Techno-economic comparison of biomass-to-transportation fuels via pyrolysis, gasification, and biochemical pathways

This analysis compares capital and operating cost for six near-term biomass-to-liquid fuels technology scenarios representing three conversion platforms: pyrolysis, gasification, and biochemical. These analyses employed similar assumptions to allow comparisons among the results. Most prominently, the feedstock is assumed to be corn stover and plant capacity was 2000 tonne/day for each plant. There are large differences in the total capital investments required among the three platforms. The stand-alone biomass-to-liquid fuel plants are expected to produce fuels with a product value in the range of $2.00–5.50 per gallon ($0.53–1.45 per liter) gasoline equivalent, with pyrolysis the lowest and biochemical the highest. These relatively high product values are driven primarily by an assumed feedstock cost of $75 per dry ton and the cost of capital for the plants. Pioneer plant analysis, which takes into account increased capital costs and decreased plant performance associated with first-of-a-kind plants, increases estimated product values to $2.00–12.00 per gallon ($0.53–3.17 per liter) gasoline equivalent.