Bio-synthetic natural gas as fuel in steel industry reheating furnAccs - A case study of economic performance and effects on giobai CO(2) emissions

Climate change is of great concern for society today. Manufacturing industries and construction account for approximately 20% of global CO(2) emissions and, consequently, it is important that this sector investigate options to reduce its CO(2) emissions. One option could be to substitute fossil fuel...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energy (Oxford) 2013-08, Vol.57, p.699-708
Main Author: Johansson, Maria T
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Climate change is of great concern for society today. Manufacturing industries and construction account for approximately 20% of global CO(2) emissions and, consequently, it is important that this sector investigate options to reduce its CO(2) emissions. One option could be to substitute fossil fuels with renewable alternatives. This paper describes a case study in which four future energy market scenarios predicting 2030 were used to analyse whether it would be profitable for a steel plant to produce bio-SNG (bio-synthetic natural gas) in a biomass gasifier and to substitute LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) with bio-SNG as fuel in reheating furnAccs. The effects on global CO(2) emissions were analysed from a perspective in which biomass is considered a limited resource. The results from the analysis show that investment in a biomass gasifier and fuel conversion would not be profitable in any of the scenarios. Depending on the scenario, the production cost for bio-SNG ranged between 22 and 36 EUR/GJ. Fuel substitution would reduce global CO(2) emission if the marginal biomass user is a producer of transportation fuel. However, if the marginal user of biomass is a coal power plant with wood co-firing, the result would be increased global CO(2) emissions.
ISSN:0360-5442