ABSTRACT
As refiners face the prospect of continued depletion of fossil fuel feedstocks (i.e. natural gas, crude oil, heavy crude oil) and the difficulties of refining the viscous feedstocks (i.e. extra heavy crude oil, and tar sand bitumen), there is the need to seek alternate feedstocks as sources of products and chemicals.
As the refining industry evolves away from natural gas and crude oil as the major feedstocks, a variety of biomass feedstocks and waste-derived feedstocks will be used for chemicals production and fuels production and this may be no more evident than the use of bio feedstocks for gasifier units. Moreover, gasification is (1) a well-established technology, (2) has broad flexibility of feedstocks and operation, and (3) because of the efficiency of gas cleaning operations, is the most environmentally friendly route for handling these feedstocks for power production.
