Biomass production costs

Other conceptual designs of energy farms have been proposed which include the same basic features as the ITC/Solar model (19,20.24.25). Because of the lack of experimental data concerning some aspects of energy farming, all designs include a certain element of uncertainty. Sensitivity analyses are therefore needed to estimate the impact of these uncertainties on the projected biomass production costs and to estimate reasonable ranges of values for these production costs. 

Ren, T., Daniels, B., Patel, M. and Blok, K. (2009) Petrochemicals from oil, natural gas, coal and biomass production costs in 2030-2050. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, S3,653-663. 

Douskova, I., Doucha, J., Livansky, K., Machat, J., Novak, P., Umysova, D., et al., 2009. Simultaneous flue gas bioremediation and reduction of microalgal biomass production costs. Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology 82 (1), 179-185. 

Bridgwater, A. V., and. Double, J. M. (1994). Production Costs of Liquid Fuels from Biomass. International Journal of Energy Research 18 79-95. 

Ammonia comprises 11.1% of total production costs (Table 4.9). Ammonia thus contributes 0.42 x 11.1/100 = 0,046 per kg biomass. 

Large-scale biomass production will come at a considerable cost to the society. We have already given an order of magnitude estimate for wood plantations. When biomass raw material is processed that competes with the food chain, as vegetable oils and sugars, the situation is even worse. For instance Smil [4] mentions that if the US vehicles were to run solely on corn derived ethanol the country would have to plant corn on an area 20% larger than is currently cropland . 

The economics of biomass conversion needs to be considered as well, for the production costs of biofuels typically amount to 60-120 per barrel of oil equivalent. Influential factors include the cost of the biomass at the plant gate, the conversion efficiency, the scale of the process and the value of the product (e.g., fuel, electricity or chemicals). 

Bioethanol upgrading and valorization is another area in which catalysis will be a key player. The decrease in ethanol production cost and the need to realize a transition to a society based more on renewables are two driving forces to develop new catalytic processes for bioethanol conversion. However, without improvements in the efficiency and selectivity of the various processes for ethanol, and in general biomass conversion, which are possible only by the introduction of better and/or new catalysts, this transition to a bio-based economy will probably not be possible. Research on catalysis will thus be the enabling factor for this change towards a more sustainable society. 

Table 2 reports the expected market development of major RRM-based products [7] notably, the potential market may significantly enlarge if the progressive introduction of biorefineries decreases the production costs, on one side, and increases the number of biomass-based products on the other side. 

Methanol can be produced from biomass, essentially any primary energy somce. Thus, the choice of fuel in the transportation sector is to some extent determined by the availability of biomass. As regards to the difference between hydrogen and methanol production costs, conversion of natural gas, biomass and coal into hydrogen is generally more energy efficient and less expensive than the conversion into methanol. 

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