Techno-economic and uncertainty analysis of Biomass to Liquid (BTL) systems for transport fuel production

The overall energy efficiency and production costs of the BTL designs evaluated range from 37.9% to 47.6% LHV and €17.88-25.41 per GJ of produced fuels, respectively. The BTL concept with the lowest production costs incorporates CFB gasification and FT synthesis. The model deterministic estimates of production costs of this design indicate that a BTL process is not yet competitive with conventional refineries since the biofuel production costs are approximately 8% higher than current market prices. Large scale biofuel production may be possible in the long term through subsidies, crude oil price rises and legislation.