Biorefineries with CCS

Publication Overview

The aim of this study is to provide a techno-economic assessment of biorefinery concepts with and without carbon capture and storage (CCS) as well as a comparative assessment of 1st generation and 2nd generation biorefineries. The results of this study will be of interest to developers of biorefinery and CCS projects and policy makers.

Publication Summary

• The cost of adding CCS on the high-concentration streams of biorefineries varies between 22and 24 $/tCO₂. If CCS is extended also to flue gas streams, the cost of CCS varies between 27and 66 $/tCO₂. The wider range of cost is explained by differences between biorefineries inthe share of CO₂ that needs to be captured from low-concentration streams.
• The lowest cost of CCS is achieved with gasification-based configurations using base caseCCS design (22 $/tCO₂) followed closely by ethanol plants with base case CCS design (24-25$/tCO₂).
• Several of the cost estimates are developed for first-of-a-kind commercial plants and contain alot of uncertainty as they are derived from a small handful of demonstration projects. Costreductions could be achieved over the coming decades through learning from thesetechnologies at relevant scale.
• Biorefineries with CCS show potential for negative emissions. First generation corn ethanolplants with CCS can only produce carbon negative fuels if natural gas inputs are switched to alow-carbon energy source. For second generation biorefineries with CCS, based on woodybiomass, emissions range between -59 gCO₂eq/MJ and -164 gCO₂eq/MJ. The deepestemissions reductions in comparison to the fossil reference are associated with secondgeneration wheat straw plants with CCS, which can achieve -274 gCO₂eq/MJ in the maximumcapture configuration.
• Biorefineries with CCS seem very attractive, especially for decarbonising the hard-to-abatetransport sector. On the other hand, the cost of biofuel is currently too high to compete withpetroleum fuels and out of the examined configurations only two have currently beendemonstrated at commercial scale.
• Recommendations for further work include:
• Implementation of large-scale demonstration projects in order to reduce risk andincrease investor confidence.
• More data should be made available from projects in order to refine the techno-economic assessment of biorefineries with CCS and reduce uncertainties.