[roy]

Hi, all!

Currently, I'm conducting a study about biofuel. I would like to ask for your opioin, which following biofuels will be the most prospective in the future.

1. Bioethanol Generation II: Cellulosic material such as woods, plantation waste, empty fruit bunch, etc is converted to glucose and xylose, then converted to ethanol using fermentation process.

2. Biodiesel Generation II: Cellulosic material is gasified, then the syngas converted to diesel (and another alkanes) by Fischer-Tropsch process.

3. BioGasoline: Cellulosic material is pyrolyzed, forming liquid biofuel. 

Thank you for you *delete me*

[billnotgatez]

just wondering why you did not include
biomass into methanol or methane

[roy]

I included them before and other alternatives such as DME for diesel, but after a rough calculation about the demand, price, and potential with my team, we thought these three were the most advantageous for energy problem because they can replace gasoline and diesel fuel whose the world demand is high.

[billnotgatez]

Another curiosity question
Is this a calculation project or are you actually doing some hands on chemistry?

For me the analysis between the processes would be;
The energy put in v.s. the energy resulting
Could you use energy like solar as part of the input energy.
What are the negative effects of any waste products.
Are any of the catalyst (so called) used up in the process.

I already see you have demand, price, and potential.

I assume potential means how well they substitute for gas or diesel.

For instance much of bio diesel has a low temperature problem when compared to regular diesel.

Since it is near the end of the semester how is the project going?

[fledarmus]

Have you included the costs of growing, collecting, and transporting all of the biomass, and the costs associated with disposal of the waste products of the treatments? And the opportunity costs associated with devoting additional farmland to the production of energy rather than food, housing, or biodiversity?

One of the things that makes it difficult to compete with petroleum products in terms of cost is that the system is amazingly efficient. Once you have your well drilled (large up-front cost in dollars, low in energy), you get crude oil simply by pumping (low production cost), it can be handled immediately in liquid form and pumped directly to your refining or transportation hub, and there is almost no waste; all of the crude can be refined into some form of energy-producing material. Biomass requires annual planting and harvesting (continuing high production cost in dollars and energy), transportation of solids both during preproduction and production, and only a small amount of the biomass collected can be converted into a useful source of energy. A lot of the biomass is water, and a lot of the energy costs of fuel production goes simply to removing the water. The waste streams are also usually solids or large volumes of water, and additional costs in energy and dollars are required for waste treatment, transportation, and disposal.

Whether the conversion of biomass to fuel is currently a net energy loss or net energy gain has been the subject of a lot of controversy, with people on both sides of the issue quoting calculations based on widely varying assumptions and conclusions. Petroleum deposits are like money in the bank; if you need more energy, you just go back to the bank and withdraw more. You conserve it as well as you can so it lasts as long as possible, but you are running the earth on a net loss of energy deposits. Biomass energy is much more like running a business - if it costs you more energy to produce the energy than you get out, then you are still running the earth at a net loss in energy deposits, and still drawing down the bank account. The only successful form of biomass energy would be if the net energy obtained was greater than the total amount of energy that went into the process of producing it. Using 3 barrels of crude oil to produce the equivalent of 2 barrels of crude oil in biomass uses up the energy reserves faster than just using the original 3 barrels of crude oil.

[roy]

Thank you for your inputs, Billnotgatez and fledarmus!

Actually, our team is in a research project on renewable fuels technology in our company. We have to select most promising technology which will be developed further.
We are not making the plant design concept yet. We still studying the literature about those three biomass-derived fuels.

You're right, fledarmus. The fossil fuel is very advantageous today. The cost to collect and transporting biomass will be high. However, the price will rise up in the next decades and by that time, mixing or substituting biofuels will be a choice . Also, using the biofuels, the net CO2 print is very low since during biomass production (by plants), plants absorbed CO2.

Related to the price, we have already studied the gasoline price and bioethanol. The bioethanol price can be very competitive in high crop waste production since the amount is abundant and the transportation is easy. Bioethanol production is held in aqueous solution which need no feedstock drying, unlike the other two. But the problem is ethanol purification to 99.9% because azeotrope occurs at 98.7% and this part will likely become the most energy-consuming. Biogasoline is also advantageous but the technology is just emerged and it will be difficult for us to study it further. Biodiesel gen II production required advanced knowledge and experience in Fischer-Tropsch catalysis.

So far, we agree that bioethanol generation II is the most prospective to be developed.

But, I am curious. I red an energy outlook where it is stated that the oil reserve is abundant but not all of those reserves can be exploited unless more advance technology (such is EOR) is applicable and relatively economical. How sensitive will the crude price be to the production technology? Will the crude price significantly climbs up for the next 20 years?