Dutch official wary of biofuels impact on food supplies

November 13 2007
Reuters

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Policymakers should be cautious of biofuels' effect on food costs, Dutch Agriculture Minister Gerda Verburg said, emphasizing the need to develop new non-food raw materials.

First-generation biofuels are usually made from crops such as grains and vegetable oils but have raised concerns that they are driving up food prices and could lead to shortages.

Many see the solution as so-called second generation biofuels which are not yet commercially viable but involve the breaking down of non-edible crops such as fast growing grasses or trees by enzymes to eventually create liquid motor fuel.

"We need the experience (of first generation biofuels) but we have to be cautious," Verburg said in an interview with Reuters on Monday.

"If biofuels production is stimulated and we do not care about the relation between production for food or for biofuels, we are increasing a problem: namely hunger and poverty."

Earlier this year, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said biofuels were one of the main drivers for projected food price hikes of 20-50 percent by 2016.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the right to food recently described it as a "crime against humanity" to convert food crops to fuel, though some industry leaders have hit back, saying the concerns are exaggerated.

Verburg said she hoped the focus could shift to forms of biofuels that are not made out of food crops.

"We try to put emphasis on moving towards second generation biofuels and we hope we can move on to that soon," she said.
"We have to invest in biofuels but we have to make sure that we do not produce for biofuels when producing for food is needed. And it must be done in a sustainable way."

Biofuels From Brazil Next?

Aug 4 2007 (TODAY)

Besides chicken and aircraft, the country is big on ethanol export, too

HEDIRMAN SUPIAN
hedirman@mediacorp.com.sg

BITING into a chicken drumstick might just give you a taste of Brazil,
with up to 80 per cent of frozen chicken imports coming from that country.

But Brazilian Ambassador Paulo Alberto da Silveira Soares (picture) said
the country has much more to offer: "We are not here just to sell chicken.
It's much more than that. That's just to give a taste of things to come."

Birds of a more mechanical kind also have a presence here.

Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer has a regional base here serving the rest
of Asia.

"From chickens to aircraft, Brazil's exports are growing very
considerably. We are no longer only a food commodity supplier to the world
market. Our industrial products are also doing well," he said.

Brazil is the largest producer for sugarcane and a top exporter of soya
beans and beef. Oil-rich Brazil also exports up to US$500 million ($759
million) worth of crude to the Republic annually. But it is working on
ethanol as an alternative fuel, derived from its major agricultural
production of sugarcane.

"There's enormous potential in biofuels. We're the world's biggest
exporter of sugar, raw sugar, refined sugar - but we're also making
ethanol. Cars in Brazil are mostly fuelled by ethanol," he said.

"Everyone's talking about climate change and pollution - it's high time we
provide an alternative fuel. It's cheaper than oil, and sustainable
because you can keep planting sugarcane. We've been planting it for the
past 400 years."

Brazil exports ethanol to Japan and is looking to do the same here.

Trade between Singapore and the South American country were valued at
$3.16 billion in 2006, and $1.58 billion for the first half of this year.

Brazil was Singapore's 22nd largest trading partner for 2006, while the
Republic is the second largest Asian direct investor in the country, after
Japan.

Sembcorp Marine's Jurong Shipyard and Keppel Offshore and Marine employ up
to 10,000 Brazilian workers and have "revamped the shipyard industry"
there.

Mr Choo Chiau Beng, chairman and chief executive officer of Keppel
Offshore and Marine Limited and who also serves as non-resident ambassador
to Brazil, said: "Brazil is a resource-rich country with good people. To
succeed in doing business in the country, you have to be committed to
understand its national will, operating environment, diverse cultures and
people."

The Brazilian Ambassador said Foreign Minister George Yeo will be in
Brazil later this month to sign a Memorandum of Understanding for closer
economic cooperation between the Republic and Mercusor - the regional
trade bloc consisting of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

"There's great potential because it's not only Brazil that Singapore will
have access to. We can serve as the gateway to Latin America," he said.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is expected to visit
Singapore early next year - the first Brazilian president to do so in the
history of the Republic.

Biofuel Industries set to be first to sell green power to grid

By Jeana Wong, Channel NewsAsia
16 August 2007

SINGAPORE: Environmental technology firm Biofuel Industries is set to build the first biomass cogeneration plant that will sell its power to the national grid.

The S$30-million plant, to be located in Tuas, will produce 9.9 megawatts of electricity.

Although its generation capacity is relatively small, the company says it is part of its plan to create an integrated recycling business in Singapore.

Biofuel Industries has hired Industrial Power Technologies to build and run the cogeneration plant under a memorandum of understanding signed on Thursday.

By turning wood waste into fuel chips, the plant is expected to halve electricity production costs.

The company says it earns revenue from collecting the waste, exporting the recycled fuel chips and eventually selling the power to the grid.

It is now drawing up plans for the Tuas plant and construction is expected to begin by the end of the year.

"We also have two other projects that are being planned and in process. They are progressing very well. That would further add to the whole integrated recycling business," said Er Kwong Wah, chairman of Biofuel Industries.

"We're producing 1,000 to 1,500 tonnes of waste wood every day, including horticultural waste. This waste must go somewhere... The end goal is to have a perpetual business that will get rid of all the waste and at the same time, doing it in such a way that it makes business sense," he continues. - CNA/ac

Biofuel Industries set to be first to sell green power to grid

By Jeana Wong, Channel NewsAsia
16 August 2007

SINGAPORE: Environmental technology firm Biofuel Industries is set to build the first biomass cogeneration plant that will sell its power to the national grid.

The S$30-million plant, to be located in Tuas, will produce 9.9 megawatts of electricity.

Although its generation capacity is relatively small, the company says it is part of its plan to create an integrated recycling business in Singapore.

Biofuel Industries has hired Industrial Power Technologies to build and run the cogeneration plant under a memorandum of understanding signed on Thursday.

By turning wood waste into fuel chips, the plant is expected to halve electricity production costs.

The company says it earns revenue from collecting the waste, exporting the recycled fuel chips and eventually selling the power to the grid.

It is now drawing up plans for the Tuas plant and construction is expected to begin by the end of the year.

"We also have two other projects that are being planned and in process. They are progressing very well. That would further add to the whole integrated recycling business," said Er Kwong Wah, chairman of Biofuel Industries.

"We're producing 1,000 to 1,500 tonnes of waste wood every day, including horticultural waste. This waste must go somewhere... The end goal is to have a perpetual business that will get rid of all the waste and at the same time, doing it in such a way that it makes business sense," he continues. - CNA/ac

Clean Coal: How to Make Rock into Biofuel

Despite a Senate battle leaving out important funding for liquid coal research in the new energy bill, gasification remains an important engineering process to our green future

By Tyghe Trimble
Illustration by Dogo [link]
June 21, 2007
Popular Mechanics

Raw coal is dirty: It's a sulfur-filled, mercury laden, sooty, black rock. And before it can even be used, it must be scrubbed clean-or, with new technologies, converted to a liquid or gas. Liquid coal has been getting a lot of attention in the Senate of late, but bipartisan arguments were cut short this week when the promise of $10 billion in "clean coal" funding was cut from the new energy bill.

The big idea is to make coal into a liquid biofuel that could fill our cars. Many argue that this fuel would reduce our dependence on foreign oil, although others point to it as an unacceptable replacement for diesel due to its high output level of greenhouse gases. One thing's for sure: the rock-to-gas transformation remains in the preliminary research stages, with little funding and not much public understanding. Here's how that process, known as the Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC), converts coal into synthetic gas and energy-a 20-percent more efficient makeover of the dirty ore you may soon find only in a naughty kid's stocking:

1. The heart of gasification lies in (shocker) the gasifier, which takes coal, water and air and applies heat under high pressure to make "syngas"-a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Minerals in the fuel (i.e., the rocks, dirt and other non-carbon-based material) separate, leaving the bottom of the gasifier either literally in ashes or as an inert, glass-like slag-materials that can be reused for materials such as concrete and road fill.

2. The crude syngas leaves the gasifier piping hot and full of contaminants (hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, mercury and nasty particulates, to name a few). A combination of heat exchangers, particulate filters and quench chambers cool the syngas to room temperature and remove most of the solids.

3. Syngas then passes through a small bed of charcoal to capture mercury, removing over 90 percent of this toxic metal (click here to learn more). Used charcoal containing captured mercury leftover is sent to a hazardous landfill for disposal.

4. The final step for cleaning in gasification is the removal of sulfur impurities in acid gas removal units, where the impurities are converted into sulfuric acid or elemental sulfur-both valuable byproducts.

5. A combustion turbine then reheats the clean syngas, dilutes it with nitrogen for control of NOx (the greenhouse gas that makes smog) and burns it, driving a generator to make electricity.

6. Leftover heat from combustion is recovered in a Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG), which generates steam to power the internal turbine. Some of that air is compressed and can be channeled back to the air separation unit for oxygen, which is then reused within the gasifier.

7. The steam generated in the HRSG and the steam made in Step 1 combine to drive a steam turbine for even more power production. The steam then cools and condenses into water, which pumps back into the steam generation cycle. In an IGCC plant, two-thirds of the total electricity produced comes from the gas turbine and one-third from the steam turbine.

Cashing In On Biodiesel

22 March 2007
TODAY

Van Der Horst to build a $60m plant on Jurong Island

Yip Siew Joo
ysiewjoo@mediacorp.com.sg

BANKING on the potential of clean energy, homegrown company Van Der Horst
Engineering Services is the latest to jump onto the bio-diesel bandwagon.

It is planning to build a US$40 million ($61 million) bio-diesel
processing plant on Jurong Island and is in the process of acquiring a 4.5
hectare piece of land from the Government. The company - a unit of the Van
Der Horst Group - is talking to EDB and JTC to buy the land.

According to the company, it will be the first bio-diesel processing
facility in Singapore that will use the oil-seed jatropha curcas plant as
feed-stock. This goes against the trend in the region to make bio-diesel
with palm oil. The facility is expected to be ready by December next year.

The investment into bio-diesel comes some 10 years after Singapore-listed
Van Der Horst went into judicial management. The listed vehicle was later
sold and re-named Interra Resources.

But the operating units in China, India, Philippines, Singapore and
Holland were sold in 2000 to another group of investors. The company has
since gone about its business quietly, retaining its name and trademark,
and branching into bio-diesel now.

For a start, the new plant will churn out some 100,000 metric tonnes of
bio-diesel, before it ramps up to 200 thousand metric tonnes at the end of
2009.

Van Der Horst will set up a joint venture firm - called Van Der Horst
BioDiesel - with a Nanyang Technological University-linked technology
development company, the Institute of Environmental Science and
Engineering. The institute owns 10 per cent of the JV, and the Van Der
Horst group owns the rest. The institute will give R&D support to the
joint venture, and spearhead the adoption and implementation of an
enzyme-based production process.

CEO of the joint venture Mr Peter Cheng said the firm will produce
bio-diesel for Singapore-based oil companies. "Our first intention was to
export to the European market. But subsequently, we had a lot of local
interest expressing to take our product locally - the oil refineries and
the oil traders," he said.

The firm is so confident about demand for biodiesel that it is also
exploring building another processing facility in the Johor Iskandar
Development Region.

Mr Cheng said the group will fund its projects with internal resources and
private equity. Options include listing the JV either at home or on
London's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) for start-up companies.

- 938LIVE

Environmental Concerns Grow As Palm Oil Becomes Popular Energy Source

12 Feb 2007

KUALA LUMPUR - The oil palm has been held responsible for a range of ills
including rainforest destruction, the annihilation of orang utans and
haze-polluted skies.

But lately, high crude oil prices and new health concerns have given the
towering palm, grown mostly in Malaysia and Indonesia, a surprising new
status as an environmental saviour.

Palm oil production and prices are soaring as it finds favour as a source
of eco-friendly biofuel - fuel derived from renewable resources as an
alternative to fossil fuels - and as a substitute for the new dietary
baddie, trans fats, which are commonly used in processed food.

Palm oil used to be shunned because it is a saturated fat, but trans fats
are now believed to be much more harmful and last year the United States
market for Malaysian palm oil grew by 65 per cent as consumers began
making the switch. Meanwhile, European nations in particular are fuelling
big demand for biofuel, which is derived from natural oils and plants and
added to ordinary diesel.

Last year Malaysian exports of palm oil, already the world's largest, grew
to a record RM31.8 billion ($14 billion), 5 per cent up on the last high
set in 2004. Indonesia is aiming to overtake Malaysia as the world's
largest producer of palm oil by next year by expanding the area under
plantation.

Environmentalists, however, say that the benefits of palm oil will not
outweigh the damage wreaked by a dramatic expansion of planting at the
expense of rainforests.

Friends of the Earth, in a 2005 report on shrinking orang utan habitats in
Indonesia and Malaysia, called for a boycott of palm oil products. "If
forest destruction continues at the same scale and speed, the orang utan
will be lost within 12 years," it said.

Malaysia has denied the claims, saying that forests are no longer cleared
for plantations.

In Indonesia, plans for a vast new plantation in Kalimantan which would
strip 1.8 million ha of forest - an area half the size of the
Netherlands - have raised particular alarm.

Burning to clear land for palm oil also poses a hazard because the dense
smoke wafts right across the region, raising health concerns and
disrupting air travel and other business activities. It has become an
annual phenomenon. - AFP