Food and Fuel - innovative options for developing countries

Food and Fuel

– innovative options for

developing countries

Ron Oxburgh

21st Century - a Changing & less

Predictable World• A more unpredictable climate

• The need to limit GHG emissions

• Profound changes in price relativities with much local variability

– >$100 oil; all fossil fuels more expensive

– Other non-renewable raw materials – more expensive

– Water - scarcer/costlier many places

– Land – more competition

– >6.5 billion people & rising - labour – relatively cheaper ?

• Future total dependence on what can be grown – food, materials and some fuel

What hasn’t changed:

• The need to eat

• the urge to travel

Travel – Internal Combustion

Engine!• Rising demand for liquid fuel – needed as long as the

ICE is used – minimum 25 years

• Mineral oil – environmentally damaging – alternatives?

• Hydrogen? – very distant future

• Fuels from plants:– Can be less damaging to the environment than mineral oil

– Opportunities for poor farmers

Suitable bio-molecules

Available in:

• sugars & starches

• Vegetable oils

• Proteins

• Cellulose

• lignin rich residues

• Food crops:– Corn

– Wheat

– Sugar

– Barley

– Canola

– Soy

– Palm

• Bye products

• Straw

• Forestry

• Animal wastes

• Sewage

• Non-food products

from marginal land

• Jatropha

• Prolific grasses

• Others?

Biofuels

• Fuel liquids can be made from anything that can be grown or once grew:

• Must make sense:

– Financially

– In energy-balance

– Environmentally

Even if otherwise acceptable, a mono-product biofuel industry based on agricultural land would be too small to be globally significant – not enough land

Forests

42

Deserts

45

Crops 16 Tropical

Savannah 23OCEANS

360

Biofuels – impossible on agricultural land

CONTINENT

150

Wetlands, Tundra, Grass, Ice, etc.

World Gasoline

Requirement

World Diesel

Requirement

New crops+?Algae

?+ other bye-

products and

organic wastes

(areas – million km2 )

Ethanol from Straw

First Cellulose Ethanol

Shipment: April 21, 2004

Co-production of food and fuel

1. Agricultural residues

NATIVE JATROPHA TREES

Robust & undemandingon marginal land

2. New Feedstocks i

Jatropha curcas

• Perennial tree – 30-40 yrs; full fruiting after 5 yrs.

• Grows on degraded or marginal land - reforestation

• Efficient use of water

• Minimum-tillage planting

• Can be largely fertilized with residues

• C-sequestration in root system

• Oil inedible

Jatropha curcas (2)

• Labour intensive: ca. one person/ha – jobs where needed

• Wild tree yield ca. 1.7 t/ha

• Crude oil used directly in heavy static diesel engines

• Emissions saving >60% over mineral oil

• Anti-feedant properties

• D1/BP – ca. 200,000 Ha on three continents

Jatropha, Swaziland with okra intercrops

J. Curcas - Expelling the oil

Jatropha - sustainable biofuel story

• Reforestation of degraded or marginal land with orchards of jatropha curcas

• Short rotation intercrops between j.c. rows

• Carbon sequestration in root systems

• Fruit:– Seeds for fuel oil (non-edible)

– Seed cake for protein feed

– Hulls for char

• About one job/ha created

• Local self-sufficiency in biodiesel

Miscanthus

2. New Feedstocks ii

The Joker?3. ALGAE

Jatropha Carbon Economics –

System Approach

A: ‘C-credits’ – Energy content of biofuel

– Carbon sequestration in tree & root system

– Credit for co-products

B: ‘C-debits’

– Tillage soil gas release

– Fuel – transport,

processing, cultivation

– ? Fertilizer

– ? Displaced plant life

• Environmental Impacte.g. drainage, water use & quality, erosion,

ecosystems, community life etc.

P

Jatropha Cash Economics

• Land costs

• Planting and husbandry costs

• 1.7 Toe/Ha - or more?

• Local transport

• Crushing and de-gumming costs

• Crude oil transport to refinery

• Key economic differentiators– Yield

– Logistics

• Unless oil price collapses, within five years Jatropha oil should be fuel of choice on both cost & environmental grounds

Biofuels & Biofuels – C saving

00.010.020.030.040.050.060.070.080.090.1

Eth

anol

(Stra

w)

Eth

anol

(whe

at)

Eth

anol

(Bee

t)

Bio

diese

l (ra

pe)

Eth

anol

(Us Corn

)

Unlead

ed Petro

l

Low S

Diese

l

Kg

CO

2eq

/ M

J

Data from Elsayed et al 2003

Conclusions

• Agriculture will be of massive importance in 21st century -sustainability

• All parts of the plant will be used – co-production– Food

– Fuel

– Raw materials

– Fabrication

– Fertiliser

• New cultivars needed for more variable conditions

• Job opportunities for the very poor

• There are ‘good’ biofuels and ‘bad’ biofuels