Publication Summary

As part of an interagency agreement with the Washington State Department of Ecology, researchers at Washington State University were tasked to conduct a techno-economical assessment of biomass utilization building upon a 2005 study entitled Biomass Inventory and Bioenergy Assessment (http://www.ecy.wa.gov/biblio/0507047.html) which quantified the available under-utilized biomass within Washington State. The 2005 study identified, at a county level, field residue, animal waste, forestry residue, food packing/processing waste, and municipal waste categories as potential biomass sources. This assessment study expands upon the previous work by spatially investigating specific types of the inventoried biomass against three conversion technologies (dilute acid pretreatment with simultaneous saccharification and co-fermentation (SSCF), biomass gasification with mix-alcohol synthesis, and anaerobic digestion (AD)) for determination of feedstock transportation, processing and total delivered costs for the produced biofuel. To assess the final delivered costs of biofuel, a combination of studies including, biomass availability, feedstock farm-gate prices, transportation costs, processing costs, and geographic distribution were integrated into models using MATLAB-SIMULINK and GIS platforms. To evaluate the feasible scale of cellulosic ethanol processing, proximity of the processing plants to market locations in the state were also considered. After testing these models with National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) data, the models were run against data compiled in the first phase of this project (Frear et al. 2005).

The Washington State Department of Ecology provided funding for this project through the Beyond Waste Organics Waste to Resources (OWR) project. These funds were provided in the 2007-2009 Washington State budget from the Waste Reduction Recycling and Litter Control Account. OWR project goals and objectives were developed by the Beyond Waste Organics team, and were approved by the Solid Waste and Financial Assistance Program. Funding was from the Waste Reduction Recycling and Litter Control Account. OWR project goals and objectives were developed by the Beyond Waste Organics team, and were approved by the Solid Waste and Financial Assistance Program.