The Impact of Wood Moisture Content on the Productivity and Costs of Forest Energy Supply Chains in Southeast Brazil
, Maura Seiko Tsutsui Esperancini 1, Adriano Wagner Ballarin 1, Saulo Philipe Sebastião Guerra 1 and Humberto de Jesus Eufrade-Junior 4,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsFirstly, I am very appreciated to act as a referee for your distinguished journal and I want to thank you very much for your e-mail reviewing this manuscript.
This manuscript's subject is investigating to the effect of wood moisture content on operating costs and the volume demand of wood to supply a thermoelectric plant through different supply chains and their respective conditions, such as storage time and distance from the forest to the thermoelectric plant (transport operation).
My comments on the manuscript forests-2215654 are given below:
- The aim of this paper is gived in paper.
- The technical aspects of the work seem solid.
- Paper's language is good.
- Figures and Tables are adequate.
- Literature are sufficient.
But, this manuscript has lack of the statistical evaluations. There is no compare among supply chain I-II-II and among trasnportation distance 50-100-150-200-250-300 and among operational costs. It seems that the findings obtained have not been evaluated statistically whether they are significant or not. I think that the authors can complete this statistical evaluation in a very short time.
In my opinion your journal's readership interests subject of this manuscript. I look forward to receive your reply and other papers to evaluate. Overall, I would suggest major revisions. Thanks for your interest. Yours truly.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
On behalf of the authors, I would like to thank you for your suggestion, which have contributed to a significant improvement of this paper. Thus, statistical analysis to assess the effect of the supply chain on the demand of wood volume for thermoelectric plant and its respective costs has been added to the article. A great effort was made to fulfill the request in the short time offered for review.
The authors make themselves available for further analysis as the reviewer sees fit. All the changes in the text have been highlighted in red.
Sincere regards.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors.
Here are some observations:
The article is written clearly and precisely, explaining the importance of wood moisture content in energy generation. It starts by highlighting this influence, then details the methodology and equations used for calculations, and finally uses figures and graphics to present and discuss the results. However, some adjustments could improve the article.
For instance, breaking longer parts of the introduction section into shorter sentences for better readability and structuring ideas more cohesively. Also, using connectors or transition phrases between paragraphs would improve the connection between ideas.
The study objectives are clear: to determine how the moisture content of wood affects the costs and how much wood is needed for a power plant. Three different chains were studied, thinking about storage time and how far it travels. They also compare wood energy prices to hydroelectric power in the same year.
Regarding the data shown in Table 5, Could include the method used to measure the moisture content of logs plie, and chips? and explain why is faster to dry logs pile compared to wood chips pile.
Figure 6 presents costs in percentages, showing that increasing the distance reduces the percentage costs of silviculture & harvesting, and transportation costs. To enhance understanding and facilitate more realistic comparisons, it might be beneficial also to include the real costs.
If the authors think it necessary to include the values on the bar graphs (Figures 2,3,5, 7, and 8), it's better to create a graph with an included table.
The conclusions are solid in presenting key study findings. It could benefit from shorter paragraphs to enhance readability and better emphasize each main point. Additionally, strengthening the connection between specific conclusions and the overall study's goal would reinforce how these findings contribute to a cleaner, more renewable energy matrix in South America. Authors could also consider including their perspective on future research directions within the conclusion
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
On behalf of the authors, I would like to thank you for your suggestions, which have contributed to a significant improvement of this paper. As suggested, a brief explanation of water loss from wood has been inserted into the text and the introduction and conclusions were reformulated. Particularly in the conclusion, the authors suggested which studies should be carried out in the future.
As the costs were presented in the methodology, the authors believe that the representation of the results in percentages in Figure 6 can serve as a comparison for other studies in different countries and currencies. Thus, the figure hasn't been changed.
All the results are shown in figures 2, 3, 5, 7 and 8, and have been presented in new tables, as suggested by the reviewer.
A great effort was made to fulfill the request in the short time offered for review. So, the authors make themselves available for further analysis as the reviewer sees fit.
All the changes in the text have been highlighted in red.
Sincere regards.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis work aims to evaluate the affects of wood moisture content on the productivity and energy consumption from resources to products. This is an interesting and meaningful work in wood processing industrial and building a sustainability society. And the paper shown suitable methods, credible results and acceptable conclusion. However, some discussion should be supplement, such as how to wood volume changed with moisture content, how to moisture content in wood effect energy cost during wood drying and processing, what is the relationship between energy cost and energy utilization efficiency.
In addition, please explain how to estimate the energy cost in log and chip drying? Which method was used for measurement of log and chip moisture content?
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
On behalf of the authors, I would like to thank you for your suggestions, which have contributed to a significant improvement of this paper. In order to respond to the reviewer, new paragraphs were included in the manuscript and the methodology was detailed. We hope that all the issues raised have been resolved. All the changes in the text have been highlighted in red.
A great effort was made to fulfill the request in the short time offered for review. So, the authors make themselves available for further analysis as the reviewer sees fit.
Sincere regards.
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments and Suggestions for Authors,
The manuscript in topic “The impact of wood moisture content on the productivity and costs of forest energy supply chains in Southeast Brazil” presents the investigation the influence of wood moisture content on the yield and costs of different forest operation chains for biomass power plant in São Paulo State, Brazil.
The authors presented a good experiment. In overall, I found that the paper is a good organization with a moderate English, and all parts that appeared in this manuscript collected a scope of research article in Forests. However, there are small points that need to be revised. Therefore, my response is "minor revision".
Some minor requirements are needed as seen in the comments.
1. Table 1, the author mentioned Higher Heating Value (HHV) but in equation (1) author provided the calculation of Net Heating Value (NHV). Please make sure which value you need to report.
2. Table 6, the number could use the same font format.
3. I recommend the author check the grammatical errors by professional proofreader. There are some errors for examples, “is projected” in line 32 “have consider-ably increased” in line 51, “MC content” in line 80, and so on.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageModerate editing of English language required
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
On behalf of the authors, I would like to thank you for your suggestions, which have contributed to a significant improvement of this paper. As suggested by the reviewer, the work has been thoroughly proofread by a native English speaker and the English errors have been corrected. The methodology and conclusions have been reformulated. Also, tables 1 and 6 have been corrected as requested by the reviewer. All the changes in the text have been highlighted in red.
A great effort was made to fulfill the request in the short time offered for review. So, the authors make themselves available for further analysis as the reviewer sees fit.
Sincere regards.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAuthors added statistical evaluation and discussion section on revised manuscript. This form of manuscript will be published. I suggest accept to pıublish. Sincerely.
