Placement optimization of biodiesel production plant by means of centroid mathematical method

The uncertainty about the world energy production, the lack of crude oil reserves, the environmental problems caused by a massive use of fossil fuels and their increased prices, are the main reasons inducing modern society to find alternative solutions for fuels production. According to this point of view, a great attention is addressed to the biodiesel production as substitute of diesel derived by fossil hydrocarbons. The use of biomasses from different sources for the energy production constitutes one of the main objects thanks to which European Community intends to reduce its dependence from oil importations and derived products over the medium to longer term. Several sources can be used for biodiesel production, among these Brassica carinata and Brassica napus are considered as possible dedicated energy crops. The present work is based on the implementation of a model that allows to analyze the insertion of agro-energetic farms, identifying and evaluating the crops previously mentioned, economically suitable to enter in rotation with cereals and legumes. Through the analysis of official statistical data and cereals and legumes production, an estimation of potential biodiesel production in relation with the considered territory chosen as case study. It was implemented a model based on a procedure of logistics and distribution management in Matlab and in a Gis environment in order to find the best location for a potential production plant. The model considered some collection points of crops according the administrative units of the territory of reference. Moreover, for the same territory, thanks to some simulations it was calculated how the potential biodiesel production could affect fuels consumption and the potential reduction of the amount of CO2 in the environment.