CHP-Integrated Fischer-Tropsch Biocrude Production under Norwegian Conditions: Techno-Economic Analysis Rajesh S Kempegowda,* ,‡ Gonzalo del Alamo, ‡ David Berstad, ‡ Mette Bugge, ‡ Berta Matas Gü ell, ‡ and Khanh-Quang Tran † † Department of Energy & Process Engineering, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway ‡ SINTEF Energy Research, Trondheim, Norway * S Supporting Information ABSTRACT: This article presents a detailed techno-economic analysis, under Norwegian conditions, for the production of biocrude from woody biomass via high temperature entrained flow gasification and Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis with integrated coproduction of heat and electricity. Biomass pretreatment based on both conventional drying and torrefaction processes are considered as options. Maximum calculated efficiency of biocrude at lower and upper bound CO conversions of 40% and 80% at the gasifier operating conditions of lambda value 0.2 and temperature 1300 °C are 27% and 44%, respectively. Under these conditions, maximum thermal and net electrical efficiency are 55% and 15.5%, respectively. The economic viability of the biocrude production for plant capacities in the range of 150-600 MW thermal input has been evaluated as a function of the type of biomass pretreatment, gasification operating conditions, and the heat to electricity production ratios. Results from the economic analysis show that coproduction of biocrude combined with 100% heat production for district heating gives the lowest biocrude cost under Norwegian conditions, with large variations as the electricity to heat production ratio increases. 1. INTRODUCTION The worldwide consumption of liquid fuels for transportation is continuously increasing and is likely to double between 2000 and 2050. 1 At the same time, there is a gradual decrease in the known reserves of fossil-fuel feedstock. This decrease is coupled with an increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly CO 2 , these being responsible for global warming. Hence, there is a need to develop methods to decrease total global greenhouse gas emissions. It is widely accepted that an important aspect in the mitigation efforts of climate change is the use of renewable fuel sources. This has led to an increasing interest in the use of biofuels. The EU Renewables Directive 2 has put forward the 20/20/20 targets to combat greenhouse gas emissions. This Directive also includes targets for the transport sector: to reach a 10% share of renewable energy by 2020, whereof a substantial part should be biofuels. Estimates carried out by Eurostat 3 states that around 25% of Europe’s transport energy demand will be supplied by advanced sustainable biofuels in 2030, saving over 90 million tonnes of mineral oil per year, while the IEA 4 roadmap envisions that by 2050, 32 EJ of biofuels will be used globally, providing 27% of the world transport fuel need. A recent Norwegian study 5 shows that biofuels may be expected to be the second most important contributor to lower greenhouse gas emissions from the Norwegian transport sector in the future. This message is coherent with recently established policies, both Norwegian 6,7 and international (e.g., the EU Renewables Directive). 2 Presently, the requirement is that 3.5% of the total fuels used for road transport in Norway shall be biomass-derived. Currently, biofuels are produced at commercial scale mainly from biomass resources which are also competing with food supply, using the so-called “First Generation Biofuel ” technologies. 8 In achieving commercialization on a large scale, first generation biofuels appear to have many shortcomings, which include land-use conflict, increasing food prices, and limited CO 2 reduction. 9,10 In order to overcome these issues, the so-called “Second Generation Biofuel” technologies 11 for the production of transport fuels from a wide range of ligno- cellulosic biomass feedstock, noncompeting with food supply, have been proposed. Among second generation biofuels, biodiesel produced via biomass gasification and Fischer- Tropsch (FT) synthesis has gained particular interest since it has a similar fuel quality to fossil-derived diesel. However, despite the numerous resources and extensive research work worldwide on developing FT biodiesel production technologies during the past few decades, the progress in industrialization and commercialization of second generation biofuels has been very limited. This is mainly due to the low biomass-to-biodiesel conversion efficiency and the large scale of the plant required in order to make it cost-effective. This requirement may be even more critical for countries like Norway, where ligno-cellulosic biomass is dispersed and, therefore, the costs and environ- mental impact of biomass transport is significant. In this context, pretreatment of ligno-cellulosic biomass via torrefac- tion for production of FT biodiesels can improve the overall conversion economics since it increases the energy density of the feedstock and, therefore reduces transportation costs and increases conversion efficiencies. Extensive research work is available in the literature addressing the improvement of biomass feedstock quality via torrefaction pretreatment processes. The following main improvements in the biomass properties after torrefaction Received: October 15, 2014 Revised: January 29, 2015 Published: January 29, 2015 Article pubs.acs.org/EF © 2015 American Chemical Society 808 DOI: 10.1021/ef502326g Energy Fuels 2015, 29, 808-822