5. CONCLUSIONS
• Biomass will have difficulty displacing domestic coal if it must compete solely on a basis of cost per unit of energy content.
If commercial factors are the only consideration, the difference between biomass production cost and its value as a boiler fuel will offer little incentive for production of dedicated energy crops on a scale sufficient to significantly affect coal displacement.
• The higher value of transportation fuels, per unit of energy content, will provide greater incentive for establishment of energy crop production on a scale needed for a viable bio-fuels industry.
The unit cost of bio-fuels produced from biomass alone, however, is still too high to compete with
currently priced gasoline produced from petroleum.
• The cost of alcohol production from biomass can be reduced, and the alcohol yield increased, by use of natural gas as a co-feedstock in a thermochemical process.
This might be accomplished with a thermal efficiency as high as 69-73% and a production cost of US$7.0 GJ -~ for fuel