Technoeconomic characterisation of low-carbon liquid hydrocarbons production

Abstract

With growing attention on low-carbon fuels and chemicals to meet climate targets, careful cost and performance evaluations become critical. These hydrocarbons can be derived from biomass or hydrogen with captured CO2 via established pathways such as Fischer-Tropsch and methanol synthesis. Techno-economic studies are influential in identifying the economic viability of promising technologies in the absence of reliable industry data. A considerable number of techno-economic studies that represent same technologies exhibit substantial variability in their estimations, posing challenges in decision-making. This work aims to characterise, based on available data, the investment cost and plant performance for the Nth (i.e. mature) low-carbon liquid hydrocarbon plants. The extent of data variabilities across technologies are presented and the factors contributing to differences in data interpretation and normalisation are determined. Through a full assessment of existing values, central tendencies for prospective techno-economic evaluations are identified. Processes utilising biomass have the greatest ranges in the investment cost, with higher costs from studies with the highest level of detail and proximity to real-world plant cost estimations. Energy efficiency variabilities arise when tied to plants with multiple outputs. Demonstration scale hydrogen-to-hydrocarbons in relation to economies of scale should be carefully evaluated.