Comparative economics of biorefineries based on the biochemical and thermochemical platforms

A variety of biochemical and thermochemical technologies have been proposed for the production of biofuels. Meaningful economic comparisons require that they be evaluated on the same bases in terms of technology maturity, plant capacity, the energy content of the fuel, feedstock costs, method of calculating capital charges, and year in which the analysis is assumed. Such an analysis for first-generation biomass-to-biofuels plants reveals that capital costs will be comparable for advanced biochemical and thermochemical biorefineries, costing four to five times as much as comparably sized grain ethanol plants. The cost of advanced biofuels, however, will be similar to that of grain ethanol as corn prices exceed $3.00 per bushel. (c) 2007 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd