Environmental economics of lignin derived transport fuels
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2017

This paper explores the environmental and economic aspects of fast pyrolytic conversion of lignin, obtained from 2G ethanol plants, to transport fuels for both the marine and automotive markets. Various scenarios are explored, pertaining to aggregation of lignin from several sites, alternative energy carries to replace lignin, transport modalities, and allocation methodology. The results highlight two critical factors that ultimately determine the economic and/or environmental fuel viability. The first factor, the logistics scheme, exhibited the disadvantage of the centralized approach, owing to prohibitively expensive transportation costs of the low energy-dense lignin. Life cycle analysis (LCA) displayed the second critical factor related to alternative energy carrier selection. Natural gas (NG) chosen over additional biomass boosts well-to-wheel greenhouse gas emissions (WTW GHG) to a level incompatible with the reduction targets set by the U.S. renewable fuel standard (RFS). Adversely, the process’ economics revealed higher profits vs. fossil energy carrier.

Fuels

Life cycle assessment

Lignin

2G ethanol plants

Författare

Svetlana V. Obydenkova

Chalmers, Bygg- och miljöteknik

Panos D. Kouris

Technische Universiteit Eindhoven

Emiel J.M. Hensen

Technische Universiteit Eindhoven

Hero J. Heeres

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Michael D. Boot

Technische Universiteit Eindhoven

Bioresource Technology

0960-8524 (ISSN) 1873-2976 (eISSN)

Vol. 243 589-599

Ämneskategorier

Förnyelsebar bioenergi

Annan naturresursteknik

Energisystem

DOI

10.1016/j.biortech.2017.06.157

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2019-11-25