It’s not yet commercially available, but a drop-in gasoline blendstock from agricultural wastes promises to compete with $30/bbl oil. On a 10-year amortized basis for capex, the developers say the fuel production process may break even with crude oil at roughly $20.30/bbl of crude (assuming refining costs of $8.66 per barrel).

Biogasoline is derived from corn stover and bagasse.The drop-in gasoline blendstock, for a 100,000 tpy plant (roughly 36.7 million gallons), is expected to cost $0.69 per gallon based on available estimates for corn stover, and less in the case of sugar cane bagasse.

The process, which uses the complete waste residue, converts lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose to a biogasoline composed of furanic and non-toxic benzenic compounds from non-food agricultural wastes. The estimated yield is 256 gallons biofuel per ton dried biomass, with theoretical yields of up to 2.2 times those for cellulosic ethanol, taking into account the conservation of carbon and the use of lignin.

The technology was developed and patented by researchers from University Nova in Lisbon, Portugal, and will be the focus of scale-up efforts at the Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit at the Berkeley Lab.