Case Study of Agricultural Residue Availability and Cost for a Cellulosic Ethanol Conversion Facility in the Henan Province of China.

摘要

A preliminary analysis of the availability and cost of corn stover and wheat straw for the area surrounding a demonstration biorefinery in the Henan Province of China was performed as a case study of potential cooperative analyses of bioenergy feedstocks between researchers and industry in the US and China. Though limited in scope, the purpose of this analysis is to provide insight into some of the issues and challenges of estimating feedstock availability in China and how this relates to analyses of feedstocks in the U.S. Completing this analysis also highlighted the importance of improving communication between U.S. researchers and Chinese collaborators. Understanding the units and terms used in the data provided by Tianguan proved to be a significant challenge. This was further complicated by language barriers between collaborators in the U.S. and China. The Tianguan demonstration biorefinery has a current capacity of 3k tons (1 million gallons) of cellulosic ethanol per year with plans to scale up to 10k tons (3.34 million gallons) per year. Using data provided by Tianguan staff in summer of 2011, the costs and availability of corn stover and wheat straw were estimated. Currently, there are sufficient volumes of wheat straw and corn stover that are considered waste and would likely be available for bioenergy in the 20-km (12-mile) region surrounding the demonstration biorefinery at a low cost. However, as the industry grows, competition for feedstock will grow and prices are likely to rise as producers demand additional compensation to fully recover costs.