2023 article
Minimizing the Costs of Biorefinery Feedstock by Managing Perennial Crop Age: The Case of Brazilian Sugarcane
Tregeagle, D., & Zilberman, D. (2023, June 28). JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS.
author keywords: biofuel; perennial crop; cost minimization; non-convex optimization
open access via www.cambridge.org (publisher PDF)
UN Sustainable Development Goal Categories
7. Affordable and Clean Energy
(Web of Science)
13. Climate Action
(Web of Science)
Source: Web Of Science
Added: July 10, 2023
AbstractWe develop and analyze an unexplored mechanism to reduce biorefinery supply chain costs when the feedstock is a perennial crop: adjusting the age structure, and hence yield, of the perennial feedstock. The non-monotonicity of the age-yield function introduces a non-convexity to the cost minimization problem. We show that, despite this, the problem has a solution and present analytic and numeric comparative statics, finding that larger refineries are most likely to benefit from optimizing age structure. The model is calibrated to the sugarcane industry in Brazil. The cost reductions from optimizing age, compared to the observed regional average age, are less than 1%.