Biomass gasification integrated with a pulp and paper mill - The need for economic policies promoting biofuels

Paper in proceeding, 2010

The economic policy support for biofuels was studied to determine the amount of support necessary to make investments in a gasification based biorefinery producing dimethyl ether profitable for a pulp and paper mill. The required support ranged from lower than the present tax exemption, to more than four times the exemption, depending mainly on the price relation between oil and biomass. The required support is sensitive to changes of the capital cost, but not to the pulp and paper production rate of the host mill. Thus, strong policy instruments will be required for forest industry based biorefineries to be desirable for the future. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 19th International Congress of Chemical and Process Engineering and 7th European Congress of Chemical Engineering (Prague, Czech Republic 8/28/2010-9/1/2010).