Abstract
I reviewed literature on biomass modeling (Chapter 1) and evaluated production rates and costs for a continuous monoline system removing slash from Pre-Commercially Thinned stands on the UI Experimental Forest (Chapter 2). Optimal line spacing was 34m and treatment costs were $1290.90 per acre on a Scheduled Machine Hour basis. In Chapter 3, I describe development of the Forest Residue Economic Assessment Model (FREAM). FREAM links GIS and dynamic modeling of bioenergy supply chains. A factorial modeling experiment with 20 cities as replicates was conducted. 3 feedstock use scenarios were simulated: local, catalytic pyrolytic production of gasoline (181,437 Mg yr-1); regional, biochemical production of bio-jet (725,748 Mg yr-1); and pellet production for international markets (272,155 Mg yr-1). Pellets cost the least ($10.51 GJ-1), followed by gasoline ($22.33 GJ-1) and bio-jet ($35.83 GJ-1). Total costs and capital costs differed for all pairwise scenario comparisons (p < 0.0001). Transportation costs differed between all three scenarios (p < 0.0001).