Herein we study the economic performance of hydrochar and synthetic natural gas coproduction from olive tree pruning.The process entails a combination of hydrothermal carbonization and methanation.In a previous work,w...Herein we study the economic performance of hydrochar and synthetic natural gas coproduction from olive tree pruning.The process entails a combination of hydrothermal carbonization and methanation.In a previous work,we evidenced that standalone hydrochar production via HTC results unprofitable.Hence,we propose a step forward on the process design by implementing a methanation,adding value to the gas effluent in an attempt to boost the overall process techno-economic aspects.Three different plant capacities were analyzed(312.5,625 and 1250 kg/hr).The baseline scenarios showed that,under the current circumstances,our circular economy strategy in unprofitable.An analysis of the revenues shows that hydrochar selling price have a high impact on NPV and subsidies for renewable coal production could help to boost the profitability of the process.On the contrary,the analysis for natural gas prices reveals that prices 8 times higher than the current ones in Spain must be achieved to reach profitability.This seems unlikely even under the presence of a strong subsidy scheme.The costs analysis suggests that a remarkable electricity cost reduction or electricity consumption of the HTC stage could be a potential strategy to reach profitability scenarios.Furthermore,significant reduction of green hydrogen production costs is deemed instrumental to improve the economic performance of the process.These results show the formidable techno-economic challenge that our society faces in the path towards circular economy societies.展开更多
基金supported by the grants FJC2021–047672-I and FJC2021–048089-Ico-financed by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the European Union Next Generation EU/PRTR funds+1 种基金sponsored by Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the project PLEC2021–008086 sponsored by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 Next Generation Europe and Junta de Andalucía PAIDI program through the project P20_00667MZAMBRANO-2021–19889 excellence grant sponsored by the European Union Next Generation EU program。
文摘Herein we study the economic performance of hydrochar and synthetic natural gas coproduction from olive tree pruning.The process entails a combination of hydrothermal carbonization and methanation.In a previous work,we evidenced that standalone hydrochar production via HTC results unprofitable.Hence,we propose a step forward on the process design by implementing a methanation,adding value to the gas effluent in an attempt to boost the overall process techno-economic aspects.Three different plant capacities were analyzed(312.5,625 and 1250 kg/hr).The baseline scenarios showed that,under the current circumstances,our circular economy strategy in unprofitable.An analysis of the revenues shows that hydrochar selling price have a high impact on NPV and subsidies for renewable coal production could help to boost the profitability of the process.On the contrary,the analysis for natural gas prices reveals that prices 8 times higher than the current ones in Spain must be achieved to reach profitability.This seems unlikely even under the presence of a strong subsidy scheme.The costs analysis suggests that a remarkable electricity cost reduction or electricity consumption of the HTC stage could be a potential strategy to reach profitability scenarios.Furthermore,significant reduction of green hydrogen production costs is deemed instrumental to improve the economic performance of the process.These results show the formidable techno-economic challenge that our society faces in the path towards circular economy societies.
