Executive SummaryThe goal of the U.S. Department of Energy's Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) is to enable the development of biomass technologies to: Reduce dependence on foreign oil  Promote the use of diverse, domestic, and sustainable energy resource  Establish a domestic bioenergy industry  Reduce carbon emissions from energy production and consumption. (DOE 2013) To meet these goals, the BETO promotes the development of liquid hydrocarbon fuels that can serve as gasoline, jet and diesel blendstocks.This report describes a proposed thermochemical process for converting biomass into liquid transportation fuels via fast pyrolysis followed by hydroprocessing of the condensed pyrolysis oil. As such, the analysis does not reflect the current state of commercially-available technology but includes advancements that are likely, and targeted to be achieved by 2017. The purpose of this study is to quantify the economic impact of individual conversion targets to allow a focused effort towards achieving cost reductions.

The dry basis elemental composition of the feedstock, shown in Table 2, is identical to previous NREL and PNNL design reports [20,21]. The composition was originally assumed to come from pulpwood. Recent feedstock logistics work at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) suggests that the use of blended material may be required to meet a cost target of $80/dry U.S. ton while still meeting these specifications [22]. For the purpose of this report, it is assumed that any blended material provided to meet this feedstock elemental composition will not adversely affect fast pyrolysis conversion efficiencies. Ongoing studies being conducted jointly by INL, NREL, and PNNL will provide experimental evidence of the impact of blended feedstocks on fast pyrolysis and gasification processes. Future TEA will be modified to reflect conversion impacts inferred from such studies.This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications. not considered in this design in order to focus on the core technology of in situ and ex situ fast pyrolysis vapor upgrading. Aspen Plus ModelAn Aspen Plus Version 7.2 simulation was used as the basis for this report. Since the products in pyrolysis are numerous and varied, only selected model compounds were used to represent the product slate. Additional hydrocarbon species were added to represent hydroprocessing products. Many of the desired molecular species in the desired boiling ranges for light and heavy fractions did not exist in Aspen Plus databanks and physical property parameters needed to be estimated. The biomass feedstock, ash, char, and coke were modeled as non-conventional components. Appendix F provides information about compounds selected to represent the process. The Peng-Robinson with Boston-Mathias modifications (PR-BM) equation of state was used throughout most of the process simulation. The ASME 1967 steam table correlations (STEAM-TA) were used for the steam cycle calculations. Combustor/Regenerator Temperature, °C (°F) 650 (1,202) 720 (1,328) 650 (1,202) Pressure, psia (bar) 117 (8.1) 117 (8.1) 113 (7.8) Excess air (%) 20 20 20 Solids temperature before transfer to reactor, °C (°F) 650 (1,202) 720 (1,328) 341 (645) No. of cyclones per combustor 2 2 2 Area 200 Equipment Cost EstimationsCapital costs for the equipment in this area were estimated by Harris Group. A previously developed spreadsheet tool for gasifier costs was leveraged for this exercise. Cost estimates from this tool were compared with order of magnitude estimates from technology vendors and documented in Appendix I of Worley et al.

The dry basis elemental composition of the feedstock, shown in Table 2, is identical to previous NREL and PNNL design reports [20,21]. The composition was originally assumed to come from pulpwood. Recent feedstock logistics work at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) suggests that the use of blended material may be required to meet a cost target of $80/dry U.S. ton while still meeting these specifications [22]. For the purpose of this report, it is assumed that any blended material provided to meet this feedstock elemental composition will not adversely affect fast pyrolysis conversion efficiencies. Ongoing studies being conducted jointly by INL, NREL, and PNNL will provide experimental evidence of the impact of blended feedstocks on fast pyrolysis and gasification processes. Future TEA will be modified to reflect conversion impacts inferred from such studies.This report is available at no cost from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at www.nrel.gov/publications. not considered in this design in order to focus on the core technology of in situ and ex situ fast pyrolysis vapor upgrading. Aspen Plus ModelAn Aspen Plus Version 7.2 simulation was used as the basis for this report. Since the products in pyrolysis are numerous and varied, only selected model compounds were used to represent the product slate. Additional hydrocarbon species were added to represent hydroprocessing products. Many of the desired molecular species in the desired boiling ranges for light and heavy fractions did not exist in Aspen Plus databanks and physical property parameters needed to be estimated. The biomass feedstock, ash, char, and coke were modeled as non-conventional components. Appendix F provides information about compounds selected to represent the process. The Peng-Robinson with Boston-Mathias modifications (PR-BM) equation of state was used throughout most of the process simulation. The ASME 1967 steam table correlations (STEAM-TA) were used for the steam cycle calculations. Combustor/Regenerator Temperature, °C (°F) 650 (1,202) 720 (1,328) 650 (1,202) Pressure, psia (bar) 117 (8.1) 117 (8.1) 113 (7.8) Excess air (%) 20 20 20 Solids temperature before transfer to reactor, °C (°F) 650 (1,202) 720 (1,328) 341 (645) No. of cyclones per combustor 2 2 2 Area 200 Equipment Cost EstimationsCapital costs for the equipment in this area were estimated by Harris Group. A previously developed spreadsheet tool for gasifier costs was leveraged for this exercise. Cost estimates from this tool were compared with order of magnitude estimates from technology vendors and documented in Appendix I of Worley et al.

No abstract

This study evaluates the techno-economic uncertainty in cost estimates for two emerging technologies for biofuel production: in situ and ex situ catalytic pyrolysis. The probability distributions for the minimum fuel-selling price (MFSP) indicate that in situ catalytic pyrolysis has an expected MFSP of $1.11 per liter with a standard deviation of 0.29, while the ex situ catalytic pyrolysis has a similar MFSP with a smaller deviation ($1.13 per liter and 0.21 respectively). These results suggest that a biorefinery based on ex situ catalytic pyrolysis could have a lower techno-economic uncertainty than in situ pyrolysis compensating for a slightly higher MFSP cost estimate. Analysis of how each parameter affects the NPV indicates that internal rate of return, feedstock price, total project investment, electricity price, biochar yield and bio-oil yield are parameters which have substantial impact on the MFSP for both in situ and ex situ catalytic pyrolysis.