obmar
|
Biofuel and Its FearsBiofuel and Its Fears
(This article was published in the The Planters- Editorial 82(967): 653-656 (2006))
Bioenergy, derived from sustainable agricultural practices and resources, has received increased consideration as a renewable substitute for fossil fuels. According to the World Energy Outlook by 2030 world energy consumption under the "Business as Usual" will increase by about 1.8% per year between 2000 and 2030, driven by economic and population growth. By 2030, the world energy system will still continue to be dominated by fossil fuels but a bigger portion of the world energy demand is expected to come from the developing countries up at 55% as compared to 40% now. Given this scenario, over the next 30 years one of the challenges under the Kyoto Protocol System, is to go for the "Alternative Scenario" as against the "Business as Usual". This will be based on a combination of using mandatory policies, regulations and voluntary agreements for adoption by the industrialized countries and developing countries to improve the energy system and to reduce the CO2 emissions.
Changing energy system is not simple but there are good reasons to believe that bioenergy representing a clean and renewable source of energy may play a major role in the progression to an alternative or sustainable energy scenario. Bioenergy production being a compound issue that depends on many varying factors can play a significant role in improving rural productivity, energy supply, the environment, economic development and sustainability. Within the context of production and exploitation of modern bioenergy resources, there are opportunities to address CO2 substitution since biomass is carbon neutral source of energy, land degradation through carbon sequestration in soils through better land management, biodiversity preservation by planting abundant land and marginal areas with long-term energy crops like oil palm, air pollution by reducing atmospheric emissions of CO2 and health problems as bioenergy resources have a lower sulphur and nitrogen oxides content than fossil fuels.
Bioenergy resources such as biofuels comprising of bio-ethanol and bio-diesel, biogas and biomass are derived from a variety of agricultural crops such as sugar cane, rapeseed coconut, Jojoba, Jatropha, oil palm, soyabean and sunflower. As most of the crops used for biofuels are grown predominantly in developing countries, they hold the great potential for boosting these producing countries' trade, investment and development. Malaysia in practising sustainable forest and crop management is unlikely to sacrifice its pristine forests to increase the area for producing palm oil for biofuel. In a projection of potential area for planting of oil palm by 2020 oil palm is expected to reach 4.5 million ha from the current 4.0 million ha in 2005. The strategy, as limited by constraint of available land, would be to raise national yield per ha where under the National Committee on Palm Oil Productivity by 1t per ha.
Raising production by increasing areas or by yield per ha without finding market for the palm oil can cause price depression due to yield fluctuation leading to high year end stock situations though overall long-term consumption pattern continues to outstrip supply. Presently palm oil is exported regularly to over 150 countries though individually over 180 countries have imported our palm oil. At the moment the year-end palm oil stock when exceeded 1 million t would result in an apparent depression of palm oil prices arising for perception of an over-supply situation. Thus venturing into biodiesel production is initially an economic decision to mop up excess stock in the short-term. However in the long term the biodiesel strategy is to expand the use of. palm oil along this path. Recently in their joint negotiations Malaysia and Indonesia have agreed to use up to 40% of their production for biodiesel conversion.
In the 1980s, when the price of petroleum was around USD 18/barrel, Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) had already embarked research on biodiesel. As the premium for use of palm oil for food is higher than that for biodiesel, this discovery was not capitalized. Now with the price of fossil fuel fluctuating between USD 75 to 80/barrel, Malaysia with its available biodiesel technology is ready to take advantage of the high price of fossil fuel and explore moves on how to bring the biodiesel strategy to a greater height.
Ever since the announcement of the construction of the first three biodiesel plants, prices of palm oil have stabilized to about RM 1500. A biodiesel plant with a capacity of 60,000 t capacity each costs RM 40 million to build. The first two plants are expected to start operation in July or August 2006 to produce the first 120,000t biodiesel. The initial aim is to float the biodiesel market to see how big the actual response is. So far the government has received 61 applications to set up biodiesel plants as the demand is expected to be strong for alternative fuel resources. Enquires are also from potential buyers for our biodiesel from EU, US, Australia and South Korea. Global demand for biodiesel is expected to touch 10.5 million t in two years with Malaysia having the potential of capturing a tenth of that or 1 million t.
Currently, the government has approved the construction of 22 biodiesel plants with the combined capacity to earn export earnings of some RM 700 million in export revenue based on the current crude palm oil prices. Currently 10 biodiesel are being constructed and 12 will follow. When all the other approved plants are on-stream, the production of biodiesel will reach 500,000 t in 2007 will help to raise palm oil prices due to the tight supply situation of palm oil and open up new opportunities for Malaysia to enter into the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries in a big way.
By blending 5% of the biodiesel into the fossil diesel to produce the B5 fuel mix this will contribute to the country's attempt to reduce our dependence of fossil fuel. Indonesia is reported to blend 10% but both countries will stick on to the 40% target for conversion to biodiesel. The price of fossil fuel is projected to exceed USD 100/barrel in 2007. Europe is taking a lead by projecting the increase the use of biodiesel from the current 2% to 5.75% by 2010 in effort to replace petroleum diesel. Currently, Malaysia is using 10 million t of fossil diesel and the 5% blend would mop up 1 million t of palm oil. In the east coast state of Pahang which is expected to be the biofuel hub, a RM100 million biodiesel and glycerine purification refinery plant to be built by 2007 in Kuantan will have a capacity of producing 100,000 t biodiesel. The choice of location is mainly due to the proximity to the primary feedstock of crude palm oil. Such a plant will have an advantage over the EU rival which has to secure its feed supply at highly competitive price. As biodiesel fetches a higher price in Europe than in Malaysia, there is fear that Malaysia will cut down more pristine forests for oil palm to feed the demand of biofuel.
One appears to be living in an age dominated by fear. A good example is that after the incident of September 11, 2001, every one seems to be gripped with fear. The palm oil industry is not spared either from commercial terrorism like the smear campaigns. The competitors of palm oil and the irresponsible NGOs who do not speak with facts have been quick to jump to the conclusion that Malaysia will cut down its pristine forest to grow oil palm to convert it to biodiesel since it is renewable resource of energy. This has created fear in the conservationists who also quickly use unfair lobby that any food product with palm oil will contribute to the destruction of orangutans and their habitats.
Another major worry of many conservationists is the state of the environment. The fear here this time is from the climate change experts who think that the biodiesel claim of environmental friendliness would require assessment using the whole life cycle analysis approach to confirm the fact whether savings in greenhouse gas emissions reduction from the tailpipe of a car is actually attractive. Only when such an LCA data from study are available can claim of oil palm oil as a net sequester of GHG emissions be made. This means all the high energy expended in producing inputs like fertilizer, pesticide, etc are totaled up from field during the growing, processing, manufacturing and distributing stages to get the net sum. As the new and more complete LCA methodology standards of ISO 14040 and ISO 14044, and also the greenhouse gas measurement standard ISO 14064 are out recently, they should be used to compare palm oil with that of soya bean oil.
Another fear is the poor performance of palm diesel in the cold countries. Palm biodiesel, like any other vegetable oil biofuel, has several proven advantages such as higher combustion temperature, biodegradable, higher oxygen content than fossil diesel, and higher combustion efficiency. There are two drawbacks. The first is the lower energy content of 121k BTU as compared with 135k BTU of fossil diesel. The net result is most car engines do not detect the slight decrease in torque, power and fuel efficiency. The second drawback is that the cloud point is at 15oC whereas fossil diesel is at -7oC. This has largely been overcome by the developing the wintering agent where the cloud point is now set at -20oC. This has enabled the biodiesel to penetrate the market in Europe and other temperate countries.
Suffice to say, Europe being committed to use 5.75% of renewable energy by 2010, will require a big demand of biodiesel. Assuming that 20% of the 10 million ha of rapeseed in Europe is currently used for biodiesel production, there is still a need of another 3 million ha of agricultural land be converted for the production of rapeseed to meet the target 5.75 % for renewable energy. The equivalent land area for production in terms of oil palm is a smaller area of 600,000 ha and this would mean more forests will be cleared in Europe for oilseed crop planting resulting is less biodiversity. The pull is for greater import of Malaysian biodiesel into EU because the rapeseed biodiesel production, due to the price premium of USD 200/t over palm oil, is more expensive by the same amount. Therefore Europe-bound market for Malaysian palm oil-derived biodiesel is expected to increase.
To keep the area under oil palm within the projected 4.5 million by 2020, the biomass of oil palm which can be converted to five types of oil viz., biodiesel from excess palm oil, bioethanol from fermentation of oil palm fibre, energy for combustion of biomass, capturing of biogas from effluent pond and obtaining bio-oil from pyrolysis of the bomass under high temperature could explore the possibility of building pilot plants for biogas and biooil production. Hence the biofuel story from palm oil is just only the beginning. Perhaps "Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present to live better in the future" as noted by William Wordsworth, English Poet (1770-1850). So instead of vegetable oil seed producers fighting palm oil producers, we can collaborate. The French Author Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869) had rightly observed that "History teaches everything including the future" so let us learn from our past mistakes of fighting each other and we can benefit from previous experiences by collaborating..
Finally, the world requires greater production of vegetable oils and fats and there is a big scope for all. Let us understand each other and remove our fears by collaboration. This is because as opined American poet Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) that "History cannot give use a programme for the future but it can give us a fuller understanding of our selves, and our common humanity so we can better faced the future" to jointly produce more oil for the earth growing population.
So in the future, all producers of vegetable oils and fats have a role to play. The world's need for oils and fats is high on its agenda for food security, poverty alleviation and only after that any excess is used as biodiesel - an increasingly attractive energy option. Concern for the public good should be both the government and all producers of oils and fats first responsibility. With the rising prices of crude petroleum, the fears of more palm oil being used for biodiesel conversion as a result of the incentive to make biodiesel must be balanced against the rising vegetable oil consumption coming from the increase in population.
Dr Chan Kook Weng, FISP
|
The Inquisitor
|
Well put.
I agree with the concept. It's not exactly the way they express it in the US and other developed countries, but it should be that way. There will be a definite need for palm oil in the future starting with China and India. That's where you guys need to first start marketing your production.
|
|
|
|