Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and oil use by DME (di-methyl ether) and FT (Fischer-Tropsch) diesel production in chemical pulp mills

Jonas M. Joelsson and Leif Gustavsson

Energy, 2012, vol. 39, issue 1, 363-374

Abstract: Using energy systems analysis, we examine the potential to reduce CO2 emissions and oil use by integrating motor biofuel production with pulp mills. BLG-DME (black liquor gasification with di-methyl ether production) is compared with solid biomass gasification with BIG-FT (solid biomass gasification with Fischer-Tropsch fuel production). The studied systems are expanded with stand-alone production of biomass-based electricity and motor fuel so that they yield the same functional unit in terms of motor fuel and electricity as well as pulp or paper product, in order to facilitate comparison. More motor biofuel can be produced in integration with the studied mills with BLG-DME than with BIG-FT because the black liquor flow is large compared with other fuel streams in the mill and the integration potential for BIG-FT is limited by the mill’s heat demand. When both systems are required to produce the same functional unit, the BLG-DME system achieves higher system efficiency and larger reductions in CO2 emissions and oil use per unit of biomass consumed. In general, integration of motor biofuel production with a pulp mill is more efficient than stand-alone motor biofuel production. Larger reductions in CO2 emissions or oil use can, however, be achieved if biomass replaces coal or oil in stationary applications.

Keywords: Biorefineries; Black liquor gasification; Motor biofuels; CO2 emission reduction; Oil use reduction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544212000060
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:39:y:2012:i:1:p:363-374

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2012.01.001

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().