Food for thought

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Food for thought

Wednesday, 31 March 2010 13:56

Biofuels are struggling to make a comeback in the world of new-age energy production, as there are many pros and cons to weigh up

Much of our modern energy-intensive lifestyle was kick-started by the invention of the internal combustion engine, in which biofuel – in the form of alcohol and ethanol – played a central role. As the old wisdom would have it: there is nothing new under the sun.

At one stage during the early history of the automobile, the legendary Henry Ford and Charles Kettering predicted that the fuel of the future was ethyl alcohol made from farm products and cellulosic materials. Kettering was the head of research at General Motors and a highly respected inventor in his own right.

Automobile engines demanded unprecedented amounts of petroleum. The early refiners could convert only a small proportion of their crude oil into gasoline – the rest was wasted or spilled into the environment.

As the number of automobiles increased, two forces played out: a shortage of quality fuel, which led the auto industry leaders of the 1920s to predict there would be no more petroleum by about 1940.

Over time, however, the abundant availability of fossil oil and the associated economic factor led to a complete takeover of the energy scene by petroleum and the disappearance of biofuels into obscurity.

As the world is forced to search for alternatives due to depleting oil reserves and the dangers of global warming, biofuels are struggling to make a comeback.

The high capital costs associated with developing sufficient biofuels stocks to make them economically viable, and emotionally charged considerations such as food security, have made it an uphill battle for biofuels.

Ironically, it now has come to light that one of the more promising sources for the production of biofuels also in nature has an association with the fossil fuels driving modern civilisation.

In the search for a high efficiency algae-based biofuel, a team of researchers at the Texas A&M University in the United States has been delving into the inner workings of the Botryococcus braunii green algae. In the process, they have discovered a direct connection between the algae and deposits of petroleum and coal.

The discovery is significant and can make a considerable contribution to biofuel’s battle to regain recognition in the marketplace.

This knowledge about the history of Botryococcus braunii could lead to the development of new strains of algae which produce the highest yield of biofuels, compared to the amount of space required to raise them.

Biofuel from algae and other plants is believed to be on the verge of mainstreaming again as a form of renewable energy, but in terms of long-term sustainability, one sticking point has been the amount of land required to raise biofuel crops.

Understandably, there is resistance at political leadership level to have biofuels source production competing for arable land with food crops in the face of widespread concerns about food security and the demands on increasingly limited water resources across the globe.

It is against the background of such concerns, for example, that the South African government – when it set blending ratios for biofuels – explicitly declared that maize, the country’s main staple food, could not be used for the production of biofuels.

The university’s research finding raises the possibility of creating a viable platform for small-scale algae biofuel farming on brownfields and other underused land, or even in (or on top of) reclaimed buildings — which in turn would help create another opportunity to invest in so-called “green jobs”.

The researchers found that oils from Botryococcus braunii could be found easily in petroleum and coal deposits, leading to the probability that the algae played a significant role in forming those fossil fuels.

Like some other types of green algae, Botryococcus braunii could produce a very high volume of fuel relative to its weight.

Botryococcus braunii has the additional advantage of producing an oil that is chemically identical to gasoline, diesel and kerosene (other algae produce vegetable oils).

On the downside, however, its growth rate is far slower than other biofuel algae, which is one fact that researchers hope to improve.

The supporters of taking this route claim that when looking at the overall benefits of growing fuel in algae farms rather than digging it out of the ground, it is quite clear that the days of fossil fuels are numbered.

For one thing, the algae farm of the future very well could be relatively small scale and located quite close to its point of use, avoiding the costs, carbon footprint, and hazards of shipping fuels over long distances.

The impact of algae farms located on brownfields and other appropriate sites would be far more manageable than the damage done by coal mining, they claim.

There are, however, those who argue that biofuels do more harm than good.

A recently leaked report in the United Kingdom brought to light the fact the country’s Department of Transport’s target for raising the level of biofuel in all fuel sold in Britain will result in millions of acres of forest being logged or burnt down and converted to plantations.

The study, likely to force a review of the target, concludes that some of the most commonly used biofuel crops fail to meet the minimum sustainability standard set by the European Commission.

The former South African Department of Minerals and Energy announced its five-year industrial biofuels strategy in December 2007. The primary objective was to create jobs in the energy crop and biofuels value chain in the former homelands, and to act as a bridge between the first and second economies in the country.

The biofuels target for 2008 to 2013 is 2%, or 400 million penetration level of biofuels in the national liquid fuel supply.

According to a progress report from the chairperson of Energy Research: Biofuels at the University of Stellenbosch, “to date, investment in biofuels in South Africa have been very modest.

“However, the development of a biofuels industry in South Africa has great potential to stimulate rural economic development, thus to help realise the second economy envisaged by the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa.

“South Africa has much more to offer when considering the capacity to grow total plant biomass (all lignocellulosic plant biomass) and not only produce sugarcane or sugarbeet streams for ethanol or subflower, canola and soya oil for biodiesel production.”

The report further points out that South Africa has a rich history as technology developers in the larger lignocellulosic conversion technologies. In the late 1970s, the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research began funding a comprehensive research programme focused on utilisation of lignocellulose through the Co-operative Scientific Programmes involving research institutes and universities.

One of the important outcomes of that initiative was the development of the consolidated bioprocessing concept that offers the largest potential cost reduction of any potential research-driven improvement in biomass to bioethanol processes to date.

The report reveals that the country presently has more than 200 small entrepreneurs who produce biodisel on small scale, mostly from waste vegetable oils. Major concerns for these entrepreneurs are feedstock, uptake and meeting specifications required by petrochemical industries.

Piet Coetzer

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