This work is a meta-study of CO 2 capture processes for coal and natural gas power generation, including technologies such as post-combustion solvent-based carbon capture, the integrated gasification combined cycle process, oxyfuel combustion, membrane-based carbon capture processes, and solid oxide fuel cells. A literature survey of recent techno-economic studies was conducted, compiling relevant data on costs, efficiencies, and other performance metrics. The data were then converted in a consistent fashion to a common standard (such as a consistent net power output, country of construction, currency, base year of operation, and captured CO 2 pressure) such that a meaningful and direct comparison of technologies can be made. The processes were compared against a standard status quo power plant without carbon capture to compute metrics such as cost of CO 2 emissions avoided to identify the most promising designs and technologies to use for CO 2 emissions abatement.

Biogas derived from anaerobic digestion of organic wastes, and lignocellulosic biomass can be used to produce drop-in diesel fuel via Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis. In this study, we developed a process-based simulation model for the biogas to liquid fuel (BgTL) plant to conduct mass and energy balances and to evaluate techno-economic assessment of producing drop-in FT fuels. The BgTL plant operations consisted of biogas cleaning, biomethane reforming, FT synthesis of syngas and hydrocracking and fi nal distillation to produce drop-in liquid fuels. The unconverted syngas and syncrude were utilized to generate steam and electricity to meet internal plant demand, while the excess power was sold to the grid. The base case BgTL plant (2 000 Nm 3 /h) produced about 4.6 million gallons per annum of total FT fuels which consisted of 62% diesel, 32% gasoline, 6% LPG with an overall biogas conversion of 54%. A discounted cash fl ow rate of return (DCFOROR) approach for the Nth plant was used to estimate the capital and operating costs with the minimum selling price for the FT drop-in fuels of about $5.67/gal ($5.29/GGE). The increase in plant feed capacity to 20 000 Nm 3 /h decreased the minimum selling price to $2.06/gal ($1.92/GGE). The sensitivity analysis conducted on the base case plant demonstrated that the internal rate of return (IRR), FT conversion rate, plant operating hours, and biogas cost were the most sensitivity parameters to the minimum selling price. Overall, the BgTL technology is deemed to be economically feasible to meet US biofuels demand.

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