Combining Biomass, Natural Gas, and Carbonless Heat to Produce Liquid Fuels and Electricity

In this study, a new Biomass-Gas-Nuclear heat-To-Liquid fuel (BGNTL) process is presented which uses high-temperature nuclear heat as the heat source for steam methane reforming (SMR). This process co-produces liquid fuels (Fischer-Tropsch liquids, methanol and DME) and power. The BGNTL process was simulated using a combination of different software packages including gPROMS, MATLAB, ProMax, and Aspen Plus. This included the use of a rigorous multi-scale model for the nuclear-heat-powered SMR reactor which was developed in a prior work in gPROMS. Energy efficiency and cradle-to-grave life cycle inventory and life-cycle impact analyses of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were accomplished to analyze the environmental impacts of the BGNTL system. Plant performance was compared with a base case Biomass-Gas-To-Liquid (BGTL) process at the same size. In both processes, a carbon capture and storage (CCS) option is considered. It has been found that both processes result in negative total life cycle GHG emissions due to the use of biomass as one of the feedstocks and CCS. Furthermore, the results of this study demonstrate that BGNTL process has 5% lower direct GHG emissions and 13% lower life cycle GHG emissions compared to the BGTL process due to the nuclear heat integration. Also, by using nuclear heat, fossil fuel consumption decreased by up to 10%.