Design of biofuel supply chains with variable regional depot and biorefinery locations

We propose a multi-period mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model for the design and operational planning of cellulosic biofuel supply chains. Specifically, the proposed MILP model accounts for biomass selection and allocation, technology selection and capacity planning at regional depots and biorefineries. Importantly, it considers the location of regional depots and biorefineries as continuous optimization decisions. We introduce approximation and reformulation methods for the calculation of the shipments and transportation distance in order to obtain a linear model. We illustrate the applicability of the proposed methods using two medium-scale examples with realistic data.