A preliminary economic evaluation of the MixAlco process shows that from free biomass, the mixed alcohols could be sold for about $0.19/L ($0.72/gal) with a 15% before-tax return on investment. This is a very attractive price compared to other fuel oxygenates such as methyl tertiary butyl ether ($0.24/L or $0.90/gal) and ethanol ($0.29/L or $1.10/gal).

An obvious question is "where does one obtain free biomass?" The answer is from MSW which currently has a disposal cost ranging from $10/wet tonne (Nevada) to over $110/wet tonne (Northeast) with an average of $50/wet tonne. Processing MSW to separate the refractories (e. g., metals and glass) from the organics (e. g., paper, cardboard, food scraps) costs about $21 to $62/wet tonne (19).

Rather than sending the organics to the MixAlco Process, an alternative use for the separated organics is "refuse derived fuel" (RDF); however, chlorine — containing plastics within RDF are very corrosive requiring expensive metallurgy for the boiler tubes and scrubbers to treat the exhaust gases. As a consequence, the energy value of RDF is negative; it actually costs about $55/wet tonne to combust MSW (20). Therefore, this competing use for the separated organics is not attractive.

To avoid the combustion problems described above, the undigested residue from the MixAlco process would likely be landfilled. The undigested residues are dense (specific gravity = 1.2 at 50% moisture) compared to unprocessed MSW in a landfill (specific gravity = 0.71), so the life of a landfill can be significantly increased by employing the MixAlco Process. Assuming that metals and glass are recovered and that 63% of the remaining material is digested, the life of a landfill increases by about 3.5 times.

Taking credit for the increased life of the landfill and using $41/wet tonne as the MSW sorting cost, free biomass can be obtained from communities that currently pay $58/tonne to landfill unprocessed MSW.