Bioenergy Technologies Office Multi-Year Program Plan: March 2015 Update

Abstract

The Bioenergy Technologies Office is one of the 10 technology development offices within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy. This Multi-Year Program Plan (MYPP) sets forth the goals and structure of the Bioenergy Technologies Office (the Office). It identifies the research, development, and demonstration (RD&D), and market transformation and crosscutting activities the Office will focus on over the next five years and outlines why these activities are important to meeting the energy and sustainability challenges facing the nation.This MYPP is intended for use as an operational guide to help the Office manage and coordinate its activities, as well as a resource to help communicate its mission and goals to stakeholders and the public. Bioenergy Technologies Office Mission and GoalsThe mission of the Office is to Develop and transform our renewable biomass resources into commercially viable, highperformance biofuels, bioproducts, and biopower through targeted research, development, and demonstration supported through public and private partnerships.The goal of the Office is to develop commercially viable bioenergy and bioproduct technologies to  Enable sustainable, nationwide production of biofuels that are compatible with today's transportation infrastructure, can reduce greenhouse gas emissions relative to petroleum-derived fuels, and can displace a share of petroleum-derived fuels to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil  Encourage the creation of a new domestic bioenergy and bioproduct industry.

A Techno-Economic Analysis Comparing a Hammermill and a Rotary Shear System to Process Woody Biomass for Biofuel Production

“…Table 5 summarizes the outcomes of the economic comparison across technologies for the determinist baseline model. NPV RS-HM (USD million per depot) 1 35.19 Annual Savings RS-HM (USD million per depot) 2 3.58 Annual Savings RS-HM for 8 depots (USD million) 3 28.67 NPV RS-HM (USD per ton) 4 35.84…”

“…Notes: 1 Calculated with Equation ( 4), 2 with Equation ( 5), 3 by multiplying Equation ( 5) by eight, and 4 by dividing Equation ( 5) by 100,000 tons.…”

“…Still, technical and economic barriers in lignocellulosic biomass feedstock logistic systems exist. Current efforts to overcome feedstock supply and logistic challenges focus on (1) reducing the delivered cost of sustainably produced biomass, (2) preserving and improving the quality of harvested or collected biomass feedstock to meet the requirements of biorefineries, and (3) expanding the quantity of feedstock [1,2]. Therefore, identifying, demonstrating, or verifying economical practices from the establishment through the processing of raw feedstock into reactor-ready biomass is relevant for developing the bioenergy industry [1].…”

Algal Biomass Production via Open Pond Algae Farm Cultivation: 2022 State of Technology and Future Research

“…Over recent years, NREL has published a number of design reports for both the production of algal biomass and the conversion of algae to fuels via the "combined algae processing" (CAP) pathway [2,3], both of which focused on out-year targets that, if achieved, would translate to a modeled MBSP of $494/ton for biomass (2014$, ash-free dry weight [AFDW] basis) and MFSP of $5.90 per gallon gasoline equivalent for resulting fuels (after revising the original CAP design case to match up with the outputs from the newer algae farm design case, as documented in the 2016 Multi-Year Program Plan [4]). The latter MFSP projection was based on NREL's original CAP approach focused on fuels via well-understood conversion technologies [5], which is evolving toward a focus on hydrocarbon fuels and value-added coproducts to reduce the MFSP toward future targets.…”