Techno-economic analysis and comparison of oil shale-to-liquid fuels and coal-to-liquid fuels processes

Liquid fuels are widely used in transportation, logistics, and lives. However the production is heavily dependent on oil. In China oil resources are relatively scarce. Import dependence is as high as 60%. To reduce dependence on oil, the production of liquid fuels from alternative energy resources, especially from oil shale and coal is increasing in China. However, few literatures can be found for analysis and comparison of oil shale-to-liquid (STL) and coal-to-liquid (CTL) processes. This paper models and simulates a STL process and a CTL process. Based on the models, analysis of the two processes is made from energy efficiency, capital investment, and production cost. Energy efficiency of STL process is lower by about 5%, compared to CTL process. This is because STL process has lower utilization rate of raw material and product yield. Total capital investment of STL process is 63.34 CNY/GJ, 70% lower than that of CTL process, because this process has simple flow scheme and lower equipment investment. However, raw material consumption of STL process is much higher. Producing 1t liquid fuels consumes 24.5 t oil shale. This makes production cost of STL process only lower by 6% compared to CTL process. © 2016, Chemical Industry Press. All right reserved.