Illinois Business Consulting report - economic analysis
The central question posed to Illinois Business Consulting (IBC) is as follows: what would be the economic impact of replacing 10% of the university’s coal intake with wood chips? After extensive research, analysis, and calculation it is the opinion of IBC that the cogeneration of energy with coal and wood chips is not economically feasible. The initiative has been deemed not economically feasible because wood chips are more expensive on the basis of energy content, transportation costs will increase due to biomass, and infrastructure modification expenses necessary for the operational changes are significant.