Theses and Dissertations

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2264-6446

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Gude, Veera Gnaneswar

Committee Member

Marufuzzaman, Mohammad

Committee Member

Cho, Heejin

Committee Member

Magbanua, Benjamin

Committee Member

Truax, Dennis

Date of Degree

5-11-2022

Document Type

Dissertation - Campus Access Only

Major

Civil Engineering

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D)

College

James Worth Bagley College of Engineering

Department

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Abstract

Dependence on fossil fuels in the electric sector is one of the major contributors towards Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The increase in renewable contribution has been observed in recent years but there is still potential to utilize wood waste in rural communities for electricity generation promoting energy independence and sustainable development. For this study, a life cycle assessment approach was utilized to estimate the emissions of electricity produced from wood residue in a rural community. Therefore, the process from planting to supply for bioenergy facility to generate electricity are included. The results showed a decrease of 92-96 % in global warming potential resulting from the use of wood residues as compared to that of Grid electricity, natural gas, and coal-fired power plants. Then, a two-layer supply chain network comprising of feedstock supply sites and candidate power plant locations are considered to determine ideal locations for facilitating the bioenergy facility to minimize overall system cost and GHG emissions. The multi objective mathematical model aims to handle various decisions such as power plant location and technology selection, allocation of suppliers to power plants, biomass harvesting, storage, and transportation decisions in the considered supply chain network. The model developed was applied to case study region of Grenada County, Mississippi. The solution with no GHG restriction facilitates higher power plant capacity, 25 MW with lower system cost and satisfies 32.11 % of the total electricity demand of the case study area. Whereas the solution with highest GHG restrictions reduces the power plant capacity to 10 MW, that satisfies 10.22 % of the total electricity demand with increase in total overall system due to the increase in purchase of electricity from external sources as penalty cost. Furthermore, the investigation was extended to multiple counties of Mississippi to determine the feasibility of bioenergy facilities to be located using wood waste as fuel source. The techno-enviro-economic assessment showed the competitiveness of LCOE with the existing electricity supplier as well as other renewable sources such as solar, and wind. The findings of this research can facilitate in decision making process for promoting renewable energy in existing energy supply sources.

Download

Share

COinS