Ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass: techno-economic performance in short-, middle- and long-term

The state of the art of hydrolysis-fermentation technologies to produce ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass, as well as developing technologies, is evaluated. Promising conversion concepts for the short-, middle- and long-term are defined. Their technical performance was analysed, and results were used for economic evaluations. The current available technology, which is based on dilute acid hydrolysis, has about 35% efficiency (HHV) from biomass to ethanol. The overall efficiency, with electricity co-produced from the not fermentable lignin, is about 60%. Improvements in pre-treatment and advances in biotechnology, especially through process combinations can bring the ethanol efficiency to 48% and the overall process efficiency to 68%. We estimate current investment costs at 2.1 k€/kWHHV (at 400 MWHHV input, i.e. a nominal 2000 tonne dry/day input). A future technology in a 5 times larger plant (2 GWHHV) could have investments of 900 k€/kWHHV. A combined effect of higher hydrolysis-fermentation efficiency, lower specific capital investments, increase of scale and cheaper biomass feedstock costs (from 3 to 2 €/GJHHV), could bring the ethanol production costs from 22 €/GJHHV in the next 5 years, to 13 €/GJ over the 10–15 year time scale, and down to 8.7 €/GJ in 20 or more years.