ABSTRACT
The higher price of oil has attracted the greater attention to biofuels, especially bioethanol. Currently, almost all bioethanol is produced from grain or sugarcane, for example, from corn (maize) in the US and from sugarcane in Brazil. However, as this kind of feedstock is essentially food, biofuel production from these crops, especially corn, has attracted criticism due to rising food prices and the global food shortage. In the comparison study, raw materials are assumed to be woody biomass produced during forest management and abandoned in the forest. Bioethanol is used worldwide as transportation fuel in the form of ethanol blended with gasoline, ethyl tertiary butyl ether blended with gasoline or neat ethanol. The biomethanol production process was revealed as being preferable to the bioethanol process in terms of energy yield, carbon conversion and environmental burden except electrical energy consumption.
