Techno-economic comparisons of hydrogen and synthetic fuel production using forest residue feedstock

Mobile distributed pyrolysis facilities have been proposed for delivery of a forest residue resource to bio-fuel facilities. This study examines the costs of producing hydrogen or synthetic petrol (gasoline) and diesel from feedstock produced by mobile facilities (bio-oil, bio-slurry, torrefied wood). Results show that using these feedstock can provide fuels at costs competitive to conventional bio-fuel production methods using gasification of a woodchip feedstock. Using a bio-oil feedstock in combination with bio-oil steam reforming or bio-oil upgrading can produce hydrogen or petrol and diesel at costs of 3.25 $ kg−1 or 0.86 $ litre−1, respectively, for optimally sized bio-fuel facilities. When compared on an energy basis ($ GJ−1), hydrogen production costs tend to be lower than those for synthetic petrol or diesel production across a variety of bio-fuel production pathways.