Tag Archives: south-africa
Genetically Modified Yeast Turns Crop Wastes Into Liquid Fuel
By Simon Redfern Reporter, BBC News Growing maize for use as a biofuel is controversial as it can impact food prices US researchers have used genetically modified yeast to enhance the production of biofuels from waste materials. The new method solves some of the problems in using waste like straw to make bioethanol fuel. The scientists involved say the development could help overcome reservations about using land for fuel production. The research is published in the journal Nature Communications. Many states around the world have plans to replace gasoline with bioethanol, but this has typically been by changing land-use from food crops to biofuel. Just this week, a representative of South Africa’s farming community announced that sorghum harvests would need to increase five fold to meet their government’s commitment to incorporate at least 2% bioethanol in petrol. Sorghum is South Africa’s second biggest summer crop and is a staple food as well as being used in brewing and livestock feed. However, scientists are now seeking more sustainable routes to generating biofuel – routes that would have a lighter impact on food prices and production. Breakdown breakthrough One is to consider using non-conventional plants such as seaweed. But among the most radical ideas is the suggestion that biowastes should be used to produce bioethanol, which is added to petrol replacing some fossil fuel. “Wastes present a major opportunity in this respect. We have to start to think about wastes, such as sewage or landfill waste as resources – not problems to be disposed of,” Dr Gavin Collins, an environmental microbiologist at the National University of Ireland, Galway, told BBC News. Using microbes to make fuel from biomass involves breaking down large complex biopolymer molecules. These are indigestible to most bugs, and attempts to incorporate them into fuel production have slowed down the biotechnology, creating bottlenecks. Biofuel boom The European Union also has a declared aim that 10% of its transport energy should be from renewable sources, such as biofuels, by 2020. To help meet this target, Europe’s largest biofuel plant opened this week at Crescentino, Italy. It is designed to generate 75 million litres of ethanol a year from straw and a crop called Arundo donax, which can be grown on marginal land, and does not compete for resources with food. One chemical that is produced when processing biowastes is a large sugar molecule called xylose. When you try and use yeast to ferment xylose, rather than making alcohol for fuel directly, it generates acetic acid – essentially vinegar. This is poisonous to the yeast, and stops the fermentation. Breaking down xylose and making acetic acid non-toxic are the two major problems that must be solved if biowastes such as straw are to be fermented to make fuel. Now, US biotechnologists appear to have solved both problems, by developing a genetically engineered strain of yeast that simultaneously breaks down xylose and converts acetic acid to fuel. “Xylose is a sugar; we can engineer yeast to ferment xylose,” said University of Illinois Prof Yong-Su Jin, one of the authors of the study. “However, acetic acid is a toxic compound that kills yeast. That is one of the biggest problems in cellulosic ethanol production.” The yeast digests the sugars in oxygen-poor conditions, making the process more efficient than digesters that rely on active mixing of air into the system. Microbe driven A new pathway, not yet discovered in nature, has been genetically engineered in the lab. This breakthrough means yeasts can be used much more efficiently to convert biowaste into biofuel. “We sort of rebuilt how yeast uses carbon,” said principal investigator Dr Jamie Cate, of the University of California at Berkeley One hurdle to implementing the discovery is that the new yeast that has been developed is genetically modified, and it is not yet clear how easily GM yeasts might be accepted for use on an industrial scale. Dr Gavin Collins, however, remains upbeat about the prospects for biotechnology. “We probably know the function of only about 0.01% of all living microbes on Earth,” he said. “It may be that many of them can efficiently degrade even complex plant material and other wastes under anaerobic conditions. They may be present in nature but we haven’t found them yet. “However, just look at what we have been able to do with the small fraction of microbes we understand – everything from antibiotic production; food and alcohol production; and biofuel production. “Just think what we could do, or what we might discover, if we understood the function of just another 1%.” Continue reading
South Africa Biofuels Seen Raising Sorghum Output Fivefold
By Tshepiso Mokhema – Oct 7, 2013 South Africa ’s plan to source all grain needed for biofuels production locally means sorghum output will have to climb at least fivefold, the nation’s biggest representative of commercial farmers said. Biofuel must comprise at least 5 percent of diesel and 2 percent to 10 percent of gasoline starting Oct. 1, 2015, Energy Minister Ben Martins said in a Sept. 30 Government Gazette. South Africa’s sorghum harvest probably increased 11 percent to 151,064 tons in the season that ended in April from a year earlier, the Pretoria-based Crop Estimates Committee said in its final forecast on Sept. 26. “We need an additional volume of 620,000 tons of sorghum to produce enough bioethanol to meet the 2 percent inclusion rate,” Wessel Lemmer, a senior economist at Grain South Africa, said in an e-mail. That would equate to output of about 771,000 metric tons. “The grains need to be produced locally, providing additional jobs in the value chain.” Forty-seven percent of South Africa’s sorghum, the country’s biggest summer crop after corn, soybean and sunflower seed, is grown in the Free State province, according to the committee. The grain is used as a staple food in some rural communities, livestock feed and to make traditional beer. “ Food security , in terms of availability or affordability, will not be impacted negatively,” Lemmer said. One ton of sorghum produces about 400 liters (106 gallons) to 440 liters of bioethanol, according to Lemmer. Competitive Prices Sorghum futures rose 1.5 percent to 3,350 rand ($333) a ton on Oct. 4 on the South African Futures Exchange, the highest since at least May 2010. They were unchanged by midday today. “The biofuels industry will be able to offer competitive prices for sorghum, enabling producers to plant a profitable crop,” said Lemmer. “This will incentivize producers to increase the production of sorghum.” In August last year, Grain SA estimated sorghum production would have to increase by 600,000 tons. The only available starch crop for bioethanol is sorghum, while for biodiesel soybean, sunflower seed and canola can be used, Lemmer. Corn, one of the country’s staple foods, has been excluded from bioethanol production, he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Tshepiso Mokhema in Johannesburg at tmokhema@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net Continue reading
World not ready to deal with aging populations
World not ready to deal with aging populations (AP) / 4 October 2013 The world is aging so fast that most countries are not prepared to support their swelling numbers of elderly people, according to a global study by the United Nations and an elder rights group. The report ranks the social and economic well-being of elders in 91 countries, with Sweden coming out on top and Afghanistan at the bottom. It reflects what advocates for the old have been warning, with increasing urgency, for years: Nations are simply not working quickly enough to cope with a population graying faster than ever before. By the year 2050, for the first time in history, seniors over the age of 60 will outnumber children under the age of 15. Truong Tien Thao, who runs a small tea shop on the sidewalk near his home in Hanoi, Vietnam, is 65 and acutely aware that he, like millions of others, is plunging into old age without a safety net. He wishes he could retire, but he and his 61-year-old wife depend on the $50 a month they earn from the tea shop. And so every day, Thao rises early to open the stall at 6am and works until 2pm, when his wife takes over until closing. An elderly man listens to a speaker at a political rally in New Delhi, India. — AP “People at my age should have a rest, but I still have to work to make our ends meet,” he says, while waiting for customers at the shop, which sells green tea, cigarettes and chewing gum. “My wife and I have no pension, no health insurance. I’m scared of thinking of being sick — I don’t know how I can pay for the medical care.” Thao’s story reflects a key point in the report, which was released early to The Associated Press: Aging is an issue across the world. Perhaps surprisingly, the report shows that the fastest aging countries are developing ones, such as Jordan, Laos, Mongolia, Nicaragua and Vietnam, where the number of older people will more than triple by 2050. All ranked in the bottom half of the index. The Global AgeWatch Index (www.globalagewatch.org) was created by elder advocacy group HelpAge International and the UN Population Fund in part to address a lack of international data on the extent and impact of global aging. The index, released on the UN’s International Day of Older Persons, compiles data from the UN, World Health Organisation, World Bank and other global agencies, and analyzes income, health, education, employment and age-friendly environment in each country. The index was welcomed by elder rights advocates, who have long complained that a lack of data has thwarted their attempts to raise the issue on government agendas. “Unless you measure something, it doesn’t really exist in the minds of decision-makers,” said John Beard, Director of Ageing and Life Course for the World Health Organization. “One of the challenges for population aging is that we don’t even collect the data, let alone start to analyse it. … For example, we’ve been talking about how people are living longer, but I can’t tell you people are living longer and sicker, or longer in good health.” The report fits into an increasingly complex picture of aging and what it means to the world. On the one hand, the fact that people are living longer is a testament to advances in health care and nutrition, and advocates emphasise that the elderly should be seen not as a burden but as a resource. On the other, many countries still lack a basic social protection floor that provides income, health care and housing for their senior citizens. Elderly people take shelter from the rain at a subway station in Taipei, Taiwan. — AP Afghanistan, for example, offers no pension to those not in the government. Life expectancy is 59 years for men and 61 for women, compared to a global average of 68 for men and 72 for women, according to UN data. That leaves Abdul Wasay struggling to survive. At 75, the former cook and blacksmith spends most of his day trying to sell toothbrushes and toothpaste on a busy street corner in Kabul’s main market. The job nets him just $6 a day — barely enough to support his wife. He can only afford to buy meat twice a month; the family relies mainly on potatoes and curried vegetables. “It’s difficult because my knees are weak and I can’t really stand for a long time,” he says. “But what can I do? It’s even harder in winter, but I can’t afford treatment.” Although government hospitals are free, Wasay complains that they provide little treatment and hardly any medicine. He wants to stop working in three years, but is not sure his children can support him. He says many older people cannot find work because they are not strong enough to do day labor, and some resort to begging. “You have to keep working no matter how old you are — no one is rich enough to stop,” he says. “Life is very difficult.” Many governments have resisted tackling the issue partly because it is viewed as hugely complicated, negative and costly — which is not necessarily true, says Silvia Stefanoni, chief executive of HelpAge International. Japan and Germany, she says, have among the highest proportions of elders in the world, but also boast steady economies. “There’s no evidence that an aging population is a population that is economically damaged,” she says. Prosperity in itself does not guarantee protection for the old. The world’s rising economic powers — the so-called BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — rank lower in the index than some poorer countries such as Uruguay and Panama. However, the report found, wealthy nations are in general better prepared for aging than poorer ones. Sweden, where the pension system is now 100 years old, makes the top of the list because of its social support, education and health coverage, followed by Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada. The United States comes in eighth. Sweden’s health system earns praise from Marianne Blomberg, an 80-year-old Stockholm resident. “The health care system, for me, has worked extraordinarily well,” she says. “I suffer from atrial fibrillation and from the minute I call emergency until I am discharged, it is absolutely amazing. I can’t complain about anything — even the food is good.” Still, even in an elder-friendly country like Sweden, aging is not without its challenges. The Swedish government has suggested people continue working beyond 65, a prospect Blomberg cautiously welcomes but warns should not be a requirement. Continue reading
