Abstract
Pine needles (pine tree leaves), found abundantly across continents such as North America, Asia, Europe, South America, Africa, and parts of the Southern Hemisphere, are a significant global concern due to their high susceptibility to catching fire, especially in dry and hot climates. The same issue persists in the Uttarakhand state of India, which boasts ample pine forests, yielding a substantial 1.67 × 109 kg of pine needles annually. In the present study, the annual potential emissions from forest fires in Uttarakhand were estimated to be 58.37 × 109 kg of CO2 equivalent. Therefore, the present research aims to unlock pine needles’ potential via gasification for green electricity and biochar production, offering an alternative to coal-based plants while reducing forest fire frequencies. Nevertheless, obstacles hindering pine needle gasification include an unsteady supply chain, limited collection windows (100 days), and plant expenses, including transportation and operational costs. The primary focus of the research is to design and assess the performance of a gasification-based supply chain for pine needles in the Almora District of Uttarakhand. Ten plant capacity scenarios were considered, ranging from 25 to 250 kW. The study incorporated critical factors, encompassing diverse losses within the supply chain, selecting potential plant sites, minimizing transportation distance, and evaluating the supply chain’s economic and environmental performance. The economic analysis revealed that the 250-kW plant scenario exhibited a minimum discounted payback period (DPP) of 3.93 years, alongside an internal rate of return (IRR) of 19% and a net present value (NPV) of 653.32 million INR without government subsidies. With subsidies included, the DPP decreased to 1.30 years, improving the IRR to 69% with an NPV of 916.17 million INR. The emission analysis indicated that gasification plant capacity scenarios could potentially reduce 44.63 × 106 to 46.16 × 106 kg of CO2 equivalent emissions annually compared to grid electricity while meeting nearly 5.5% of the electricity demand of Almora district. The present study aligns with SDG-7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG-13 (Climate Action), SDG-9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure), SDG-11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG-3 (Good Health and Well-being), and SDG-15 (Life on Land).
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The authors declare that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper. Should any raw data files be needed in another format they are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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We express our sincere gratitude to the Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India (GoI) for their invaluable support towards the Doctoral Fellowship. Additionally, we extend our appreciation to Caliper Corporation for their generosity in providing us with the academic license for Maptitude Mapping Software, particularly Maptitude India.
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All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Ankush Halba: conceptualization; methodology; formal analysis; data curation; writing—original draft; visualization. Pratham Arora: conceptualization; methodology; validation; writing—review and editing; visualization; resources; supervision. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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Halba, A., Arora, P. Pine needle gasification–based electricity production: Understanding the effect of supply chain. Environ Sci Pollut Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-33592-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-024-33592-4