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Biofuel production in Europe - Potential from lignocellulosic waste

Abstract

The objective of this study is to analyze the biofuel potential in Europe from lignocellulosic waste (wood waste and paper and cardboard waste). Ethanol from fermentation and Fischer-Tropsch (FT) diesel from gasification are the two biofuels considered. As those biofuels are not yet commercially available, the optimal locations of the production plants have to be determined. The analysis is carried out with a geographic explicit model that minimizes the total cost of the biofuel supply chain. A mixed integer linear program is used for the optimization. The results show that ethanol production plants are selected in a majority of the studied cases. Ethanol plants are mainly set up in areas with a high heat demand and/or high electricity or heat price, whereas FT diesel production plants are set up in areas where the heat demand is low all year round. A high cost for emitting CO2 as well as high transport fossil fuel prices favor the selection of FT diesel over ethanol production plants. With a CO2 cost of 100 Euros/tCO2 applied, the biofuel production from waste can potentially meet around 4% of the European transport fuel demand

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