Figure 1

(a) Summary of the techno-economic (TE) model used in this study. Primary measurements of feedstock and process intermediate composition are used to calculate experimental yields for each unit operation. These calculated yields as well as the feedstock composition are used in the process model to determine mass and energy balances which are in turn used by an economic model (along with economic assumptions) to calculate the minimum ethanol selling price (MESP). (b) Detailed methodology to calculate MESP uncertainty. In Step 1, we determine the normalized sensitivity by quantifying the normalized response in MESP to changes in each variable. These sensitivity values are used as inputs to the uncertainty analysis in Step 2 to determine the uncertainties in calculated yield values based on pilot- and laboratory-scale experimental data. In Step 3 we perform Monte Carlo simulations of the TE model using distributions of the key variables based on the uncertainties calculated in Step 2. Calculated values are shown in blue.