It is expected that Brazil could play an important role in biojet fuel (BJF) production in the future due to the long experience in biofuel production and the good agroecological conditions. However, it is difficult to quantify the techno-economic potential of BJF because of the high spatiotemporal variability of available land, biomass yield, and infrastructure as well as the technological developments in BJF production pathways. The objective of this research is to assess the recent and future technoeconomic potential of BJF production in Brazil and to identify location-specific optimal combinations of biomass crops and technological conversion pathways. In total, 13 production routes (supply chains) are assessed through the combination of various biomass crops and BJF technologies. We consider temporal land use data to identify potential land availability for biomass production. With the spatial distribution of the land availability and potential yield of biomass crops, biomass production potential and costs are calculated. The BJF production cost is calculated by taking into account the development in the technological pathways and in plant scales. We estimate the techno-economic potential by determining the minimum BJF total costs and comparing this with the range of fossil jet fuel prices. The techno-economic potential of BJF production ranges from 0 to 6.4 EJ in 2015 and between 1.2 and 7.8 EJ in 2030, depending on the reference fossil jet fuel price, which varies from 19 to 65 US$/GJ across the airports. The techno-economic potential consists of a diverse set of production routes. The Northeast and Southeast region of Brazil present the highest potentials with several viable production routes, whereas the remaining regions only have a few promising production routes. The maximum techno-economic potential of BJF in Brazil could meet almost half of the projected global jet fuel demand toward 2030. K E Y W O R D Saviation, bioenergy costs, bioenergy potential, biofuels, geographic information system, land availability, land use, renewable jet fuels, techno-economic assessment | 157 CERVI Et al.
This study assesses the environmental potential of crop residues and the techno‐economic potential of biojet fuel (BJF) production in Brazil. Different production routes are evaluated from two types of biomass residues (sugarcane straw and eucalyptus harvest residue), and four different technological pathways (alcohol to jet, Fischer–Tropsch, hydrothermal liquefaction and pyrolysis). The environmental potential of biomass residues is determined utilizing spatio‐temporal projections of land‐use change in Brazil and by explicitly modeling the erosion risk and the soil organic carbon (SOC) balance spatially. The assessment of the techno‐economic potential of BJF production from the environmental potential of sugarcane straw (SCS) and eucalyptus harvest residues (EHRs) considers the BJF total costs, which result from a summation of biomass residue recovery costs, BJF conversion costs, and BJF transportation costs. These BJF total costs are compared with the range of fossil jet fuel prices at Brazilian airports to quantify the techno‐economic potential. The environmental potential of biomass residues varies from 70 Mt in 2015 to 102 Mt in 2030, with SCS being highly constrained by SOC, whereas EHRs are more constrained by the high erosion risk. These quantities can generate a techno‐economic BJF potential ranging from 0.45 EJ in 2015 (46 US$/GJ – 65 US$/GJ) to 0.67 EJ in 2030 (19 US$/GJ – 65 US$/GJ). In 2030, several BJF production routes can be competitive with fossil jet fuel prices. The northeast and southeast regions have the highest potential, especially in 2030. © 2020 The Authors. Biofuels, Bioproducts, and Biorefining published by Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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