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Biofuels Research

BEACCON Model

The BEACCON (Biofuels Emissions and Cost Connection) model allows ethanol producers to evaluate the potential impacts on production costs of the global warming intensity (GWI) of different biofuel production pathways. Version 1.0 of the model focuses on ethanol plants with a capacity of 100 million gallons per year. BEACCON is implemented in Excel®, and may be downloaded free of charge.

BEACCON calculates

  • Production costs of ethanol taking into account plant capital costs, corn costs, energy feedstock costs, labor, chemicals, and other cost components
  • Energy system costs taking into account energy system capital costs, thermal fuel and electricity feedstocks
  • GWI of ethanol on a life cycle basis by major contributing components: agricultural phase, thermal energy feedstocks, and grid electricity

BEACCON includes

  • Energy balance and cost requirements of 12 different ethanol plant energy systems
  • Prevailing energy prices in 9 different states (home to over 80% of the current installed ethanol plant capacity)
  • Life cycle global warming intensity of all NERC and eGRID electricity grid regions
  • Coal, natural gas, and biomass fired ethanol plants
  • Advanced plant configurations including combined heat and power systems, gasification, co-firing, and nuclear co-location systems

Ethanol Industry Data

I'm maintaining (irregularly) an Excel-based database of US ethanol facilities based primarily on data published by the Ethanol RFA, augmented with information from Ethanol Producer Magazine and elsewhere.

The spreadsheet includes a listing of ethanol facilities in place and or under construction, including capacities, feedstocks, location, and in some cases, primary energy source and year of construction. Other useful data and summaries are provided on additional worksheets. The following versions are available: