Page 360 - Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future

CHAPTER 11

Fuzzy multicriteria decision

making on ranking the biofuels

production pathways

Yue Liu, Ruojue Lin, Jingzheng Ren
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,
Hong Kong SAR, China

Contents
1 Introduction 317
2 Fuzzy multicriteria decision making method 319
2.1 Fuzzy concept 320
2.2 Fuzzy multicriteria decision making 322
3 Case study 326
4 Discussion 330
5 Conclusion 333
Acknowledgments 333
References 333
Further reading 335

1 Introduction

The development of renewable energy sources (biofuels including biogas,
bioethanol, and biodiesel) has been recognized as a promising way for emis-
sions reduction and substituting the fossil fuels (Ren et al., 2014). There are
various kinds of biomass resources such as soybean, rapeseed, jatropha seeds,
palm fruit, and sunflower seeds which can be used for biofuel production,
and different pathways for biofuel production perform different in eco-
nomic, environmental, and social aspects (Liang et al., 2016).
Previous studies have shown that biofuels have significant advantages in
economy, environment, and society when compared with fossil fuels. Hill
et al. (2006) analyzed the economic competiveness and net social benefits of
a biofuel and pointed out that with proper policy support and large subsidies
biofuel production could be profitable. Phalan (2009) agreed with the opin-
ion that biofuels could provide economic benefits, decrease emissions, and

Biofuels for a More Sustainable Future © 2020 Elsevier Inc.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-815581-3.00011-7 All rights reserved. 317