The Wood Resource Transportation Analysis System (WTRANS) is a spreadsheet based program which allows wood residue users to examine:

• where hardwood and softwood green mill residues may be located on a county-by-county basis in Tennessee,
• estimates of transportation and delivered product costs on a county-to-county basis in Tennessee,
• estimates of transportation and delivered product costs to your county from each county in Tennessee,
• potential residue needs for energy use, and
• estimated fuel cost comparisons using residues for greenhouse heating

How Can I Use WTRANS?

If you are a user of wood residues or a firm interested in transporting residues, you may find WTRANS useful. Wood residue users may use WTRANS to find counties where residues are produced and the potential cost of transporting these residues to their county (Transportation Analysis Option). If you are a wood residue supplier, you may find WTRANS useful for estimating transportation costs to a destination point (Transportation Analysis Option). In addition, if you use residues for generating energy, you may find the Wood for Energy option very useful. It enables you to estimate your residue needs based on your energy needs. While default values are provided to run WTRANS, you may change many of the values in WTRANS to match your firm’s situation (Edit Residue Parameters and Edit Transportation Parameters Options).

WTRANS contains several options. These are Transportation Analysis, Edit Transportation Parameters, Edit Residue Resources, and Wood for Energy. A brief description of each of these options is provided below:

Transportation Analysis: This performs two types of analyses for costs of transporting wood residues:

1. A statewide type analysis of transportation of residues to a particular destination county and amounts of residues by county, and presents the results on a Tennessee map, and
2. A county-to-county type analysis (residues in the origin county and transportation costs to your county) and presents the results in a message box.

Edit Transportation Parameters: This option enables the transportation parameters used in WTRANS to be adjusted. The transportation parameters that can be adjusted include residue material properties, truck weight and volume limits, and costs of operation.

Edit Residue Parameters: This allows you to view and change permanently the residue resource parameters for the whole state or by county. This option has a dialog box interface and the residue resources can be changed by user input through edit boxes.

Wood for Energy: This option enables potential users of wood residues for energy to estimate their residue needs to obtain a given level of BTUs or kilowatt-hours. Once the amount of residues needed is determined, the user then can enter the Transportation Analysis section to examine where residues may be located and the costs of transport to their county.