The “Zero Miles Product” Concept Applied to Biofuel Production: A Case Study

Nikolaj Kaae Kirk, Clara Navarrete, Jakob Ellegaard Juhl, José Luis Martínez and Alessandra Procentese
Additional contact information
Nikolaj Kaae Kirk: Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Søltofts Plads, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
Clara Navarrete: Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Søltofts Plads, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
Jakob Ellegaard Juhl: Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Søltofts Plads, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
José Luis Martínez: Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Søltofts Plads, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
Alessandra Procentese: Department of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Technical University of Denmark, Søltofts Plads, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 3, 1-19

Abstract: To make biofuel production feasible from an economic point of view, several studies have investigated the main associated bottlenecks of the whole production process through approaches such as the “cradle to grave” approach or the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analysis, being the main constrains the feedstock collection and transport. Whilst several feedstocks are interesting because of their high sugar content, very few of them are available all year around and moreover do not require high transportation’ costs. This work aims to investigate if the “zero miles” concept could bring advantages to biofuel production by decreasing all the associated transport costs on a locally established production platform. In particular, a specific case study applied to the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) campus is used as example to investigate the advantages and feasibility of using the spent coffee grounds generated at the main cafeteria for the production of bioethanol on site, which can be subsequently used to (partially) cover the campus’ energy demands.

Keywords: spent coffee ground; ethanol fermentation; biofuel (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/3/565/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/3/565/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:3:p:565-:d:485366

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().