SUSTAINABLE USE OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES: OPTIMIZATION OF LOGISTICS OPERATIONS - Energy Research Developments: Tidal Energy, Energy Efficiency and Solar Energy - page 282

of biomasses and solid wastes. The chapter is divided in two main sections: energy
production from renewable resources, and material and energy recovery from solid urban
waste. The first one is focused on forest biomass exploitation and includes a detailed
mathematical description of the formalized decision model and its solution applied to a real
case study (Savona, Italy). The formalized model is the generalization (resulted from new
research activity and modelling efforts, with new results) of a model developed by the same
authors (Freppaz et al., 2004). Attention is paid to the forest ecosystem, to the necessity of
preserving satisfying hydrogeological conditions, and to social and economical issues. The
second one regards a more qualitative discussion about the role of Decision Support Systems
(mainly based on the DSS we have been developing, and, partly, a review of two previous
works (Fiorucci et al., 2003; Costi et al. 2004)) for solid waste management in urban areas. In
this case, the structure of DSSs able to help decision makers of a municipality in the
development of incineration, disposal, treatment and recycling integrated programs, taking
into account all possible economic costs, technical, normative, and environmental issues, is
described. Future developments of the presented DSSs certainly regard the quantification of
probabilistic and uncertainty aspects, and the application of multi-objective procedures and
systematic sensitivity analysis. Then, regarding forest biomass exploitation, the issues that
need a deeper study, with respect to the present state of the DSS implementation, are: a
detailed study about biomass growth and productivity as a function of trees age; a deeper
analysis of CO 2 adsorption, the optimization model regarding the logistic of biomass
collection and transporting, the location of the “wood collection points”, the wood inventory
management, the management of energy and material flows when drying plants are used
before combustion, the possibility to use short rotation techniques, and the evaluation of the
material flows, produced emissions and costs in connection with the use of different types of
plants (combustion, pyrolisis, gasification). Instead, as regards the decision model for solid
waste management, possible improvements are mainly relevant to the evaluation of the
emissions into atmosphere. Finally, dynamic features related to waste generation, logistics
aspects, and impacts from landfill should be conveniently modelled..
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