Lauven L., Liu B., Geldermann J., 2013, Investigation of the Influence of Plant Capacity on the Economic and Ecological Performance of Cassava-based Bioethanol, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 35, 595-600.
In this work, economically optimal capacities for cassava-to-ethanol plants are determined by using a nonlinear optimization approach. Both economies of scale and required transportation distances are approximated with appropriate functions to identify optimal capacities with regard to the required investment, input and output prices and the available amount of cassava in proximity of the envisioned plant. Usage of high cassava yields on agricultural soils is expected to result in significantly higher returns on investment (ROI), but the use of such soils may endanger food production. The use of marginal lands does not have this side-effect to the same extend, but is associated with higher transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions due to longer expected transportation distances. Therefore, in addition to identifying optimal production capacities for a number of scenarios, the investigation also aims at quantifying the effect of cassava cultivation on marginal lands in regard of the economic and ecological performance of cassava-based ethanol production.
