Given the right conditions, algae grow incredible fast and can double in size in 24 hours. Unlike other biofuel feedstocks, such as Jatropha or palm oil, algae can be harvested ever day. Due to the high storage capability of lipids, up to 50% of an algae’s net weight can be comprised of oil, whereas Jatropha plants — currently the largest producer of oil to make biofuels — yield just about 30% of their weight in oil.

Across the board, oil yields from agriculture are already impressive: soy pro­duces some 50 gallons of oil per acre per year; canola, 150 gallons; and palm, 650 gallons. However, algae are expected to produce 10 000 gallons per acre per year and eventually even more.

Yields expressed in gallons of oil per acre per year cover a vast range from 5000 to 50 000. This wide range is a clear sign that the plant is not domesticated and that scientifically a lot more research needs to be done to standardize oil production. If all aspects of the cultivation are controlled, such as temperature, carbon dioxide levels, sunlight, and nutrients, extremely high yields can be obtained.

Algae also reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Algae take in carbon dioxide and replace it with oxygen during the process of photosynthesis. Like other fuels, they release carbon dioxide when burned. Ultimately, net emissions are zero because the carbon dioxide released in burning is the same amount that was absorbed initially.

The difficult part about algae production is growing these "free radicals” uni­formly and harvesting them efficiently.

Proponents of algae are often of the opinion that large-scale algae production is the only viable method by which to produce enough automotive fuel to replace current world diesel usage.

4.2.3

When children are educated, economic productivity is raised, infant and maternal mortality are lowered, nutrition is improved, health is promoted, and the like­lihood of education in subsequent generations is increased. No country has ever sustained rapid growth with high levels of illiteracy, malnutrition, and morbidity. Countries that have successfully achieved growth are those that have simulta­neously promoted economic and social development.

Poverty experts across the globe know that to achieve sustainable economic growth, children must have access to education. Providing jobs is only one part of

the development equation. Education is the key. SORESIN understands this and invest in education in the communities in which SORESIN operates, starting with paying a teacher’s salary, and moving toward providing supplies, books, and school facilities.

6.7.5

Energy security is an important theme in the United States and the US Army plays a big role. With subsidies of $1.5 billion, the US government wants to bring next — generation biofuels to market, according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack (http://www. bioenergywiki. net/U. S._Department_of_Agriculture).

Vilsack said the aid would assure that renewable fuel consumption would reach 36 billion gallons by 2022, with the bulk of it coming from non-food sources such as grass, algae, or woody plants. "Production of 36 billion gallons of biofuels will require that biorefineries dot the rural landscape,” said Vilsack, who linked biofuels with rural prosperity.

The number of biorefineries would have to double at a minimum to meet the biofuel goal. There are 204 plants in half of the US states. The average plant employs 40-50 people, and spends $130 million a year on supplies, wages, and transportation.

Vilsack listed four steps to expand biofuel production and usage (http://www .fsa. usda. gov/FSA/newsReleases):

• Launch of the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, which pays up to 75% of farmers’ costs to grow and harvest biomass crops for use in nearby bioengi­neered or biopower plants. Forest land owners can qualify for payments on materials harvested from forest health or ecosystem restoration and used in bioplants. Cost is estimated at $461 million over 15 years. Eligible crops include switchgrass, Miscanthus, woody poplar, Jatropha, algae, "energy cane,” and Pongamia.

• Selection within 60 days of five biorefinery or bioenergy projects around the nation for loan guarantees to assist construction. A US Department of Agricul­ture (USDA) official said $650 million in guarantees were available and half a dozen projects were under review. USDA awarded two guarantees in 2009.

• Action to make $281 million available to defray the cost of feedstock to bioplants that increase production.

• Matching funds to retailers to install 10 000 “blender” pumps and storage systems within 5 years. Blender pumps can dispense fuel with various amounts of ethanol beyond the 10% mix that is standard. The pumps and storage tanks cost around $25 000 or more. Total cost could be $250 million.

• The US Departments of Navy, Agriculture, and Energy collaborate and play a key role to stimulate the mass production of several kinds of non-food biomass and biofuels and reduce the impact that foreign oil has on the American economy. These government departments invest in the private biofuel indus­tries on a grant scale to accelerate the research and development of advanced, drop-in aviation and marine biofuels and marine diesel.

The largest US ethanol maker is privately owned POET (www. poet. com). Government stimulation for biomass energy will help launch ethanol made from cellulose. POET is modifying a plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa to use corn cobs and stalks for making ethanol.

The Air Transport Association of America, representing US airlines, applauded Vilsack’s announcement of a 5-year agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop aviation fuels from forest and crop residues and other “green” feedstocks. Fuel is a leading cost for airlines.

The Union of Concerned Scientists said ethanol tax incentives should be replaced with performance-based incentives keyed to lower pollution. Livestock groups, food makers, environmentalists, and deficit hawks say ethanol incentives are wasteful and should end.

The Obama administration is supporting projects that promote renewable jet fuels that, in turn, will reduce US imports of crude oil and also help combat global warming (www. eesi. org/usda-faa-announce-partnership-develop-aviation-biofuels- 28-oct-2010).

The aviation industry said it would cap emissions by 2020, based on a resolution passed at the annual meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization.

The Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) for new non-food, non-feed biomass crops is meant to make sure that the biofuels do not come from cropland.

11.3

The sub-Saharan African countries are well exposed to sunlight, with some of the highest solar intensities in the world. Northern and Southern Africa, particularly the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, have particularly promising conditions for con­centrated thermosolar plants for large-scale power production and deliver of electricity power not only to Africa, but to Europe as well. A grid of thermal solar panels called DESERTEC is ready to be installed. Construction of DESERTEC’s first 500-MW solar farm in Morocco is scheduled to start at the end of 2012.

Africa burns traditional biomass like wood, charcoal, and agricultural waste. How­ever, modern biofuel technologies are starting to replace traditional fuels, and offer broad potential for power generation and transport fuels. The continent’s tropical southeastern region, particularly Tanzania and Mozambique, has the right investment climate, soil, and transport infrastructure for a thriving biofuels industry.

Countries with vast stretches of wasteland very suitable for biofuels are:

• South Africa

• Angola

• Zambia

• Mozambique

• Ghana

• Ethiopia

A lot of sugarcane is cultivated not only in Brazil (see Chapter 13), but also in Africa. Bagasse is a promising byproduct of sugarcane that can be harnessed for energy. There is significant potential to convert more than 26 million tonnes of bagasse produced in Africa into energy. Bagasse can be pelletized, and can be burned to produce electricity or used to produce ethanol, biodiesel and even biokerosene.

Less than 2% of all registered Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) carbon market projects are situated in Africa. The main reason is the fact that potential emissions-saving opportunities in Africa tend to come from smaller projects, which discourages investors because the initial costs of $100 000-150 000 in setting up and registering CDM projects are too high for a meaningful return of investment.

All in all, there are increasing sustainable energy investments in biofuels:

• In Mauritius, cogeneration constitutes more than 40% of electricity generation.

• In Ethiopia, ethanol-gasoline blends are currently used to cover fuel shortages.

• Tanzania has attracted international investment for a 240-million-liter-per-year sweet sorghum ethanol facility and a 100-million-liter sugarcane plant.

• South Africa has channeled significant investment to the biofuels industry. The interest is spreading to neighboring countries, which have each more than double the land area suitable or very suitable for biofuels.

• Mali, Mozambique, and Ghana have Jatropha plantations, which are enlarged every year.

• Throughout the continent, the Moringa tree is taking Africa by storm and plantations are being started everywhere (see Chapter 4).

14.3

Biodiesel does not contain petroleum, but can be blended at any level with pet­roleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend, which can then be used in traditional diesel engines. Biodiesel was not intended to replace petroleum; in fact, it is one of several alternative fuels designed to extend the usefulness of petroleum, and the longevity and cleanliness of diesel engines.

What are the benefits of using biodiesel?

• Biodiesel can be produced from a variety of biomass, so we are not dependent on only one source.

• The biomass must be grown close to the production plant. The “home-grown” production reduces a country’s dependency on foreign energy imports.

• Biodiesel can reduce net carbon dioxide levels by 60-80%, depending on catalysts, filters, and so on.

• Biodiesel can reduce carbon monoxide by 40-50%.

• Biodiesel can reduce the emissions of sulfates — a major cause of acid rain.

• Biodiesel is a “drop-in” fuel — no modifications are required to traditional diesel engines.

• Biodiesel is biodegradable and non-toxic.

• With oil and gas spills the environment is greatly damaged. If a biodiesel spill occurs, it does not harm the environment, and it is less costly to repair the damage and clean everything up.

• Blended with fossil fuel diesel, biodiesel provides a near similar horsepower, torque, and fuel mileage.

• As a lubricant, it extends the engine’s lifetime.

• Since biodiesel is a “domestic” fuel, it creates jobs.

Communities with the foresight to create local biodiesel production and dis­tribution programs will see the benefits quickly in their local economies, from the farmers growing the feedstock to local businesses producing and distributing the fuel to the end consumers. The money remains in the community, while at the same time helping the local environment and increasing energy security.

Energy security is becoming a hot topic around the world, both in governments as well as society in general, with nearly every country in the world depending on imports of some of kind of fossil fuel energy, such as oil, coal, and natural gas. This dependency puts countries at great risk if the supply of affordable energy suddenly ends, like in the case with Libya; without fuel for transportation, energy to run power plants and factories, and so on, this could bring a country to its knees.

Biodiesel can improve energy security in several ways:

• Domestic energy crops: a country can grow domestic biofuel crops. This can contribute greatly to reducing the country’s dependency on foreign oil supplies.

• Increased refining capacity: factories dedicated to the production of biodiesel add to the overall domestic refining capacity, eliminating the need to import expensive finished products.

• These new factories also create thousands of much-needed jobs.

• Dispersed biodiesel production plants present a much more difficult target for terrorists than large centralized oil refineries or pipelines used in the petroleum industry.

Figure 2.3 shows that the average biodiesel emissions compared to diesel are much lower. B100 means 100% biodiesel and B20 means a blend of 80% ordinary diesel with 20% biodiesel. You can see that the emissions of sulfates are zero, when B100 is used.

2.9

3.3.1

Overview

Most people who think of agriculture paint a picture in their minds of endless fields of wheat, corn, or soybeans, and at harvest time big John Deere combiners with satellite systems traverse the fields and harvest large quantities of grain mechani­cally in no time. With Jatropha it is very different. Most of the time a Jatropha harvest is low-tech, taking place on marginal land that is very often mountainous or hilly, at the least. Consequently, the large majority of existing plantations in the world are harvested manually, like tea, rubber, or palm.

The advantages and risks of Jatropha are listed in Table 3.3.

3.3.2

Domestication

Today scientists know around 200 species of Jatropha. The species has not yet been fully “domesticated." Domestication is the process whereby through a process of

Table 3.3 Advantages and risks of jatropha

Risks and challenges

selection the Jatropha plant becomes accustomed to human provision and control. If you have a field of 1000 hectares of soybeans, all the plants have more or less the same characteristics and give more or less the same yield, and their common behavior is predictable. This is not the case yet with Jatropha, where yields are still unpredictable.

Plant domestication can lead to the production of food or valuable commodities. Good examples are cotton, silk, or rice. Plants domesticated for large-scale food or energy production are generally called crops. A distinction can be made between those domesticated plants that have been deliberately altered or selected for special desirable characteristics and those domesticated plants that are essentially no different from their wild counterparts.

3.3.3

Research has shown that Camelina possesses unique agronomic traits, which could substantially reduce, and perhaps eliminate, requirements for soil tillage and annual weed control as well. The compatibility of Camelina with reduced tillage systems, cover crops, its low seeding rate, and competitiveness with weeds could enable this crop not only to have the lowest input cost of any oilseed, but also be compatible with the goals of reducing energy and pesticide use, and protecting soils from erosion.

Camdina is a potential alternative oilseed for winter surface seeding, double cropping, or marginal lands. At a seeding rate of 6-14 kg per hectare, Camdina could be inexpensively applied by air or machine-broadcast in early winter or spring on stubble ground without special equipment. Although these unimproved lines have been shown to be agronomically acceptable, modern history has indi­cated that these mustard plants can be highly manipulated through plant breeding or biotechnology, and so the promise of improvement is also high.

The fatty acid composition of the seed needs to be modified to provide a role for the crop in the oilseeds market. Lack of clear utilization patterns currently limits the crop, and further work on oil, meal, and seed use is required. The possibilities of using Camdina — in human food, as birdseed, as an edible or industrial oil, a fuel, or other applications — remain largely unexplored. Further utilization and breeding research is required to more fully make use of the unique agronomic qualities that this crop possesses.

Camdina has already proven to be an ideal feedstock for bio jet fuel.

4.4.5

Woodchips are not compressed and are cheaper than pellets per unit of energy delivered. Logically they require considerably more storage space. It is not a standardized product and therefore their energy content varies more. The volu­metric bulk density (weight per unit volume) of woodchips is significantly lower than that of woodpellets. If you compare the storage space of woodchips and woodpellets, woodchips require at least 3 times more storage space for the same energy content. Woodchips are cheap, but you need lots of space for storage!

If you plan to invest in agroforestry, which is a much better investment than gold, stocks, or bonds, the tree growth rates and as a consequence financial returns are of utmost importance. Here are some examples of what you can expect:

• In natural temperate forests growth rates range from 1 to 4 m3 per hectare each year.

• In subtropical plantations of conifers such as pines, this range rises to 10-30 m3 per hectare each year.

• Tropical pine plantations are still faster and deliver 15-45 m3 new wood mass per hectare each year.

• Fastest of all are hybrid tropical eucalyptus trees. Cultivated on plantations they grow to full maturity in only 4 years and they reach growth rates of up to 60 m3 per hectare each year. Out of eucalyptus you can produce ethanol, paper towels for China, or woodpellets.

Currently, many utilities and large industries cofire woodchips, which are relatively inexpensive. Woodchips are diverse with different gigajoule (GJ)-per — tonne outputs. They do not have a universal standard size and this can limit usage. The feedstock of woodchips can be stems, tops, limbs, branches, and foliage of mixed hardwood and softwood trees. Woodpellets are a more reliable feedstock due to their uniform shape, high bulk density, and high calorific value. Moreover, they have a much lower moisture content due to the processing procedure and therefore are ideal for transporting to domestic or international customers.

8.4.3

The technology is ready. Now, it is just a matter of growing enough non-food feedstock plants and refining enough of their oil.

Bill Glover — Managing Director of Environmental Strategy for Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

In May 2010, the United States and China launched a research venture to develop biofuels for use by Chinese airlines based on algae or oily nuts. An inaugural flight was carried out in autumn 2011 when a Boeing 747 of China Airlines circled above Beijing using biokerosene from homegrown Jatropha and refined by Honeywell/UOP. The announcement of a series of research part­nerships followed a pledge by the governments at a high-level meeting to cooperate closely in renewable energy, which both said was essential to fight climate change and could spur new industries. The two sides signed a series of research partnerships between Boeing, US government agencies, and Chinese research institutions and state companies, including Air China Ltd. and Petro — China Ltd.

China is on track to become the world’s largest aviation market in the coming decades, and Beijing is aggressively promoting alternative fuels to clean up its environment and curb its growing reliance on imported oil and gas. In 2007, China banned the use of rapeseed and corn for biofuel use, and the government now concentrates on the development of second-generation biofuels like waste, cellulosic ethanol, and inedible plants like Jatropha and Camelina. This is a big contrast with the United States, where around 30% of the corn crop is still con­verted into ethanol, driving up food prices.

China wants to produce a fuel that can be used by commercial airlines, ships, trucks, and in backup power with no modifications to standard engines. China has a 15% biofuel target for 2020, and is developing Jatropha plantations in Yunnan and Sichuan.

In my analysis, today China has over 200 000 hectares Jatropha plantations and the United States has the biokerosene technology. CNPC, one of the big three Chinese oil companies, has built a big biodiesel refinery on the island of Hainan. Now, the Chinese want to move up on the biofuel ladder, producing biokerosene at home. Boeing and Honeywell have a daughter company called UOP that has the technology to convert Jatropha crude oil into Jatropha biokerosene by adding hydrogen and extracting oxygen. This lowers the freezing point to around —57°C, so the biofuel stays liquid at 30 000 feet.

Development of renewable energy is a must for China to achieve its two basic policies in energy and the environment (i. e., to increase the use of non-fossil energy to 15% of primary energy consumption by 2020 and to reduce carbon intensity by 40-45% in 2020 from the 2005 levels). In the renewable energy sector, China will continue to focus on the development of hydro, wind, solar, and bio­mass energy. The Sino-US cooperation on green energy sets a good example for

other countries. Furthermore, in terms of the world’s energy market, cooperation between the two countries will help in developing new energies that can ensure global energy security.

According to Boeing, China is expected to become the US airplane manu­facturer’s research and development partner for environmentally friendly tech­nologies that will make the aviation industry greener. A key part ofthe partnership will be to develop biofuels that will allow the aviation industry to have a low-carbon lifecycle footprint.

12.10

A big spur for the aviation industry is the impending threat ofemissions limits and trading. In 2012, the EU ETS capped the amount of greenhouse gases that countries can release, and now operates a market for excess amounts and shortfalls. The airline industry is included as well. The effect on airlines will be colossal, with an additional € 1 billion in carbon costs added to their fuel bill. The carbon dioxide emission cap for each airline means the average emission from 2004, 2005, and 2006. From January 2012 to December 2012, the allowance to emit carbon dioxide will be 97% of the “cap” of 2004, 2005, and 2006. In this period carriers will be allowed to emit 85% of their limit (“cap”) for free to ease the economic impact on the industry. For the 2013-2020 period, the cap will fall to 95% of that number and the free allowances will decline to 82%. A carbon allowance must be paid for any emission above this cap. The additional cost ofthose permits will surely be passed on to travelers and we think that the per ticket cost will be between €2 and €12 ($2.5 and $15).

To meet the challenge, leading aviation players are continuing to develop alternative fuels that cut greenhouse gas emissions and satisfy the criteria for sustainability. Test results remain encouraging. They show that bio-derived syn­thetic paraffinic kerosene (Bio-SPK) has nearly identical fuel properties to jet fuel, and has performed successfully in tests carried out by Continental Airlines, Air New Zealand, Japan Airlines, KLM/Air France, and others (see Chapter 19). Rigorous analysis of the results shows no adverse effects from using the 50/50 blend, but does show a cut in carbon dioxide emissions of 60-65%, as well as a 1.1% saving in fuel consumption on long-haul flights.

In a letter to the European Union in Brussels, nine airline CEOs explain that, as a consequence of the EU ETS, aviation-related businesses inside and outside Europe will take concrete action with serious consequences for the European aviation business. Countermeasures and restrictions for European airlines are being prepared in many countries that oppose the ETS, such as special taxes and even traffic rights limitations. China has canceled an order for $12 billion worth of Airbus airplanes. Airbus estimates that this will endanger more than 1000 Airbus jobs in Europe and at least another 1000 in the supply chain.

16.4