be tailored to regional contexts
given the large variation in infrastructures (e.g., road routes) and vehicles
(e.g., load limits).