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