Logistics cost, the cost of moving feedstock or products, is a key component of the overall cost of recovering energy from biomass. In this study, we calculate for small- and large-project sizes, the relative cost of transportation by truck, rail, ship, and pipeline for three biomass feedstocks, by truck and pipeline for ethanol, and by transmission line for electrical power. Distance fixed costs (loading and unloading) and distance variable costs (transport, including power losses during transmission), are calculated for each biomass type and mode of transportation. Costs are normalized to a common basis of a giga Joules of biomass. The relative cost of moving products vs feedstock is an approximate measure of the incentive for location of biomass processing at the source of biomass, rather than at the point of ultimate consumption of produced energy. In general, the cost of transporting biomass is more than the cost of transporting its energy products. The gap in cost for transporting biomass vs power is significantly higher than the incremental cost of building and operating a power plant remote from a transmission grid. The cost of power transmission and ethanol transport by pipeline is highly dependent on scale of project. Transport of ethanol by truck has a lower cost than by pipeline up to capacities of 1800 t/d. The high cost of transshipment to a ship precludes shipping from being an economical mode of transport for distances less than 800 km (woodchips) and 1500 km (baled agricultural residues).

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Anaerobic digestion (AD) of manure from confined feeding operations (CFOs) to produce biogas and in turn electric power in farm or feedlot based units as well as centralized plants is evaluated for two settings in Alberta, Canada: a mixed farming area (Red Deer County), and an area of concentrated beef cattle feedlots (Lethbridge County). Centralized plants need to transport manure to the plant and digestate back to the source CFO, an added cost relative to farm or feedlot based plants, but gain from the economy of scale in plant capital and operating cost. Based on a county survey of manure sources, a centralized plant drawing manure from 63 sources in the mixed farming area, at a manure yield of 34 dry tonne year −1 km −2 , could produce 5.9 net MW of power at a cost of $240 MWh −1 (in 2005 U.S. dollars). No individual CFO in the mixed farming area, including a 7,500 head beef cattle feedlot, could produce power at a lower cost with a farm or feedlot based unit. Based on manure yields from an Alberta-based 1 MW demonstration AD plant, a centralized plant drawing manure from 560,000 beef cattle in Lethbridge County, at a manure yield of 280 dry tonne year −1 km −2 , could produce power at a cost of $150 MWh −1. In Lethbridge County, an individual feedlot larger than 20,000 head of beef cattle could produce power at a lower cost than the centralized plant. Commercial processes to recover concentrated nutrients and a dischargeable water stream from digestate are not available. However, the theoretical impact of digestate processing was analyzed based on a capital cost of 2/3 of the AD plant itself. Digestate processing shifts the balance in favor of centralized processing, and a feedlot would need to be larger than 250,000 head to produce power at a lower cost than a centralized plant. Power from biogas has a high cost relative to current power prices and to the cost of power from other large-scale renewable sources. Power from biogas would need to be justified by other factors than energy value alone, such as phosphate recovery, pathogen reduction, or odor control.

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