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The Generator news service publishes articles on sustainable development, agriculture and energy as well as observations on current affairs. The news service is used on the weekly radio show, The Generator, as well as by a number of monthly and quarterly magazines. A podcast of the Generator news is also available.
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  • Solar lantern provides ray of hope for Africa

    The average African household uses 55 or so liters of kerosene per year, at an approximate cost of £80 [US $158]. This contributes to health problems as the burning of kerosene inside houses is a major cause of respiratory illness, fires, burns, accidental poisonings, eyesight problems and death in the developing world. Kerosene is far more expensive and far less efficient than electric lighting: the cost of useful light energy ($/lumen hour of light) for kerosene is 325 times higher than the inefficient incandescent bulb and 1,625 times higher than compact fluorescent light bulbs.

    In rural areas, the high cost of kerosene can consume much of a family’s income. One lamp consumes 0.07 liters per hour with daily usage of around two hours burn time, amounting to around 4 liters per month. In the developing world, a family’s lighting costs, because of kerosene fuel costs, are equal to those of a family in the developed world. Even with government subsidies, kerosene requires 10% to 25% of a villager’s annual income.

  • Sustainable biofuels possible

    While I deplore the use of foodstuffs for the production of biofuels, I feel that I should reiterate yet again that other choices are possible without resorting to that or destroying the environment. Many people are starting to become aware (at last) that woody biomass is a viable source of liquid fuels, but they usually think in terms of inefficient old processes like acid or enzymic hydrolysis followed by fermentation. In fact, there are other processes to convert such biomass to transport fuels, such as biogas, thermal pyrolysis, gasification followed by catalytic conversion to methanol, dimethyl ether or even hydrocarbon fuels.

    I recently came across an NREL paper describing a process using gasification followed by catalytic conversion to mixed alcohols, mainly ethanol. It is called Thermochemical Ethanol via Indirect Gasification and Mixed Alcohol Synthesis of Lignocellulosic Biomass and it can be downloaded from http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy07osti/41168.pdf .

     

    Combined, all process, market, and financial targets in the design represent what must be achieved to obtain the reported $1.01 per gallon, showing that ethanol from a thermochemical conversion process has the possibility of being produced in a manner that is ‘cost competitive with corn-ethanol’ by 2012.

    This still raises the question of whether we should be producing relatively expensive fuels from biomass while the fuel efficiency of most cars is still very poor and the planning of our cities still condemns most people to commuting long distances by car and delivering our goods by road freight. It also raises the question of whether there are more efficient fuel/vehicle combinations than ethanol/petrol blends in conventional ICE vehicles, and what we will do as the supply of petrol declines.

    We are now on the cusp of Peak Oil, and even with marginal sources of oil such as polar oil, deepwater oil, tar sands, heavy oil, gas condensate and coal liquids, we are very close to the point where total supplies must start to decline. Once that decline starts, annual supplies will fall at 3-4% a year, so we will need to adjust our demand to the available supply. That suggests that with the current concept of 10% ethanol in petrol, we will need to get production up well beyond the Biofuels Target of 350 ML (which is only 1% of demand) as quickly as possible to reach 3,500 ML. But what then? Most conventional cars cannot take more than 10% ethanol, so we would have to start using flexible fuel vehicles, such as the ones that Holden is exporting to Brazil, which can run on a variety of blends up to 85% ethanol.

    As the percentage of ethanol increases, the fuel will get more expensive, and other alternatives will need to be considered. While considering other fuel/vehicle combinations to reduce the overall cost of motoring, we should also be looking at radical alternatives that could make a real difference. Hybrid and fuel cell cars come to mind, but the latter will not run on petrol. It is often suggested that they will have to run on hydrogen, but that is not true either because they can run on any hydrogen carrier that can be catalysed to hydrogen at a low temperature (which excludes petrol) using an onboard catalyst unit or reformer, such as natural gas (CNG) and alcohol fuels.

    Whatever we do, we will need to use transport fuels more efficiently and stop using petroleum based fuels. That transition needs to start now. Coal liquids are not a genuine alternative because they involve the production of large amounts of greenhouse gases and lock us into the continued use of petroleum fuels. Biofuels may play a part in that transition, but we should avoid the mistakes of other countries and ensure that the net energy production made out of biomass is positive. This will mean a very different approach to the Biofuels Taskforce, and the realisation that low-level ethanol/petrol blends do not represent a long-term solution. While we are developing the biomass conversion processes and building up supplies of biomass (such as mixed species long-rotation plantations on salt-affected land that is unsuitable for agriculture), we could be producing transitional supplies of the hydrogen carriers mentioned above using our abundant supplies of natural gas that we just cannot wait to export overseas as LNG. At the same time, we could be converting our chemical, plastic and fertilizer industries to gas feedstocks as well so that we are less dependent on oil. Eventually, they too could run on biomass.

    The need to develop viable alternatives to petroleum fuels is now urgent, but we should be aware of all the traps.
    Chris Mardon. 

  • Organic farms store more carbon

    Queensland Conservation has aligned with Biological Farmers of Australia, to re-instate claims organic farm methods can contribute to lowering Australia’s greenhouse emissions by locking up more carbon in soil.

    They also say organic production will become more competitive as oil and fertiliser prices climb.

    As part of its climate change campaign, Queensland Conservation has referred to an extensive thirty year scientific trial by the Rodale Institute in the USA which found that organic practices can remove around 7,845 kilograms of carbon from the air for each hectare farmed annually by sequestering it in the soil.

    The study found that if all 175 million hectares of cropland in America were converted to organic practices, it would be the equivalent of taking 217 million cars off the road – or, more than a third of the world’s automobiles.

    Queensland Conservation board member, Jerry Coleby-Williams, says the research (first published in 2003) has relevance in Australia.

    “Applying similar carbon sequestration results to those found in the Rodale study, an Australian farm with an average cropping area of 710 hectares, could sequester 5,500 tonnes of carbon each year,” Mr Coleby-Williams said.

    “There is a total of approx. 50 M ha of periodically cultivated soils in Australia, representing the potential for at least 390 million tonnes of captured carbon per year.”

    He said in the face of rising oil prices organic production combines ‘eco-friendly’ with ‘cost-effective’.

  • Ethanol makers defend role in energy crisis

    From FarmProgress in USA 

    It seems that ethanol has a target on its back. The rising cost of food has gained a lot of media attention, with many laying the blame at ethanol’s feet, despite numerous reports and studies showing that other factors such as the high price of oil are the real culprits.

    The increased coverage of the issue has brought politicians into the fray.

    Texas Governor, Rick Perry, requested a waiver of the Renewable Fuel Standard from the Environmental Protection Agency, asking that blending requirements be rolled back to 50pc of mandated levels.

    Now Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, says she will submit a bill that would freeze the national biofuel mandate.

    It’s unclear whether Senator Hutchinson will be able to find support in the Senate, since the mandate that was passed in the Energy Bill had wide bi-partisan support. However the winds of politics can change rapidly, especially in an election year.

    On Tuesday, President Bush defended ethanol in a speech given in the Rose Garden.

    He said food price increases are minimally impacted by biofuels and the recent rise in food prices can chiefly be blamed on weather, increased demand and higher energy prices.

    The truth of the matter is it’s in our national interests that our farmers grow energy” Bush said. “As opposed to purchasing energy from parts of the world that are unstable or may not like us.”

  • Climate experts put poor in sights

    Matthew Warren, The Australian

    DEVELOPING countries need to be set “demanding and binding” emissions targets as part of an aggressive upgrade to global action on climate change signalled by Australia’s and Britain’s lead greenhouse policy advisers.

    In two new separate papers, Ross Garnaut and Nicholas Stern have called for deep cuts in developed country emissions by 2020 and substantial reductions by developing countries to stabilise greenhouse gases at manageable levels.

    Launching his latest climate report in London on Wednesday, Sir Nicholas, former chief economist for the World Bank, said developed countries must cut emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.

    In February, Professor Garnaut suggested cuts as deep as 90per cent may be needed to avoid the risk of dangerous climate change, flagging that these should be allocated on a per capita basis.

    Their tag-team reports directly contradict the communique from the Bali negotiations last December, which bowed to pressure from developing countries that insisted they make only voluntary cuts in any post-2013 global emissions deal.

    Global talks leading up to a crucial UN meeting in Copenhagen next year are expected to negotiate targets as part of a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012.

    On Monday, Russian climate negotiators said they had no intention of accepting a binding cap on greenhouse emissions. Russia’s ratification of Kyoto was pivotal to the deal coming into force in 2003.

    The world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, China, is reluctant to accept binding targets while fast-growing India is steadfast in its opposition, claiming any constraint on emissions would hinder economic growth.

    In a new academic paper released this week, Professor Garnaut says global emissions are growing 14 per cent faster than the highest projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

    As a result, developed countries will need to cut emissions by 26 per cent by 2020 to reach the highest level of greenhouse gases stabilisation, and up to 40 per cent to be sure of avoiding increases of more than 2C.

    “Cuts of such dimensions will not be made in a framework of voluntary action,” the paper concludes. “They will only be made if major developing countries also become subject to demanding and binding targets.”

    The Garnaut paper argues that developing countries will need to “bring down emissions very substantially below business as usual” by 2020.

    “Without all major emitters binding themselves to economy-wide targets or policies, given rapid emissions growth, the prospects for the global climate change mitigation are bleak,” the report says.

    Sir Nicholas’s new report, Key Elements of a Global Deal on Climate Change, says developing countries will need to set their own targets by 2020.

    He argues the solution requires the rapid expansion of global carbon markets and massive investment in low-emission technologies, while rich countries will need to bear the brunt of the reforms.

    A spokeswoman for Climate Minister Penny Wong said the Stern report was another reminder of the scale of the challenge and the need for a global response.

    Former lead Australian climate negotiator and head of ABARE, Brian Fisher, said it was “virtually impossible” to expect to negotiate targets for developing countries by 2020.

  • Oceans may die from oxygen depletion

    “Reduced oxygen levels may have dramatic consequences for ecosystems and coastal economies,” according to the scientists writing in the journal Science.

    The north of the Indian Ocean, along with the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, is also oxygen-low but the available data showed no substantial change in the size of the oxygen-minimum zone in recent decades.

    Lothar Stramma, lead author at IFM-GEOMAR in Kiel, Germany, said there were signs the oxygen-low bands between 300 and 700 metres depths were getting wider and moving into shallower coastal waters.

    “The expansion of the oxygen-minimum zones is reaching more to the continental shelf areas,” he said. “It’s not just the open ocean.”

    That could disrupt ever more fisheries.

    Problems of lower oxygen supply add to woes for the oceans led by over-fishing as the world struggles to feed an expanding population. A UN conference in 2002 set a goal of trying to reverse declines in fish stocks by 2015.

    The scientists said levels of dissolved oxygen in the oceans had varied widely in the past and more study was needed.

    “We are far from knowing exactly what will happen,” Mr Stramma said.

    In the most extreme case, at the end of the Permian period about 250 million years ago, there were mass extinctions on land and at sea linked to high levels of carbon dioxide and extremely low oxygen levels in the waters.

    The UN Climate Panel said last year that global warming, stoked by human use of fossil fuels, would push up temperatures and bring more droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels. More and more species would be at risk of extinction.

    Today’s study showed that a swathe of the eastern Pacific from Chile to the United States and a smaller part of the eastern Atlantic, centred off Angola, were low in oxygen.

    Mr Stramma said the oxygen-poor regions were away from major ocean currents that help absorb oxygen from the air. And warmer water is less dense and so floats more easily – that makes it less prone to mix with the deeper levels of the ocean.