Biorenewables Café

Our next Biorenewables Café will happen on Tuesday November 13th, from 6-8pm at at the Railway Club on 579 Dunsmuir St. The talk will begin at 6:30 pm followed by a Q&A session and networking.

The speaker for the evening will be Mahmood Ebadian, PhD candidate  in the Department of Wood Science, University of British Columbia (UBC).  Title, abstract, and Mahmood’s bio are below:

 

Challenges of commercial viability of advanced biofuel production from a supply chain perspective

Abstract

After years of R&D, planning and operating at pilot and demonstration scales, the advanced biofuel industry has now reached the Hillary Step of the scale-up Everest. Although the industry is nearing the Summit and the big breakthroughs in the biofuel conversion process are coming up, the last technical and commercial obstacle to reach the Submit is the biomass supply chain. Biomass supply chain is responsible for a secure and steady delivery of right quantities of biomass to the biofuel production system at the right time, low-cost and desired quality. This presentation will provide an overview of the weaknesses of the current practices in the biomass supply chain and their negative impacts on the commercial viability of the advanced biofuel industry. Lessons from similar industries to enhance the performance of the supply chain will be also discussed.

Bio:

Mahmood is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Wood Science, University of British Columbia (UBC). He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in industrial engineering. His Ph.D. research concerns the development of a decision support model to develop a robust and cost-efficient biomass supply chain in bioenergy production. He has four years of work experience in educational, consulting and manufacturing sectors. In the past six years, he has been doing research in the fields of operations research, supply chain management and bioenergy.