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Energy research Centre of the Netherlands
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The European Commission has defined very ambitious proposals for the substitution of fossil transportation fuels by alternative fuels and biofuels. While the first few percent substitution can be realised with the so-called first-generation biofuels, i.e. mainly biodiesel and conventional bioethanol, higher biofuel shares can only be realised with second-generation biofuels like Fischer-Tropsch (FT) diesel and lignocellulosic bioethanol. FT diesel is a high-quality designer fuel and this so-called biomass-to-liquids (BTL) fuel has a much higher environmental efficiency and superior fuel properties compared to the first-generation fuel biodiesel. The scope of the study in this report is to answer the question: “what is the (economic) optimum scale for BTL fuel production”. For this purpose the production costs of Fischer-Tropsch diesel was calculated as a function of the plant scale. In this study a simple engineering approach was followed to determine the investment costs.
