TY - GEN A1 - Gonzalez-Arias, Judith A1 - Torres-Sempere, Guillermo A1 - Gonzalez-Castano, Miriam A1 - Baena-Moreno, Francisco Manuel A1 - Ramirez Reina, Tomas T1 - Hydrochar and synthetic natural gas co-production for a full circular economy implementation via hydrothermal carbonization and methanation: An economic approach T2 - Journal of Environmental Sciences N2 - Herein we study the economic performance of hydrochar and synthetic natural gas co-production 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. Y1 - 2023 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1001074223001766 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jes.2023.04.019 SN - 1878-7320 VL - Vol. 140(2024) SP - 69 EP - 78 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Baena-Moreno, Francisco Manuel A1 - González-Castaño, Miriam A1 - Arellano-García, Harvey A1 - Ramirez Reina, Tomas T1 - Exploring profitability of bioeconomy paths: Dimethyl ether from biogas as case study T2 - Energy N2 - Herein a novel path is analysed for its economic viability to synergize the production of biomethane and dimethyl ether from biogas. We conduct a profitability analysis based on the discounted cash flow method. The results revealed an unprofitable process with high cost/revenues ratios. Profitable scenarios would be reached by setting prohibitive DME prices (1983–5566 €/t) or very high feed-in tariffs subsidies (95.22 €/MWh in the best case scenario). From the cost reduction side, the analysis revealed the need of reducing investment costs. For this purpose, we propose a percentage of investment as incentive scheme. Although the size increase benefits cost/revenues ratio, only the 1000 m3/h biogas plant size will reach profitability if 90% of the investment is subsidized. A sensitivity analysis to check the influence of some important economical parameters is also included. Overall this study evidences the big challenge that our society faces in the way towards a circular economy. KW - Biomethane production KW - Biogas upgrading KW - CO2 utilization KW - Green energy production KW - Waste valorization KW - Dimethyl ether Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2021.120230 SN - 0360-5442 VL - 225 ER -