Biofuel Prices Research Articles

Techno-economic assessment of HTL integration to the Brazilian sugarcane industry: An evaluation of different scenarios

Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) has been identified as one of the most promising thermochemical technologies to produce liquid biofuels. Although the production cost of HTL biofuels has not yet reached a competitive price, Brazil is recognized worldwide by its mature and well-developed biomass chain, along with a very market-competitive sugarcane industry, which could be used to deploy HTL technologies in a large-scale. The present study carried out a techno-economic analysis to understand the economic performance of HTL in the Brazilian context and considered sugarcane bagasse as the feedstock in two main configurations: a HTL stand-alone facility and a HTL plant integrated with the Brazilian sugarcane industry. The integration of the HTL with a sugarcane ethanol distillery has significantly increased the internal rate of return (IRR) compared with the stand-alone, moving from 8.1%–12.6% per year, thus indicating that HTL have the potential of being economically feasible if integrated to a sugarcane mill. Moreover, the minimum fuel selling prices of biofuels (MFSP) produced in the best integrated scenario showed a very high market-competitiveness, estimated as 0.44, 0.48, 0.51 and 0.37 US$/L for gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and marine fuel, which were slightly lower than fossil counterparts. This study has also demonstrated that the selection of liquefaction solvents is a highly sensitive parameter to the economic feasibility of HTL; water has showed the highest economic feasibility, suggesting that the utilization of ethanol as solvent may not be feasible at industrial scale.

Pt-WO3 oxydehydrates fructose to furans in the gas phase

Bio-feedstocks are destined to replace fossil fuels for specialty chemicals, but current bio-refineries mainly ferment monosaccharides to ethanol, a commodity chemical that is blended with gasoline as a fuel. The market price of biofuels is several-fold lower than specialty chemicals and monomers. Rather than cracking the C6-sugars ethanol, here, develop dehydration and oxydehydration processes to valuable platform C6-chemicals like 5-hydroxymethyl furfural (HMF), 2,5-dimethyl furan (DFF), and 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid. This gas-phase process atomizes an aqueous solution of fructose into a fluidized bed reactor operating at 350°C. The solution forms an aerosol (droplet size of 30µm), which contacts the hot Pt-WO3/TiO2 catalyst and reacts to HMF rather than caramelizing. The maximum yield reached 21% and it increased slightly with temperature, and decreased with increasing catalyst inventory; it was less sensitive to O2 concentration, Pt loading on the catalyst, liquid feed flow rate, and fructose feed concentration. At the optimal condition, selectivity continued to increase with time even after 3h reaction. Selectivity to 2,5-diformyl furan reached 42% at 250°C with HMF as a feedstock.

Impact of uncertainty in technological cycle on circular economy: Bio-based jet fuel range alkenes and pentanediols production

In terms of circular economy (CE), the coproduction of biofuels and bio-based chemicals could be a feasible strategy to improve the biorefinery economics. However, this approach is significantly affected by the variation of the techno-economic parameters. Thus, we evaluated the techno-economic feasibility of an integrated strategy through deterministic and stochastic models for the coproduction of biofuels (jet fuel range alkenes (JFA)) and bio-based chemicals (pentanediols and pentane) to identify the impact of uncertainty in technological cycle on the CE action plan. The deterministic analysis estimated the minimum JFA selling price (MJSP) expressed per gasoline gallon equivalents (GGE) and led to the identification of six major techno-economic parameters having a significant impact on the economics. Stochastic analysis was performed based on the Monte Carlo simulation, leading to probabilistic results on the economic feasibility of the integrated strategy, taking into account the uncertainty in the six identified parameters. In five of the six scenarios developed considering each uncertainty, the chances of MJSP being lower than the maximum biofuel price (USD 3.10 GGE−1) in the last three years (2017–2019) were higher than 50% (53.2–88.1%), implying that, despite the uncertainties reflected in the major techno-economic parameters, the integrated strategy could be a risk-averse investment.

Perspective on Crude Palm Oil Production: The Effect of Raw Palm Oil and Biofuel Prices

Efficiency is the important things in production process. Some production factors as labor,
 materials, and machinery must be calculate accurately. The purpose of this research is for
 analyzing the influence of raw palm oil and Biofuel prices against crude palm oil
 production. Sample in this research is time series data that specialized production data, The
 technique analysis is using analysis of multiple linier regression. The results from analysis show
 correlation between raw palm oil and biofuel prices with crude palm oil production is 57.1 %,
 The relationship between raw palm oil against crude palm oil production have significant effect
 and biofuel prices against crude palm oil production have no significant effect. Based on the
 results of F test there are the significant influence between raw palm oil and biofues prices
 against crude palm oil production. finding in this research is PT. Wilmar using 3 type of fuel
 for production process, petroleum, biofuel and waste of raw palm oil production which makes
 biofuel prices have no effect on crude palm oil production

Techno-Economic Analysis of decentralized preprocessing systems for fast pyrolysis biorefineries with blended feedstocks in the southeastern United States

This study evaluated the economic feasibility of fast pyrolysis biorefineries fed with blended pine residues and switchgrass in the Southeastern U.S. with different supply chain design. Previous techno-economic analyses (TEA) have focused on either blended biomass or decentralized preprocessing without investigating the impacts of varied process parameters, technology options, and real-world biomass distribution. This study fills the literature gap by modeling scenarios for different biomass blending ratios, biorefinery and preprocessing site (so-called depot) capacities, and alternative preprocessing technologies. High-resolution, real-world geospatial data were analyzed using Geographic Information Systems to facilitate supply chain design and TEA. For a decentralized system, the minimum fuel selling price (MFSP) of biofuel was $3.92–$4.33 per gallon gasoline equivalent (GGE), while the MFSP for the centralized biorefinery at the same capacities ranged between $3.75–$4.02/GGE. Implementing a high moisture pelleting process depot rather than a conventional pelleting process lowered the MFSP by $0.03–$0.17/GGE. Scenario analysis indicated decreased MFSP with increasing biorefinery capacities but not necessarily with increasing depot size. Medium-size depots (500 OMDT/day) achieved the lowest MFSP. This analysis identified the optimal blending ratios for two preprocessing technologies at varied depot sizes. Counterintuitively, increasing the proportion of higher cost switchgrass reduced the MFSP for large biorefineries (>5000 ODMT/day), but increased the MFSP for small biorefineries (1000–2500 ODMT/day). Although the decentralized systems have a higher MFSP based on current analysis, it has other potential benefits such as mitigated supply chain risks and improved feedstock quality that are difficult to be quantified in this TEA.

Design of a biofuel supply network under stochastic and price-dependent biomass availability

This article presents a framework for profit-maximizing strategic bio-energy supply chain design by taking into account variability in biomass as a response to price set as well as uncertainty in biomass yield. We present our model as a two-stage stochastic integer program for a multi-period integrated design of a network in which the here-and-now strategic decisions include biorefinery locations and size as well as base biomass price. To efficiently solve our model, we suggest an L-shaped-based algorithm along with a Sample Average Approximation approach. Finally, we demonstrate our results in a case study in Texas using realistic data. Within our framework, we present the relationship between biomass and biofuel price, as well as the optimal network design for the biofuel producer.

Do structural shocks in the crude oil market affect biofuel prices?

Literature shows that the crude oil market has a vital link with subcomponents products, i.e., gasoline and diesel, and alternative energy markets, i.e., natural gas and biofuels. The biofuel industry is a promising solution for many problems such as global warming and high oil prices. Therefore, our paper explores the effect of structural crude oil market shocks on the real price of biofuel. We use structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model as proposed by Kilian (2009) over the period from March 1995 to June 2019. Our main finding reveals that long-run fluctuations in the real prices of biofuel are attributed mainly to global demand shocks and oil-market specific shocks, whereas oil supply shocks have an insignificant role. Our results also indicate that the three shocks combined can justify 68 percent of the variation in the real prices of biofuel, whereas the aggregate demand shocks are the most significant contributor because it justifies 35 percent, and oil-specific demand shocks explain 28 percent. The policy implication of our paper is that the stability of the biofuel market comes from the demand side, not the supply side. Thus, energy demand management is a critical tool to stabilize the biofuel market.

Optimal design of the water-energy-food nexus for rural communities

People from rural areas face some limitations to reach sustainable development, such as the lack of electricity. In this work, we propose a multi-objective nonlinear programming model to find the optimal design and operation of water, energy, and food systems for agricultural communities. To this aim, we develop, using a bottom-up approach, a mathematical formulation of a superstructure that includes renewable power technologies, water management devices, and food and energy crops. Numerical experiments are carried out using data from a community in Michoacan, Mexico. The results from the sensitivity analyses show that selling bioethanol as an economic activity can be attractive for this community by slightly increasing the biofuel price and the sugarcane yield. Moreover, the epsilon-constraint method, along with a Pareto filter, is applied to obtain compromised solutions. Some of these solutions represent a significant improvement in social and environmental dimensions while maintaining an acceptable economic index. These results show this methodology’s usefulness for analyzing economic opportunities and obtaining strategies to manage the Water-Energy-Food Nexus (WEFN), especially the land distribution between food and energy crops. The model proposed constitutes a contribution, as a decision-making tool, to the sustainable development of rural communities.

Nanoparticle technology for separation of cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin nanoparticles from lignocellulose biomass: A short review

This article addresses particle size reduction technologies currently available and their potential application in bioenergy production from waste biomass. It is believed the reduction of the particle size of biomass wastes to nano-scale will have a significant impact on the quality, quantity, and price of biofuels. Currently, these technologies have not been developed for commercial application due to lack of efficiency. They can only function on small scale operations with high energy consumption. Advancing particle size reduction technologies to produce nano-scale particles at a commercial level is an emerging need.

Techno-Economic Evaluation of Biorefineries Based on Low-Value Feedstocks Using the BioSTEAM Software: A Case Study for Animal Bedding

Biofuels are still too costly to compete in the energy market and it has been suggested that low-value feedstocks could provide an opportunity for the production of low-cost biofuels; however, the lower quality of these feedstocks requires the introduction of a conditioning step in the biorefinery process. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether feedstock savings cover the cost of conditioning in the case of animal bedding. The BioSTEAM software was used to simulate a wheat straw biorefinery and an animal bedding biorefinery, whose economic performance was compared. The wheat straw biorefinery could deliver ethanol at a minimum selling price of USD 0.61 per liter, which is similar to prices in the literature. The cost of producing ethanol in the animal bedding biorefinery without water recycling was almost 40% higher, increasing the minimum selling price to USD 1.1 per liter of ethanol. After introducing water recycling in the conditioning step, the animal bedding biorefinery could deliver ethanol at a minimum selling price of USD 0.38 per liter, which is 40% lower than in the case of the wheat straw biorefinery. This demonstrates that low-value feedstocks can be used to reduce the biofuel price, as feedstock savings easily cover the additional conditioning cost.

Does the Energy-Food Nexus still exist: Empirical Evidence from the Indian Agriculture Sector post food crisis of 2006

The present study made an attempt to empirically investigate the impact of crude oil prices on agricultural prices for India during the calendar decade 2010-19. The bio-fuels which were considered in the present study included soy-oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil and palm-oil. The study covered a period of post food crisis of 2006 and after three years of stabilization of these prices to get an insight into the current scenario. The econometric tools used to examine the relationship included Johansen Co-integration, Gregory Hansen Co-integration with structural breaks, Toda and Yamamoto Causality and GARCH (1,1) Method. The results of our study did not give sufficient evidence to prove that crude oils impacted any of the bio-fuel prices in current scenario. The long run inter-linkages between crude oil and energy crops was not established which brought us to the conclusion that the energy-food nexus was a temporary phenomenon that existed during food crisis (2006) only and crude prices were no longer a guiding force to determine the price of bio-fuels

Uncertainty and influence of input parameters and assumptions on the design and analysis of thermochemical waste conversion processes: A stochastic approach

Process design is a challenging task for researchers and engineers. Incomplete information and variation in input data affect the outputs and reliability of key performance indicators (KPIs) of the designed process. The efficient utilization of waste is becoming increasingly important, and researchers use simulation and modelling tools for design and assessment of waste conversion processes. The complex nature of modelling of waste conversion processes and uncertainty of technical and financial data result in substantial variation in the KPIs of the designed process. In this study, we identified the critical parameters and assumptions that cause uncertainty in the process design analysis of waste-to-biofuels conversions. We used a stochastic modelling approach to address these methodological challenges and performed Monte Carlo simulations on waste-to-biofuel processes. The identified uncertain parameters and inputs were varied for a whole year with a one-minute time step. Different thermochemical conversion pathways were modelled by varying uncertain inputs and assumptions over the year by applying Monte Carlo simulations. Variations in the system’s technical and economic KPIs were observed and compared. The results show that the heterogeneous nature of waste is a highly sensitive parameter, and a small change in its elemental analysis varies the technical performance significantly. Similarly, operating hours, plant size, capital investment, waste, and biofuel price are also very influential parameters on process design. Furthermore, the feasibility of waste-to-biofuel systems depends largely on how researchers and engineers select these parameters. Overall, the results reveal that by including the uncertainty of input parameters and assumptions in process design, the biases in results could be addressed transparently, making the overall assessment more reliable.

ANALYSIS OF PELLETS AND BRIQUETTES PRODUCTION FROM CORN RESIDUES IN UKRAINE

The purpose of the study is to analyze the technical and economic basis for the development of the production of pellets and briquettes from by-products of grain corn in Ukraine. The objective of the work is to determine conditions that ensure feasibility of projects of this type in Ukraine. Results of estimation of energy potential of by-products of corn grain in Ukraine are presented. The country has a large potential for this type of biomass available for biofuels and energy production. Current trends in agricultural development indicate that this potential may even increase in the future. For Ukraine’s conditions, it is recommended to harvest by-products of grain corn in the form of rectangular bales with the use of a three-pass harvesting system. Fuel characteristics of corn stover are considered. In general, biomass of this type has fairly good fuel properties close to those of wood fuels. Due to this, biofuels made from corn stover can be burned in boiler equipment intended for wood biomass. The effective use of grain corn by-products is the production of briquettes and pellets. Under current conditions, a simple payback period for such business projects can be up to 4…5 years with the internal return rate of more than 22%. The biggest impact on the main economic indicators of the projects is made by the sale price of solid biofuels, the productivity of the equipment, as well as the price of raw material.

Dynamics of Biofuel Prices on the European Market: Impact of the EU Environmental Policy on the Resources Markets

This paper aims at explaining the major drivers of bio-diesel market prices by examining agricultural resource prices and gas-oil prices for automotive fuels in the context of the EU environmental policy. The EU policy has enhanced bio-diesel production since 2006. Bio-diesel prices are impacted by the EU policy as well as rapeseed and oil prices which have fluctuated a lot over the last decade. An econometric analysis was performed using monthly data from November 2006 to January 2016. However, tests for structural breaks show several changes in price behavior. This leads us to estimate a regime-switching model which reveals two main regimes for the bio-diesel price pattern. When oil prices are high, bio-diesel, rapeseed and diesel oil prices are related, mainly driven by oil prices. When oil prices are low, bio-diesel prices are mostly related to rapeseed prices according to EU regulations requiring the blending of bio-diesel and gas-oil.

Creation and study of the properties of multicomponent biofuels for tractor diesel engines

There is an interest in unconventional fuels, their feedstock are renewable resources of various origins, intended for the production, primarily, of biofuels. Biofuel prices are commensurate with the prices of petroleum-based fuels, and in some cases biofuel prices are even lower. The most significant properties of biofuels for operation do not coincide with the properties of commercial diesel fuel. Due to this, when converting ICEs, originally created for operation on diesel fuel, for biofuels, a list of problems is indicated. One of the productive areas of internal combustion engine adaptation can be the use of multicomponent blended biofuels. Expansion of multi-fuel diesel engines and the approximation of the required properties of biofuels to those for commercial diesel fuel are more expedient to achieve by using multicomponent compositions, the result is that the properties of one fuel can compensate the properties of another. Research in the field of heat engines is usually based on the acquisition of bench test data. Considering the length and complexity of this path, elements of scientific planning of the experiment are increasingly used. To reduce the number of experiments, experimental design based on the Box-Behnken three-factor design was applied. Regression equations were built, the adequacy of the obtained models was assessed, and the significance of its coefficients was evaluated. Based on the data obtained during the research, the percentage of the ingredients of the biofuel composition was determined taking into account the conditions of sufficient stability and kinematic viscosity. A modernized design of the power supply system of an agricultural tractor has been developed for its operation on a biofuel composition. It allows to maintain its viscosity-temperature properties within the framework of the current standard, regardless of the ambient temperature. The confirmation of the possibility of tractor operation on the developed composition of the new fuel was obtained experimentally.

Does the Energy-Food Nexus Still Exist: Empirical Evidence from the Indian Agriculture Sector Post Food Crisis of 2006

The present study made an attempt to empirically investigate the impact of crude oil prices on agricultural prices for India during the calendar decade 2010-19. The bio-fuels which were considered in the present study included soy-oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil and palm-oil. The study covered a period of post food crisis of 2006 and after three years of stabilization of these prices to get an insight into the current scenario. The econometric tools used to examine the relationship included Johansen Co-integration, Gregory Hansen Co-integration with structural breaks, Toda and Yamamoto Causality and GARCH (1,1) Method. The results of our study did not give sufficient evidence to prove that crude oils impacted any of the bio-fuel prices in current scenario. The long run inter-linkages between crude oil and energy crops was not established which brought us to the conclusion that the energy-food nexus was a temporary phenomenon that existed during food crisis (2006) only and crude prices were no longer a guiding force to determine the price of bio-fuels

Economic feasible strategy of cellulosic biofuels: Co-production of pentanediols

A co-production strategy to improve economics of cellulosic biofuels is presented in this study, which produces biofuel (jet fuel range alkenes (JFA)) and biochemicals (1,2-pentanediol and 1,5-pentanediol (PeDs)) from cellulose and hemicellulose fractions of lignocellulosic biomass, respectively. Based on the laboratory scale experimental data, a large-scale process is developed to identify the economic feasibility. The minimum JFA selling price (MJSP) for the JFA and PeDs co-production strategy (JFA + PeDs) is US$ 2.90 per gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE), which is below the average biofuel price (US$ 3.29/GGE). Significant revenues of PeD lead the improvement of economics in JFA + PeDs compared to the JFA-only production strategy. The sensitivity analysis shows that JFA + PeDs is mostly economic feasible regardless of the varying key cost parameters (corn stover, catalyst, steam and H2) while the revenue parameters (the prices of 1,2-PeD, and 1,5-PeD) have large impact on the economic feasibility. This study shows that co-production of biochemicals with biofuels improves overall process economics and facilitates the sustainable production of bioproducts.

Strategies To Valorize the Hydrothermal Liquefaction-Derived Aqueous Phase into Fuels and Chemicals

Valorization of the aqueous phase produced by hydrothermal liquefaction of terrestrial feedstocks is a potential strategy to decrease the minimum fuel selling price of biofuels. In this work, three...

Design and Integration of Bio-Oil Co-Processing with Vacuum Gas Oil in a Refinery

Due to the climate change and the strong dependence on fossil fuels, biomass-derived liquid transportation fuels and energy products have been proposed to deal with such situations. Usually, the prices of the bio-diesel and bio-gasoline are much higher than those of fossil fuels. The co-processing of bio-oil and vacuum gas oil (VGO) in a fluid catalytic cracker of a refinery has been proposed to utilize the existing refinery infrastructures and decrease the prices of bio-fuels. However, the integration between the bio-oil production and the existing refinery is not clear. In this work, a superstructure model is built to design and optimize the co-processing process with minimum total annual cost which features to select the optimal bio-oil production technology (fast pyrolysis or catalytic pyrolysis) and obtain the optimal integration scheme. Furthermore, the impacts of the prices of biomass and hydrogen, the bio-oil co-processing ratio on the economics of the co-processing system are also investigated. The optimal integration scheme of the co-processing of bio-oil and VGO can be obtained by solving the proposed model.

Estimating the Cost of Biofuel Use to Mitigate International Air Transport Emissions: A Case Study in Palau and Seychelles

International air transport is one of the fast-growing sources of CO2 emissions. However, it has always been omitted from the international emission mitigation pledges. The delayed mitigation process in this area may slow down the process of global CO2 emission control. In this article, we evaluated the potential to realize the emission mitigation targets in air transport through biofuel and estimated the corresponding cost. The emission from international air transport of Palau and Seychelles was taken as the example. Then, the emission caused by each airline to these two islands was calculated by the distance-based method, with information of the travelers’ arrival data, fuel consumption of different aircraft types, routes, and aircraft seat data. Future scenarios with and without commitment to CO2 mitigation targets were predicted to evaluate the emission difference. Then, we estimated the amount of biofuel required to fill the emission gap, and the corresponding cost based on the future biofuel price prediction. The results show that distance is the determining factor of international air transport emission per capita. The component of origin can decrease the aggregated emission per capita to small island destinations by 0.5–2%. The accumulated emission gaps are 3.15 Mt and 9 Mt for Palau and Seychelles, which indicates that 7.64 and 19.34 Mb of biofuel are needed for emission mitigation, respectively. The corresponding costs are $27–163 million and $72–424 million per year.