This paper presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) based multi-period and multi-objective biofuel supply chain model. The objective functions are total discounted profit
average fossil energy input per MJ biofuel and average greenhouse gases emission per MJ biofuel (economic
energy
environmental
3E). Considering seasonal factor and storage problem
a multi-period model was required. Furthermore
to investigate the expansion of the supply chain
the time span of the model was set to be 3 years. The locations of biomass feedstock
biofuel factories and markets were considered as decision variables in the model. The non-linear objective functions were transformed into linear constraints by using the ε-constraint method. After that
the model was solved as a MILP problem. A surface of the Pareto optimal solutions was obtained by linearly interpolating the non-inferior solutions. The surface revealed the tradeoff among 3E objectives. In the case study
this model was used to design an experimental biofuel supply chain for China.