Land identification and spatial distribution of biomass energy potential along Illinois state highways

Growing biomass along highways has drawn people's attention in recent years. After conversion either through combustion to generate heat and electricity, gasification or fermentation to produce gas or liquid fuel, energy products from biomass could be sold to the market, and the revenue may contribute to highway maintenance, or directly fulfill the energy demands of highway maintenance. Pilot studies have been conducted in various states while most of these studies were limited to few selected lands. Although every state provided an estimation of the total biomass potential for its entire state, the spatial distribution of the feedstock remains unclear, which makes it difficult to analyze the real cost or to optimize the feedstock supply chain. The objective of this study is to identify the available lands along Illinois highways and analyze their spatial distribution and relationships with other facilities in the supply chain. To achieve these goals, geospatial information system and remote sensing methods are used to select eligible lands based on the highway database from the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and aerial images from the USDA. Then, network analysis is performed to address the spatial connections within the land data and with other facilities such as IDOT depots. A generic workflow is developed with the methods employed in this study and can be applied to different states. The results of this study will provide input for system optimization at both county and state levels and therefore offer decision support tools suited to various stakeholders.