Grain Ethanol Comparable with Advanced Biofuel Technologies

Scientists from the Iowa State University’s Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies conducted a techo-economic analysis to compare the costs of grain ethanol obtained from biochemical processing of corn with four lignocellulose-feedstock-based “advanced biofuels”, produced either by the “biochemical platform” or the “thermochemical platform”. The  four “advanced biofuels” include: (1) cellulosic ethanol  (2) thermochemical hydrogen (3) thermochemical methanol and (4) thermochemical Fischer-Tropsch liquids.

Using a 150 million gallon “gasoline-equivalent” of the target biofuel per year as the common basis for production capacity, the results show that the operating costs of the “advanced biofuels” were comparable with those of grain ethanol. Although the capital costs for “advanced biofuels” were higher than grain ethanol by a factor of 5, the corresponding costs of the lignocellulosic feedstocks were lower. Under the present conditions, the scientists conclude that both grain ethanol and advanced biofuel technologies have “opportunities to compete with each other”. The experiment and the complete analysis is published in the journal “Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining” (URL above).  

Related information on the concept of “gasoline equivalent gallon” http://alternativefuels.about.com/od/resources/a/gge.htm 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline-equivalent_gallon