A Strategic Assessment of Liquid Fuels from Biomass

Abstract

A technical and economic study of the conversion of renewable feedstocks to liquid fuels has been initiated. The main objective of the project is to identify and evaluate all alternative technologies for liquid fuel production from biomass and solid wastes in order to identify the more promising technologies and R&D needs as a strategic planning aid to the European Community. The methodology adopted is to construct a robust techno-economic computer simulation of the whole range of thermochemical, biochemical and physical conversion processes. Each of the processes is divided into “process steps”, each process step being defined as a self-contained processing operation. A model is being constructed of each process step, calculating the material balance, energy balance and capital cost of the step. Whole processes will then be constructed from the individual step models and the economics of each process evaluated. Some process steps are well established and commercially available, such as methanol synthesis, and state-of-the-art technology will be used in the model. Others steps, however, are still at the research or development stage, such as pyrolysis liquid upgrading. These unproven steps will be compared and evaluated to identify the more technically and economically promising alternatives. This will aid identification of further R&D needs. The scope, methodology and some early results are presented.