Economic and environmental assessment of different forestry biomass to bioenergy conversion configurations in the South-eastern USA region

Abstract

In order to limit the global mean temperature, increase efforts need to be made to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A commonly recognized strategy to reduce GHG emissions is by replacing fossil fuels by renewable energy sources. This research looks at the production of bioenergy by ten different supply chains, and compares the produced bioenergy to the fossil fuel references, which the bioenergy could replace. The configurations use the two biomass feedstocks loblolly pine and natural hardwood, and the five conversion technologies pelleting, combined torrefaction and pelleting, fermentation, combined gasification and Fischer-Tropsch, and pyrolysis. It is found that the configuration converting loblolly pine by pelleting leads to the highest GHG reduction per tonne biomass input, and that this configuration has the highest GHG emission reduction per additional dollar spent.