BIOCUT: A Microcomputer Based Economic Evaluation Model for Wood Energy Plantations. Model Description and Users Guide

摘要

Increasing demands for fuelwood and wood energy feedstocks has placed severe pressures on forest resources in many developed and developing countries. Energy plantations are one concept under investigation for increasing the size and productivity of the wood resource base. The BIOCUT model described in this report is designed to facilitate the systematic investigation of a wide range of potential wood energy plantation applications and to provide reasonable estimates of net returns and minimum required product prices. There are five user-specified sets of input data in the BIOCUT model: (1) plantation scenario activities, (2) economic parameters, (3) plantation establishment activities, (4) operation and maintenance activities, and (5) harvesting, processing, and transportation. The BIOCUT model reports yearly information on the economic status of the plantation, cash-flows, and the age distribution of the standing biomass. The model calculates the net present value, the discounted average cost, internal rate of return, and benefit-cost ratio. Because of the high degree of uncertainty surrounding important biological and economic relationships, the model facilitates extended sensitivity analysis. Further, if upper and lower bounds can be defined for each important variable, the model can also be used to conduct a risk analysis. The risk analysis uses the parameters of the probability distribution rather than the distribution itself to construct the mean and variance of the net present value. With this information probability statements can be made about achieving various levels of net present value. The BIOCUT model is coded in PASCAL and operates on IBM personal computers and compatibles with 256K memory using the DOS 2.0 operating system. (ERA citation 11:000313)