IIT Hyderabad Researchers Use Machine Learning Algorithms To Study Supply Chain Network Of Biofuels

IIT Hyderabad Researchers are using computational methods to understand the factors and impediments in incorporating biofuels into the fuel sector in India. This work has been spurred by the increasing need to replace fossil fuels by bio-derived fuels, which, in turn, is driven by the dwindling fossil fuel reserves all over the world, and pollution issues associated with the use of fossil fuels. The model developed by the IIT Hyderabad team has shown that in the area of bioethanol integration into mainstream fuel use, the production cost is the highest (43 per cent) followed by import (25 per cent), transport (17 per cent), infrastructure (15 per cent) and inventory (0.43 per cent) costs. The model has also shown that feed availability to the tune of at least 40 per cent of the capacity is needed to meet the projected demands. A unique feature of this work is that the framework considers revenue generation not only as an outcome of sales of the biofuel but also in terms of carbon credits via greenhouse gas emission savings throughout the project lifecycle.