Category Archives: Biomass Energy

Asbestos Related Illnesses in the Bioenergy Industry

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When we think of asbestos, we usually picture old, condemned buildings filled with harmful asbestos-based insulation, but this isn’t always the case.

Since 1989, the use of asbestos has been banned in construction work in the UK and many buildings which contain this harmful substance, are being replaced or made safe.

While this is of course, good news, these buildings are not the only source of asbestos and in this article, we’ll be examining the rising cases of mesothelioma compensation claims by bioenergy industry employees.

Asbestos Related Illnesses in the Bioenergy Industry

What is Asbestos?

A naturally occurring substance, asbestos is a fibrous silicate mineral made up of long, thin microscopic fibrous crystals.  When dormant, asbestos can be relatively harmless but, the danger occurs when fibrils are released into the atmosphere and inhaled by humans.

Inhalation of asbestos can lead to serious diseases such as COPD and mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer which is associated with asbestos and which is almost always terminal.

In recent years, concerns have been growing over the number of bio energy employees who have been diagnosed with this devastating disease

What is Bioenergy?

Bioenergy is the term used for the generation of gas and electricity which is renewable and which causes less harm to the planet’s resources than other, more traditional methods which use coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy.

Bioenergy methods use organic matter such as food waste to create a flexible energy source. Wet feedstocks like food and other organise material is placed into sealed tanks and allowed to rot. This creates methane gas which can then be collected and burned to generate electricity. Dry materials like wood pellets are also burned in a furnace to boil water, create steam and thereby generate electricity.

Although bioenergy does produce carbon dioxide and release it into the atmosphere, it does so only at the rate at which the organic matter absorbed the carbon dioxide while growing. This makes it greener and more sustainable.

Energy crops are grown in the UK specifically for the use of producing bio-energy. There are currently 1855 bioenergy plants in the UK, employing around 35,000 people.

What’s the Connection Between Bioenergy and Mesothelioma?

At the beginning of this article, we mentioned that old buildings containing asbestos insulation are not the only places that asbestos can be found. In fact, at any given time, the air we breathe can contain asbestos.

However, this is usually at incredibly low levels of between 0.00001 to 0.0001 fibers per millimeter of air and does not pose any danger to human health. Having said that, many doctors will disagree, as many will argue that no level of asbestos is ever safe.

On average, it’s thought that the ‘danger zone’ for asbestos stands at around 1%. An individual who has been exposed to dangerous levels of asbestos may be unaware of this as symptoms will often not present themselves until ten or even twenty years after the exposure.

Asbestos occurs naturally in rocks, particularly altered ultramafic rocks and some mafic rocks. Asbestos can also occur naturally in some kinds of soil.

The Connection Between Plant Workers and Illnesses

It has been discovered that, in some instances, dedicated bioenergy crop sites have been created on land where the soil has been contaminated by asbestos, either naturally or through previous commercial endeavors.

Employees who are responsible for working with these crops including planting, nurturing and picking, become vulnerable to high levels of asbestos. When inhaled, this level of asbestos can be harmful to health and has led to mesothelioma.

As well as soil contamination, the process of converting food and organic waste into energy such as creating methane, can produce small amounts of asbestos. Although these may be minimal, continued exposure over time can lead to health problems in workers, including mesothelioma.

Unfortunately, mesothelioma is often caught late and on average, the life expectancy of the patient from the point of diagnosis is only between 4 and 18 months.

anaerobic_digestion_plant

Asbestos Claims in the UK

In 2020, there were 17,023 asbestos compensation claims, with payouts of around £233.9 million. Despite almost forty years passing since the prohibition of asbestos in buildings, some UK solicitors report that claims are increasing rather than dwindling as victims seek financial compensation after being diagnosed with asbestos related diseases.

While some of these claims are made by former employees of old-style power plants, more and more are now emerging from bioenergy facilities.

Further Risk Assessments Need to be Improved by Employers…

In 2022, it’s reasonable to assume that, when you start a new job, the last thing on your mind is the risk of coming into contact with asbestos. Many of the bioenergy employees who are now making claims are justifiably angry about the fact that they were never made aware of any risk during the course of their work.

While this is devastating, it’s not necessarily evidence of sinister dealings by bioenergy companies. In many cases, employers did not inform their employees of risk for the simple reason that they weren’t aware of it themselves.

There’s no doubt that bioenergy is the future as we continue to move away from environment harming processes. However, while we call this progress in some ways, employers will need to examine all of their processes and materials to identify any possible risks to employees, in order to prevent unnecessary illness and death.

The Concept of Biorefinery

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A biorefinery is a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power, and value-added chemicals from biomass. Biorefinery is analogous to today’s petroleum refinery, which produces multiple fuels and products from petroleum. By producing several products, a biorefinery takes advantage of the various components in biomass and their intermediates, therefore maximizing the value derived from the biomass feedstock.

A biorefinery could, for example, produce one or several low-volume, but high-value, chemical products and a low-value, but high-volume liquid transportation fuel such as biodiesel or bioethanol. At the same time, it can generate electricity and process heat, through CHP technology, for its own use and perhaps enough for sale of electricity to the local utility.

The high value products increase profitability, the high-volume fuel helps meet energy needs, and the power production helps to lower energy costs and reduce GHG emissions from traditional power plant facilities.

biorefinery-process

Biorefinery Platforms

There are several biorefinery platforms which can be employed in a biorefinery with the major ones being the sugar platform and the thermochemical platform (also known as syngas platform).

Sugar platform biorefineries breaks down biomass into different types of component sugars for fermentation or other biological processing into various fuels and chemicals. On the other hand, thermochemical biorefineries transform biomass into synthesis gas (hydrogen and carbon monoxide) or pyrolysis oil.

The thermochemical biomass conversion process is complex, and uses components, configurations, and operating conditions that are more typical of petroleum refining. Biomass is converted into syngas, and syngas is converted into an ethanol-rich mixture.

However, syngas created from biomass contains contaminants such as tar and sulphur that interfere with the conversion of the syngas into products. These contaminants can be removed by tar-reforming catalysts and catalytic reforming processes. This not only cleans the syngas, it also creates more of it, improving process economics and ultimately cutting the cost of the resulting ethanol.

Plus Points

Biorefineries can help in utilizing the optimum energy potential of organic wastes and may also resolve the problems of waste management and GHGs emissions. Biomass wastes can be converted, through appropriate enzymatic/chemical treatment, into either gaseous or liquid fuels.

The pre-treatment processes involved in biorefining generate products like paper-pulp, HFCS, solvents, acetate, resins, laminates, adhesives, flavour chemicals, activated carbon, fuel enhancers, undigested sugars etc. which generally remain untapped in the traditional processes. The suitability of this process is further enhanced from the fact that it can utilize a variety of biomass resources, whether plant-derived or animal-derived.

Future Perspectives

The concept of biomass-based refinery is still in early stages at most places in the world. Problems like raw material availability, feasibility in product supply chain, scalability of the model are hampering its development at commercial-scales. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of USA is leading the front in biorefinery research with path-breaking discoveries and inventions. 

Although the technology is still in nascent stages, but it holds the key to the optimum utilization of wastes and natural resources that humans have always tried to achieve. The onus now lies on governments and corporate sector to incentivize or finance the research and development in this highly promising field.

Biobutanol as a Biofuel

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The major techno-commercial limitations of existing biofuels has catalyzed the development of advanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol, biobutanol and mixed alcohols. Biobutanol is generating good deal of interest as a potential green alternative to petroleum fuels. It is increasingly being considered as a superior automobile fuel in comparison to bioethanol as its energy content is higher. The problem of demixing that is encountered with ethanol-petrol blends is considerably less serious with biobutanol-petrol blends.

Besides, it reduces the harmful emissions substantially. It is less corrosive and can be blended in any concentration with petrol (gasoline). Several research studies suggest that butanol can be blended into either petrol or diesel to as much as 45 percent without engine modifications or severe performance degradation.

Production of Biobutanol

Biobutanol is produced by microbial fermentation, similar to bioethanol, and can be made from the same range of sugar, starch or cellulosic feedstocks. The most commonly used microorganisms are strains of Clostridium acetobutylicum and Clostridium beijerinckii. In addition to butanol, these organisms also produce acetone and ethanol, so the process is often referred to as the “ABE fermentation”.

The main concern with Clostridium acetobutylicum is that it easily gets poisoned at concentrations above 2% of biobutanol in the fermenting mixture. This hinders the production of biobutanol in economically viable quantities.

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in biobutanol due to increasing petroleum prices and search for clean energy resources. Researchers have made significant advances in designing new microorganisms capable of surviving in high butanol concentrations. The new genetically modified micro-organisms have the capacity to degrade even the cellulosic feedstocks.

Latest Trends

Biobutanol production is currently more expensive than bioethanol which has hampered its commercialization. However, biobutanol has several advantages over ethanol and is currently the focus of extensive research and development. There is now increasing interest in use of biobutanol as a transport fuel. As a fuel, it can be transported in existing infrastructure and does not require flex-fuel vehicle pipes and hoses.

Fleet testing of biobutanol has begun in the United States and the European Union. A number of companies are now investigating novel alternatives to traditional ABE fermentation, which would enable biobutanol to be produced on an industrial scale.

Biogas Prospects in Rural Areas: Perspectives

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Biogas, sometimes called renewable natural gas, could be part of the solution for providing people in rural areas with reliable, clean and cheap energy. In fact, it could provide various benefits beyond clean fuel as well, including improved sanitation, health and environmental sustainability.

What is Biogas?

Biogas is the high calorific value gas produced by anaerobic decomposition of organic wastes. Biogas can come from a variety of sources including organic fraction of MSW, animal wastes, poultry litter, crop residues, food waste, sewage and organic industrial effluents. Biogas can be used to produce electricity, for heating, for lighting and to power vehicles.

Using manure for energy might seem unappealing, but you don’t burn the organic matter directly. Instead, you burn the methane gas it produces, which is odorless and clean burning.

Biogas Prospects in Rural Areas

Biogas finds wide application in all parts of the world, but it could be especially useful to developing countries, especially in rural areas. People that live in these places likely already use a form of biomass energy — burning wood. Using wood fires for heat, light and cooking releases large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The smoke they release also has harmful health impacts, particularly when used indoors. You also need a lot to burn a lot of wood when it’s your primary energy source. Collecting this wood is a time-consuming and sometimes difficult as well as dangerous task.

Many of these same communities that rely on wood fires, however, also have an abundant supply of another fuel source. They just need the tools to capture and use it. Many of these have a lot of dung from livestock and lack sanitation equipment. This lack of sanitation creates health hazards.

Turning that waste into biogas could solve both the energy problem and the sanitation problem. Creating a biogas system for a rural home is much simpler than building other types of systems. It requires an airtight pit lined and covered with concrete and a way to feed waste from animals and latrines into the pit. Because the pit is sealed, the waste will decompose quickly, releasing methane.

This methane flows through a PCV pipe to the home where you can turn it on and light on when you need to use it. This system also produces manure that is free of pathogens, which farmers can use as fertilizer.

A similar but larger setup using rural small town business idea can provide similar benefits for urban areas in developing countries and elsewhere.

Benefits of Biogas for Rural Areas

Anaerobic digestion systems are beneficial to developing countries because they are low-cost compared to other technologies, low-tech, low-maintenance and safe. They provide reliable fuel as well as improved public health and sanitation. Also, they save people the labor of collecting large amounts of firewood, freeing them up to do other activities. Thus, biomass-based energy systems can help in rural development.

Biogas for rural areas also has environmental benefits. It reduces the need to burn wood fires, which helps to slow deforestation and eliminates the emissions those fires would have produced. On average, a single home biogas system can replace approximately 4.5 tons of firewood annually and eliminate the associated four tons of annual greenhouse gas emissions, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Biogas is also a clean, renewable energy source and reduces the need for fossil fuels. Chemically, biogas is the same as natural gas. Biogas, however, is a renewable fuel source, while natural gas is a fossil fuel. The methane in organic wastes would release into the atmosphere through natural processes if left alone, while the greenhouse gases in natural gas would stay trapped underground. Using biogas as a fuel source reduces the amount of methane released by matter decomposing out in the open.

What Can We Do?

Although biogas systems cost less than some other technologies, affording them is often still a challenge for low-income families in developing countries, especially in villages. Many of these families need financial and technical assistance to build them. Both governments and non-governmental organizations can step in to help in this area.

Once people do have biogas systems in place though, with minimal maintenance of the system, they can live healthier, more comfortable lives, while also reducing their impacts on the environment.

Agricultural Biomass in Malaysia

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Malaysia is located in a region where biomass productivity is high which means that the country can capitalize on this renewable energy resource to supplements limited petroleum and coal reserves. Malaysia, as a major player in the palm oil and sago starch industries, produces a substantial amount of agricultural biomass waste which present a great opportunity for harnessing biomass energy in an eco-friendly and commercially-viable manner.

Peninsular Malaysia generates large amounts of wood and’ agricultural residues, the bulk of which are not being currently utilised for any further downstream operations. The major agricultural crops grown in Malaysia are rubber (39.67%), oil palm (34.56%), cocoa (6.75%), rice (12.68%) and coconut (6.34%). Out of the total quantity of residues generated, only 27.0% is used either as fuel for the kiln drying of timber, for the manufacture of bricks, the curing of tobacco leaves, the drying rubber-sheets and for the manufacture of products such as particleboard and fibreboard. The rest has to be disposed of by burning.

Palm Oil Industry

Oil palm is one of the world’s most important fruit crops. Malaysia is one of the largest producers and exporter of palm oil in the world, accounting for 30% of the world’s traded edible oils and fats supply. Palm oil industries in Malaysia have good potential for high pressure modern power plants and the annual power generation potential is about 8,000 GWh. Malaysia produced more than 20 million tonnes of palm oil in 2012 over 5 million hectares of land.

The palm oil industry is a significant branch in Malaysian agriculture. Almost 70% of the volume from the processing of fresh fruit bunch is removed as biomass waste in the form of empty fruit bunches (EFBs), fibers and shells, as well as liquid effluent. Fibres and shells are traditionally used as fuels to generate power and steam. Palm oil mill effluent, commonly known as POME, are sometimes converted into biogas that can be used in gas-fired gensets.

Sugar Industry

The cultivation of sugarcane in Malaysia is surprisingly small. Production is concentrated in the Northwest extremity of peninsular Malaysia in the states of Perlis and Kedah. This area has a distinct dry season needed for cost-efficient sugarcane production. Plantings in the states of Perak and Negri Sembilan were unsuccessful due to high unit costs as producing conditions were less suitable.

The lack of growth in cane areas largely reflects the higher remuneration received by farmers for other crops, especially oil palm. Over the past 20 years while the sugarcane area has remained at around 20000 hectares, that planted to oil palm has expanded from 600 000 hectares to 5 million hectares.

Other leading crops in terms of planted areas are rubber with 2.8 million hectares, rice with 670 000 hectares and cocoa with 380 000 hectares. Malaysia, the world’s third largest rubber producer, accounted for 1 million tons of natural rubber production in 2012. Like oil palm industry, the rubber industry produces a variety of biomass wastes whose energy potential is largely untapped until now.

Biomass Resources in Malaysia

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Malaysia is gifted with conventional energy resources such as oil and gas as well as renewables like hydro, biomass and solar energy. As far as biomass resources in Malaysia are concerned, Malaysia has tremendous agricultural biomass and wood waste resources available for immediate exploitation. This energy potential of biomass resource is yet to be exploited properly in the country.

Taking into account the growing energy consumption and domestic energy supply constraints, Malaysia has set sustainable development and diversification of energy sources, as the economy’s main energy policy goals. The Five-Fuel Strategy recognises renewable energy resources as the economy’s fifth fuel after oil, coal, natural gas and hydro. Being a major agricultural commodity producer in the region Malaysia is well positioned amongst the ASEAN countries to promote the use of biomass as a source of renewable energy.

Major Biomass Resources in Malaysia

  • Agricultural crops e.g. sugarcane, cassava, corn
  • Agricultural residues e.g. rice straw, cassava rhizome, corncobs
  • Woody biomass e.g. fast-growing trees, wood waste from wood mill, sawdust
  • Agro-Industrial wastes e.g. rice husks from rice mills, molasses and bagasse from sugar refineries, residues from palm oil mills
  • Municipal solid waste
  • Animal manure and poultry litter

Palm Oil Biomass

Malaysia is the world’s leading exporter of palm oil, exporting more than 19.9 million tonnes of palm oil in 2017. The extraction of palm oil from palm fruits results in a large quantity of waste in the form of palm kernel shells, empty fruit bunches and mesocarp fibres. In 2011, more than 80 million tons of oil palm biomass was generated across the country.

13MW biomass power plant at a palm oil mill in Sandakan, Sabah (Malaysia)

Processing crude palm oil generates a foul-smelling effluent, called Palm Oil Mill Effluent or POME, which when treated using anaerobic processes, releases biogas. Around 58 million tons of POME is produced in Malaysia annually, which has the potential to produce an estimated 15 billion m3 of biogas.

Rice Husk

Rice husk is another important agricultural biomass resource in Malaysia with very good energy potential for biomass cogeneration. An example of its attractive energy potential is biomass power plant in the state of Perlis which uses rice husk as the main source of fuel and generates 10 MW power to meet the requirements of 30,000 households.

Municipal Solid Wastes

The per capita generation of solid waste in Malaysia varies from 0.45 to 1.44kg/day depending on the economic status of an area. Malaysian solid wastes contain very high organic waste and consequently high moisture content and bulk density of above 200kg/m3. The high rate of population growth is the country has resulted in rapid increase in solid waste generation which is usually dumped in landfills.

Conclusion

Biomass resources have long been identified as sustainable source of renewable energy particularly in countries where there is abundant agricultural activities. Intensive use of biomass as renewable energy source in Malaysia could reduce dependency on fossil fuels and significant advantage lies in reduction of net carbon dioxide emissions to atmosphere leading to less greenhouse effect. However, increased competitiveness will require large-scale investment and advances in technologies for converting this biomass to energy efficiently and economically.

Biomass from Wood Processing Industries

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Wood processing industries primarily include sawmilling, plywood, wood panel, furniture, building component, flooring, particle board, moulding, jointing and craft industries. Biomass from wood processing industries is generally concentrated at the processing factories, e.g. plywood mills and sawmills. The amount of waste generated from wood processing industries varies from one type industry to another depending on the form of raw material and finished product.

Saw-dust

Biomass from Wood Processing

The waste resulted from a wood processing is influenced by the diameter of logs being processed, type of saw, specification of product required and skill of workers. Generally, the waste from wood industries such as saw millings and plywood, veneer and others are sawdust, off-cuts, trims and shavings. Sometimes, it becomes a complex task to select the best scroll saws for wood cutting.

Sawdust arise from cutting, sizing, re-sawing, edging, while trims and shaving are the consequence of trimming and smoothing of wood. In general, processing of 1,000 kilos of wood in the furniture industries will lead to wood waste generation of almost half (45 %), i.e. 450 kilos of wood. Similarly, when processing 1,000 kilos of wood in sawmill, the waste will amount to more than half (52 %), i.e. 520 kilo of wood.

The biomass wastes generated from wood processing industries include sawdust, off-cuts and bark. Recycling of wood wastes is not done by all wood industries, particularly small to medium scale wood industries. The off-cuts and cutting are sold or being used as fuel for wood drying process. Bark and sawdust are usually burned.

Recycling of Wood Wastes

The use of wood wastes is usually practised in large and modern establishment; however, it is commonly only used to generate steam for process drying. The mechanical energy demand such as for cutting, sawing, shaving and pressing is mostly provided by diesel generating set and/or electricity grid. The electricity demand for such an industry is substantially high.

Recycling of wood wastes is not done by all wood industries, particularly by smallholders. These wastes are normally used as fuel for brick making and partly also for cooking. At medium or large establishments some of the wastes, like: dry sawdust and chips, are being used as fuel for wood drying process. Bark and waste sawdust are simply burned or dumped.

Importance of Heating Value

The heating or calorific value is a key factor when evaluating the applicability of a combustible material as a fuel. The heating value of wood and wood waste depends on the species, parts of the tree that are being used (core, bark, stem, wood, branch wood, etc.) and the moisture content of the wood. The upper limit of the heating or calorific value of 100% dry wood on a weight basis is relatively constant, around 20 MJ/kg.

In practice, the moisture content of wood during logging is about 50%. Depending on transportation and storing methods and conditions it may rise to 65% or fall to some 30% at the mill site. The moisture content of the wood waste in an industry depends on the stage where the waste is extracted and whether wood has been dried before this stage.

Biomass Cogeneration Systems

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Biomass fuels are typically used most efficiently and beneficially when generating both power and heat through biomass cogeneration systems (also known as combined heat and power or CHP system). Biomass conversion technologies transform a variety of wastes into heat, electricity and biofuels by employing a host of strategies. Conversion routes are generally thermochemical or biochemical, but may also include chemical and physical.

The simplest way is to burn the biomass in a furnace, exploiting the heat generated to produce steam in a boiler, which is then used to drive a steam turbine. Advanced biomass conversion technologies include biomass integrated gasification combined cycle (BIGCC) systems, cofiring (with coal or gas), pyrolysis and second generation biofuels.

Biomass Cogeneration Systems

A typical biomass cogeneration (or biomass cogen) system provides:

  • Distributed generation of electrical and/or mechanical power.
  • Waste-heat recovery for heating, cooling, or process applications.
  • Seamless system integration for a variety of technologies, thermal applications, and fuel types into existing building infrastructure.

Biomass cogeneration systems consist of a number of individual components—prime mover (heat engine), generator, heat recovery, and electrical interconnection—configured into an integrated whole. The type of equipment that drives the overall system (i.e., the prime mover) typically identifies the CHP unit.

Prime Movers

Prime movers for biomass cogeneration units include reciprocating engines, combustion or gas turbines, steam turbines, microturbines, and fuel cells. These prime movers are capable of burning a variety of fuels, including natural gas, coal, oil, and alternative fuels to produce shaft power or mechanical energy.

Key Components

A biomass-fueled cogeneration facility is an integrated power system comprised of three major components:

  • Biomass receiving and feedstock preparation.
  • Energy conversion – Conversion of the biomass into steam for direct combustion systems or into biogas for the gasification systems.
  • Power and heat production – Conversion of the steam or syngas or biogas into electric power and process steam or hot water

Feedstock for Biomass Cogeneration Plants

The lowest cost forms of biomass for cogeneration plants are residues. Residues are the organic byproducts of food, fiber, and forest production, such as sawdust, rice husks, wheat straw, corn stalks, and sugarcane bagasse. Forest residues and wood wastes represent a large potential resource for energy production and include forest residues, forest thinnings, and primary mill residues.

combined-heat-and-power

Energy crops are perennial grasses and trees grown through traditional agricultural practices that are produced primarily to be used as feedstocks for energy generation, e.g. hybrid poplars, hybrid willows, and switchgrass. Animal manure can be digested anaerobically to produce biogas in large agricultural farms and dairies.

To turn a biomass resource into productive heat and/or electricity requires a number of steps and considerations, most notably evaluating the availability of suitable biomass resources; determining the economics of collection, storage, and transportation; and evaluating available technology options for converting biomass into useful heat or electricity.

The Role of Biofuel in Low-Carbon Transport

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Biofuels offer a solution to climate change that shouldn’t go ignored. In fact, the amount of biofuel used in low-carbon transport has to increase by a factor of seven in order to prevent climate catastrophe, a recent report on 1.5C warming by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states. The report also places biofuels in the same league of importance as electric vehicles when it comes to replacing unsustainable fossil fuels by 2050.

Biofuels are increasingly being used to power vehicles around the world

Electric cars: benefits and limitations

A typical gas-powered car emits roughly one pound of carbon dioxide per mile traveled. On the other hand, electric cars release zero tailpipe emissions. However, light-duty passenger vehicles represent only 50% of the energy demand in the transportation sector worldwide.

Heavy road vehicles and air, sea, and rail transport make up the rest — electrification of this remaining 50% would be an expensive task. Additionally, demand for transport is expected to increase in the future. Vehicles will need to use even less energy by 2050 to ensure the global transport sector’s total energy demand rises no higher than current levels (100 exajoules).

Biofuel: a necessary solution

Several sustainable, carbon-neutral synthetic fuels are currently in developmental and demonstration stages. For example, synfuels can be produced from carbon dioxide and water via low-carbon electricity. However, this also requires cheap and low-carbon power systems (similar to the ones already running in Quebec and Iceland).

Biodiesel

In 2013, Audi was the first automaker to establish an electrofuel plant — it cost €20M and produces 3.2 MW of synthetic methane from 6 MW of electricity. Additionally, synthetic biofuels can be made from woody residues and crop wastes, which has a lighter environmental footprint than biofuels made from agricultural crops.

Examples of eco-friendly cars

While biofuels continue to be developed, there are plenty of electric cars on the market right now — all of which can help us reduce our individual carbon footprints. For example, the Hyundai Kona Electric is an impressive electric car. This vehicle offers sleek exterior styling, plenty of modern tech features, and has an impressive range of 258 miles in between charges. The price starts at $36,950. Alternatively, the Nissan LEAF is another eco-friendly model priced from $29,990. It’s powered by an 80kW electric motor and runs for 100 miles per charge.

Electric cars and synthetic biofuels are both valuable technological changes. Focusing on developing both of these sustainable options should take utmost priority in the fight against climate change.

Biomass Energy Potential in Pakistan

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Being an agricultural economy, biomass energy potential in Pakistan is highly promising. Pakistan is experiencing a severe energy crisis these days which is resulting in adverse long term economic and social problems. The electricity and gas shortages have directly impacted the common man, industry and commercial activities.

pakistan_biomass

The high cost of energy mix is the main underlying reason behind the power crisis. The main fuel for the local power industry is natural gas however due to the continued depletion of this source and demands elsewhere the power generation companies are now dependent on furnace oil which is relatively expensive.

The way out of this crisis is to look for fuel sources which are cheap and abundantly available within the country. This description and requirement is fulfilled by biomass resources which have been largely ignored in the past and are also available in sufficient quantities to tackle the energy crisis prevailing in the country.

Biomass Energy in Pakistan

The potential to produce power from biomass resources is very promising in Pakistan. Being an agrarian economy, more than 60% of the population is involved in agricultural activities in the country. As per World Bank statistics, around 26,280,000 hectares of land is under cultivation in Pakistan. The major sources of biomass energy are crop residues, animal manure and municipal solid wastes

Agricultural Residues

Wheat straw, rice husk, rice straw, cane trash, bagasse, cotton sticks are some of the major crop residues in Pakistan. Sugar cane is a major crop in the country and grown on a wide scale throughout Pakistan. During 2010-2011, the area under sugarcane cultivation was 1,029,000 hectares which is 4% of the total cropped area.

Sugarcane trash which constitutes 10% of the sugar cane is currently burned in the fields. During the year 2010-11, around 63,920,000 metric tons of sugarcane was grown in Pakistan which resulted in trash generation of around 5,752,800 metric tons. As per conservation estimates, the bioenergy potential of cane trash is around 9,475 GWh per year.

Cotton is another major cash crop in Pakistan and is the main source of raw material to the local textile industry. Cotton is grown on around 11% of the total cropped area in the country. The major residue from cotton crop is cotton sticks which is he material left after cotton picking and constitute as much as 3 times of the cotton produced.

Majority of the cotton sticks are used as domestic fuel in rural areas so only one-fourth of the total may be considered as biomass energy resource. The production of cotton sticks during 2010-2011 was approximately 1,474,693 metric tons which is equivalent to power generation potential of around 3,071 GWh.

Cotton sticks constitute as much as 3 times of the cotton produced.

Animal Manure

Pakistan is the world’s fourth largest producer of milk. The cattle and dairy population is around 67,294,000 while the animal manure generation is estimated at 368,434,650 metric tons. Biogas generation from animal manure is a very good proposition for Pakistan as the country has the potential to produce electrical energy equivalent to 23,654 GWh

Municipal Solid Waste

The generation or solid wastes in 9 major urban centers is around 7.12 million tons per annum which is increasing by 2.5% per year due to rapid increase in population and high rate of industrialization. The average calorific value of MSW in Pakistan is 6.89 MJ/kg which implies power generation potential of around 13,900 GWh per annum.