Tag Archives: organic
Carbon-Free NZ: Mass Biofuel Production
4:10 PM Wednesday Oct 2, 2013 EXPAND The Bioenergy Strategy indicates that 30% of our transport fuels could come from biomass by 2040; Scion research has shown that, long-term, we could theoretically do 100% New Zealand is in the enviable position of potentially becoming the Saudi Arabia of biofuels in the South Pacific, without the food Vs energy debate over biofuels that has plagued other nations. New Zealand has the capacity to produce all its transport fuels from indigenous natural resources. As petroleum becomes more expensive over the next decade we can transition to transport fuels from biomass (organic matter) and waste. Technically these are achievable now, but the economics are not quite there. Internationally there are a number of technologies available to convert biomass and organic matter into liquid biofuels. Some of these have been around for decades while others are emerging (including from pioneering New Zealand companies). Unlike many countries where the focus has been on the production of ethanol from sugar crops and biodiesel from vegetable oil, we can use our cropping land for more valuable products, such as food. The New Zealand focus for biofuel production is on using our biomass from wood and organic matter from municipal waste. As a result we will not have the food Vs energy problems. Instead, in New Zealand, it’s food plus energy. Transport fuel production from renewable sources is not new to us. Anchor Ethanol has been producing ethanol from whey for a number of years. The ethanol can be blended with petrol as Gull currently does. The production of biodiesel initially focused on using the feedstocks tallow, used cooking oil or canola oil, with conventional conversion technologies. For a short period biodiesel production was supported by financial assistance from Government which stimulated fleet owners to successfully trial biodiesel. Demand for biodiesel outstripped supply. However, because of the short term of the assistance, investors stayed clear of building new production capacity. Now only Green Fuels NZ, who purchased the biodiesel production business from Solid Energy, produce biodiesel commercially. The experience of biodiesel showed the significant international marketing benefits that are achievable for NZ Inc when we seriously use biofuels in vehicles. Many tourist businesses, such as in Queenstown where all tourist operators used biodiesel, gained significant market advantage from being able to promote themselves as ‘clean and green’. This carries over into our export businesses where sustainable production is becoming more important to customers. This initial biodiesel and ethanol production was always going to be limited, but its importance with regard to transitioning to greater volumes of production was in the experience vehicle owners gained in the use of biofuels. However, there would have been enough feedstock for conventional technologies to have provided adequate quantities of biofuel until the economics of advanced biofuels occurred. The emerging biofuel production of greatest relevance to New Zealand uses advanced technologies and feedstocks of biomass or waste organic matter. These are not the most attractive feedstocks as they are low in sugars and starches. We have a lot of biomass and we are good at growing it, and we have an endless supply of organic matter in municipal waste. In fact, municipal waste costs us money to dispose of. Commercial facilities producing these biofuels are currently starting in many countries. They generally require government subsidies – the level of which gives an indication of just how close the technologies are from operating in an unsubsidised market such as ours. Taking into account petroleum price projections. I estimate we are only 5-10 years off being fully commercial. We currently waste 10-15% of our forest production through harvesting and processing. This quantity of wood residue would be enough to get biofuel production started using advanced technologies. This would promote larger quantities of biomass from extended forest planting. The Bioenergy Strategy prepared by the Bioenergy Association indicated that 30% of our transport fuels could come from biomass by 2040. Scion research has shown that, long-term, we could theoretically do 100%. The economics of this sort of production is likely to be carried through by the value of the co-products that are also extracted during the process. Wood and other organic matter is rich in chemicals, only some of which can be used to make biofuels, and these chemicals will become more valuable as petroleum prices soar. The chemicals from wood can also be used to make bio-plastics which can substitute petroleum-based plastics. Consolidation of the current sector, based around the production of transport biofuels and their co-products, along with our ability to efficiently grow wood, could lead to our working with Asian countries such as Singapore, which does not have enough land to grow wood for production of liquid fuels and bio-based materials. The demand for liquid fuels for transport and other uses is unlikely to disappear, but the price will escalate. Now is the time to start partnering with Asian countries so that we use their money, and our ability to efficiently grow wood, to produce their liquid biofuels. New Zealand could become the Saudi Arabia of the region in the production of biofuels. For weekly Element news sign up for our newsletter here Brian Cox is the executive officer of the Bioenergy Association of New Zealand. He has over 30 years’ experience in identifying, investigating and developing commercial capital investment projects in the energy and infrastructure sectors. The Association represents all commercial, research and academic parties involved with wood fuel, biogas and liquid biofuels. Previously Cox led the development of the New Zealand Bioenergy Strategy (which he now works to implement) which has been recognised within the Government’s Energy Strategy. By Brian Cox Continue reading
The Future Of Farming: Q&A With Futurist Glen Hiemstra
Wednesday, September 11, 2013 by Farm and Dairy Staff Share Farm and Dairy spoke with Glen Hiemstra, founder of Futurist.com , about the future of farming and agriculture. Glen Hiemstra is a respected expert on future trends. He’s worked with companies like The Home Depot, Boeing, Land O Lakes, John Deere and Microsoft. Glen has also advised government agencies and organizations like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Highway Administration Advanced Research program and the Washington Forest Protection Association. Glen often meets with companies to discuss emerging trends in economics, demographics, energy, the environment, science, communications and technology. Here’s what Glen had to say: F&D: What exactly is a futurist? What do you do? GH: A futurist is somebody who explores three questions about the future. The three questions are: What is probable in the future? What is possible, sort of what’s outside the boundaries of the way we usually think about our business, or what is a sort of “black swan” event that could happen, that we might want to take into account? What’s preferred is the third question. That’s the strategic planning question. Futurists like myself usually give talks or seminars about the first two questions. People are really interested in future trends and where the world might be going, according to those who watch for trends. Organizations tend to be really interested in that third question, “What’s our preferred future?” That’s essentially what we do: presentations, writing and consulting work around those questions. Futurists, like myself, tend to be called when people are interested in a little bit longer term view. Most organizations do regular strategic planning cycles, maybe looking 5 years ahead. But now and then they want to look 10 years ahead, and that’s when they call me. F&D: You’re not looking into a crystal ball, right? There’s no wizardry involved. What kind of methods do you use to try to accurately predict these future trends? GH: Well, there are two or three primary methodologies. One is typically called trend-analysis. It’s just a kind of labor-intensive collection of data material from whatever sources you can find it. Whether it is the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or in the case of agriculture, The Farm Bureau. It might be demographic trend information. It might also be cultural trend information that you get by reading other people’s opinions about it and keeping track of things over time. While there are some computerized tools for forecasting, which are available, which I’m not trained in and do not use myself, most futurists still, in the end, rely on good old pattern recognition. What makes sense. If you logically look at this, how does it all add up? F&D: Now that we got those two questions out of the way, let’s move on to farming and agriculture. Briefly explain to me what you think the farm of the future could look like? GH: Super question. I am actually thinking about that now because of a talk I have coming up with the directors of the Farm Credit Bank, though they want me to talk less about agriculture and more about big-picture stuff. Here’s a couple thoughts on what a future farm will look like. Number one, undoubtedly, a future farm will be much more attuned to the biological basis of the soil. Not that we don’t know a lot about that now and we don’t pay attention to it. But, there are concerns because the world will need much more food between now and 2050, because of the growing global population and the growing appetite of the global population. So the question is how are we going to do that? And the big keyword in every industry, including agriculture, is sustainability. How can we do that in a way which produces more, but at the same time preserves the ability of the soil and farmland to produce in the future. Every year that clicks by over the next 20 years, that’s going to be more of an issue. The good news is, we’ll know more about how to do that. So I think the farm of the future will ultimately be doing some things differently in terms of using fossil-fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides, and so on. That will evolve. It will not be the same, but exactly what it will look like isn’t clear to me. I could vacillate in the big debate between what we now think of as traditional agriculture versus what we think of as organic agriculture, which is of course in old-fashioned terms, more traditional. How that will all play out is, I think, the big question. The reason that’s a big question is because it will have to deal with the ability of the soil to provide enough food and with what happens with the evolving climate. F&D: Sure The second thing dealing with the future of agriculture that I find very intriguing is that I’m pretty persuaded by the growing interest in the local food movement or the organic food movement. Basically, it comes down to especially local food. I think that we will see, because you can do it economically, there’s a whole generation interested in it, and it kind of fits in the value shift going on around the world, there will be a viable local agricultural community in places where it’s sort of disappeared. Whole regions are interested in that, New York, Washington and part of the Midwest. We will still see growth in very large-scale agriculture, but we’ll also see equivalent growth in very small-scale, even personal scale, agriculture. This interest in healthy, local food, I don’t see that disappearing. I see it increasing and it has to have an impact over the next two decades. F&D: Is it fair to say that farming and agriculture in these metropolitan areas will be more important moving forward? GH: Yes. It will be more important. With a co-author, Denis Walsh, a sustainability futurist from Canada, I’ve written a book called “Millennial City.” It’s really a look at the future of cities. F&D: We’ve got a couple questions here submitted to us via social media. Charles wants to know if non-traditional meats, goats, lambs, emu, will become a larger part of our diets and the market moving forward. GH: Oh man, that’s something I have not looked into at all. My off the cuff response is that I don’t think so. I will give one caveat to that. They will continue to be small niche and specialty foods.The caveat is the growing diversity of the U.S. population. By 2040, according to the Census Bureau, the non-Hispanic white population will be the minority population of The United States. That means you have many more people of color who come from historical cultures where those meats are a traditional form of protein. One could imagine that in a more diverse, ethnic culture, some of that market could grow just based on ethnic drivers. F&D: Carol from Greenford, Ohio wants to know if you think we’ll see an increase in GMO fruits and vegetables in the future? On that subject, what will the role of GMO fruits and vegetables be? GH: Yes, we will see an increase in genetically modified, but I think that will be accompanied by an increase of regulatory requirements for labeling. That’s on the ballot here in the state of Washington, I know it got defeated in California. I haven’t read any polls, but I’ll be surprised if it does not pass in the state of Washington. I think the consumer will be fine with genetically modified foods, so long as they know what they’re getting. The rate of increase of genetically modified foods will be highly related to what happens with the climate and food security and whether it’ll be biologically necessary to grow genetically modified foods to makes sure we grow enough food. Bottom line, I do think we’ll see more genetically modified food, but it’ll be in an environment in which there will be a requirement for labeling. F&D: What can small farmers do to stay relevant and competitive over the next 20 or 30 years. GH: Two, maybe three things. If you’re a small farm, it’s sort of imperative to be on the sustainability bandwagon. I haven’t studied this, but I’m familiar with the film director Peter Bick. Peter made “Carbon Nation,” a documentary. He is persuading me that there is a growing understanding of how to rebuild a healthier soil using some fairly old and traditional farming methods, which don’t work on the super-large scale. When I say get on the sustainability wagon, I’m really saying learn everything new about the building of soil as a carbon sink. Small farms that could turn their land into a carbon sink could become more valuable in a world in which we go to a carbon trading system, which is occurring in California. Though we’re a long ways from that politically in the U.S., depending on what happens with the global climate, you could see a very rapid shift into a system that the ability to sequester carbon is highly valued. F&D: What’s a “carbon sink?” GH: If you’re growing grazing land, and your land is being maintained in such a way that your roots go back to the old prairie kind of root systems which were deeper and more robust than we have in the Midwest these days, those roots soak up carbon. They basically take carbon out of the air. That can all be calculated. You can look at how many acres and if that many acres pulls the following amount of carbon out of the air. Therefore on the carbon-trading system you could be paid for doing that. That’s all kind of fringe stuff yet, at this point. We won’t really know for a decade, or two, how that plays out. But it’s an opportunity that the film director [Peter Bick], who is making a film on the subject, thinks is something for smaller farmers to look at. I’m not sure how it’ll apply to the individual family-farm, but it’s something to pay attention to. The other thing is, if you’re part of the local-food movement, using the Internet. People want to know where their food is from. Getting into that game. Relatively small family farm operations become super stars on the internet. F&D: Do you see drones in the future of ag? GH: Yes! That’s a great question. Sure, why not? Will every farm have a drone that the farm manager/operator/owner can fly over the field and measure and observe stuff? Related to that is the potential of the so called “internet of things,” such as a project that is putting sensors in forest land to alert people sooner of forest fires. It’s quite easy to imagine more and more embedded and implanted sensors on a person’s property, giving constant data. Drones? Yea, that’s a really good one. Sure, why not? F&D: Do you think there’s going to be a time when the grain markets aren’t controlled by the weather? Because of the way genetics is changing crops, do you see us going a different route in the future? GH: That would be a very distant future… I say that, but I suppose somebody could come up with a genetic modification tomorrow that changes the whole picture over night. The weather’s very powerful, and the globe is a very big place. You can look at some of the climate change scenarios and look at the maps of the potential drought areas and drought areas. OK, I don’t care what you do genetically, try to grow grain on this massive area of land with no water for 10 years. It’s not going to happen. Though clearly, there’s been some improvements with drought tolerance and salt tolerance in crops. There is some interesting work going on with organic kelp based and other biological fertilizers. They’re showing some pretty good results in Africa and California and some other places. They include the ability to increase yield in conditions of drought, but they can’t overcome catastrophic level droughts. My guess is, no. The weather will still be a factor 50 years from now. F&D: When we started this conversation, we talked about the magic year 2050, when the food supply will have to double. Are we going to be able to do that, do you think? Or will we face a famine? GH: I’ve actually heard bigger numbers than that. If the global class continues to grow, then the numbers could be even more than double. I think the odds are that we’ll be able to figure out how to do that. It’ll require a lot of innovation. It could be innovation on the organic side, or it could be a new kind of agriculture. It might not look like the 19th century agriculture or the 20th century agriculture. Humans are inventive when they have to be. F&D: Do you have a positive outlook when it comes to the future of agriculture? GH: Yes, absolutely I do. Agriculture has shown an astonishing ability to produce food. Not that long ago, I don’t have the exact time, but it used to take 6,000 acres to provide enough food for one person for one year. Now we’re down to half an acre or less. That’s an amazing record. Though the rest of the world lags behind the U.S. in terms of that record, they will catch up. On the large scale I’m pretty optimistic. On the small scale, I think that we’ll see more people participating in this local food and urban farming movement. To me, that’s very optimistic. What we know is that an increasing percentage of the global population moves to, and lives in, cities, which is counter-intuitive to what I just said about small farms. They will want food grown within 250, 350 miles. And that means more local agriculture in and around cities. I’m very fascinated by the very futuristic, mostly still on the drawing board, images of future cities with large food-growing operations within the city. On the facades of high-rise buildings, or various kinds of hydroponic or fast-growing environments. In part two, Glen answers questions from Farm and Dairy’s online community. He then addresses the idea of drone in agriculture and then gives an optimistic view on the future of farming. Continue reading
What Happened To Biofuels?
Energy technology: Making large amounts of fuel from organic matter has proved to be more difficult and costly than expected Sep 7th 2013 SCIENTISTS have long known how to convert various kinds of organic material into liquid fuel. Trees, shrubs, grasses, seeds, fungi, seaweed, algae and animal fats have all been turned into biofuels to power cars, ships and even planes. As well as being available to countries without tar sands, shale fields or gushers, biofuels can help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by providing an alternative to releasing fossil-fuel carbon into the atmosphere. Frustratingly, however, making biofuels in large quantities has always been more expensive and less convenient than simply drilling a little deeper for oil. Ethanol, for instance, is an alcoholic biofuel easily distilled from sugary or starchy plants. It has been used to power cars since Ford’s Model T and, blended into conventional petrol, constitutes about 10% of the fuel burned by America’s vehicles today. Biodiesel made from vegetable fats is similarly mixed (at a lower proportion of 5%) into conventional diesel in Europe. But these “first generation” biofuels have drawbacks. They are made from plants rich in sugar, starch or oil that might otherwise be eaten by people or livestock. Ethanol production already consumes 40% of America’s maize (corn) harvest and a single new ethanol plant in Hull is about to become Britain’s largest buyer of wheat, using 1.1m tonnes a year. Ethanol and biodiesel also have limitations as vehicle fuels, performing poorly in cold weather and capable of damaging unmodified engines. In an effort to overcome these limitations, dozens of start-up companies emerged over the past decade with the aim of developing second-generation biofuels. They hoped to avoid the “food versus fuel” debate by making fuel from biomass feedstocks with no nutritional value, such as agricultural waste or fast-growing trees and grasses grown on otherwise unproductive land. Other firms planned to make “drop in” biofuels that could replace conventional fossil fuels directly, rather than having to be blended in. Governments also jumped on the biofuels bandwagon. George Bush saw biofuels as a route to energy independence, signing into law rules that set minimum prices and required refiners and importers to sell increasing amounts of biofuel each year. By 2013, America was supposed to be burning nearly 3,800m litres a year of “cellulosic” biofuels made from woody plants. Toil and trouble But instead of roaring into life, the biofuels industry stalled. Start-ups went bust, surviving companies scaled back their plans and, as prices of first-generation biofuels rose, consumer interest waned. The spread of fracking, meanwhile, unlocked new oil and gas reserves and provided an alternative path to energy independence. By 2012 America’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had slashed the 2013 target for cellulosic biofuels to just 53m litres. What went wrong? “Even if processes can be economically scaled up, that might in turn highlight a further problem.” Making a second-generation biofuel means overcoming three challenges. The first is to break down woody cellulose and lignin polymers into simple plant sugars. The second is to convert those sugars into drop-in fuels to suit existing vehicles, via a thermochemical process (using catalysts, extreme temperatures and high pressures) or a biochemical process (using enzymes, natural or synthetic bacteria, or algae). The third and largest challenge is to find ways to do all this cheaply and on a large scale. In 2008 Shell, an energy giant, was working on ten advanced biofuels projects. It has now shut most of them down, and none of those that remain is ready for commercialisation. “All the technologies we looked at worked,” says Matthew Tipper, Shell’s vice-president for alternative energy. “We could get each to produce fuels at a lab scale and a demonstration scale.” But bringing biofuels to market proved to be slower and more costly than expected. The optimism of five years ago may have waned, but efforts to develop second-generation biofuels continue. Half a dozen companies are now putting the final touches to industrial-scale plants and several are already producing small quantities of second-generation biofuels. Some even claim to be making money doing so. Consider Shell. Raizen, its joint venture with Cosan of Brazil, produces more than 2,000m litres of first-generation ethanol annually from sugarcane juice. Usually the fibrous stalks left over are burned for power or turned into paper, but next year Raizen will start turning them into second-generation bioethanol, using a cocktail of designer enzymes from Iogen, a Canadian biotechnology firm. Raizen hopes to produce 40m litres of cellulosic ethanol a year, cutting costs and boosting yield by co-locating its cellulosic operation with a traditional ethanol plant. Under this model, second-generation biofuels complement and enhance first-generation processes, rather than replacing them outright. Three plants in America are expected to start producing cellulosic ethanol from waste corn cobs, leaves and husks in 2014: POET-DSM Advanced Biofuels (75m litres) and Dupont (110m litres), both in Iowa, and Abengoa (95m litres) in Kansas. But the first company to produce ethanol using enzymes on an industrial scale is Beta Renewables, a spin-off from Chemtex, an Italian chemical giant. An 80m-litre cellulosic ethanol plant in Crescentino, near Turin, has been running at half capacity over the summer, using straw from nearby farms. It will run on corn waste in the autumn, rice straw in the winter and then perennial eucalyptus in the spring. Beta Renewables has already licensed its technology for use in Brazil and Malaysia, and expects to sell several more licences by the end of the year. All Beta’s plants can already make biofuels at a profit, albeit only in areas with very cheap feedstocks, says the firm’s boss, Guido Ghisolfi. Just as this cellulosic ethanol comes on to the market, however, demand for fuel is waning in many developed countries due to improvements in fuel efficiency and lingering economic weakness. As a result, demand for ethanol for blending is falling, too. In America, petrol containing up to 15% ethanol, while permitted by the EPA and promoted by ethanol producers, is still a rare sight on station forecourts. Other biofuels companies are continuing to pursue drop-in fuels. One attraction is that compared with ethanol, the demand for which depends to a large extent on government mandates that it be blended into conventional fuels, drop-in fuels are less susceptible to changing political whims. Another is that drop-in fuels are commonly made with sugar as a feedstock, either conventionally sourced or cellulosic, and sugar is widely available and easily transported. Stepping on the gas Amyris, based in California, genetically engineers yeasts and other microbes to ferment sugar into a long-chain hydrocarbon molecule called farnesene. This can then be processed into a range of chemicals and fuels. After a few rocky years when it over-promised and under-delivered, Amyris is now producing limited quantities of renewable diesel for public buses in Brazil and is trying to get its renewable jet fuel certified for commercial use. Solazyme, another firm based in California, is also focusing on renewable diesel and jet fuels, in its case derived from algae. Microscopic algae in open-air ponds can use natural sunlight and atmospheric or industrial-waste carbon dioxide to produce oils. But harvesting the fuel, which is present in only very small proportions, is expensive and difficult. Solazyme instead grows algae in sealed fermenting vessels with sugar as an energy source. The US Navy has used tens of thousands of litres of its algal fuels in exercises, and Propel, an American chain of filling stations, recently became the first to offer algal diesel. But although its technology clearly works, Solazyme remains cagey about the economics. A 110m-litre algae plant in Brazil, due to be up and running by the end of the year, may clarify Solazyme’s commercial potential. If drop-in biofuels are going to have an impact worldwide, they will have to be economic away from the tropical climes of South America, where sugar can be grown cheaply. The only commercial facility currently making drop-in fuels directly from woody biomass is operated by a start-up called KiOR. Its 50m-litre plant in Columbus, Mississippi, turns pine-tree chips into drop-in petrol and diesel for customers including FedEx, a logistics firm, and Chevron, an oil giant. KiOR uses a thermochemical process called fluid-catalytic cracking that borrows many technologies from conventional oil refineries and, unlike fussier biochemical systems, should scale up easily. KiOR is planning a 150m-litre facility in nearby Natchez. However, the Columbus plant is not yet running at anywhere near full capacity, and KiOR has a lot of debt and is still losing money. In August disgruntled investors launched a class-action lawsuit. Some observers doubt whether even the most sophisticated biofuels can compete with fossil fuels in the near future. Daniel Klein-Marcuschamer, a researcher at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, conducted a comprehensive analysis of renewable aviation fuels. He concluded that producing first-generation bio-jet fuel from sugarcane would require oil prices of at least $168 a barrel to be competitive, and that some second-generation algae technologies would require crude oil to soar above $1,000 a barrel (the current price is around $110) to break even. Mr Klein-Marcuschamer has made his model open-source in an effort to help the industry find ways to make biofuels more competitive. Even if second-generation processes can be economically scaled up, however, that might in turn highlight a further problem. To make a significant dent in the 2,500m litres of conventional oil that American refineries churn through each day, biofuel factories would have to be able to get hold of a staggering quantity of feedstock. Mr Ghisolfi of Beta Renewables points out that a factory with an annual output of 140m litres needs 350,000 tonnes of biomass a year to operate. “There are only certain areas, in Brazil and some parts of the US and Asia, where you can locate this much biomass within a close radius,” says Mr Ghisolfi. “I am sceptical of scaling to ten times that size, because getting 3.5m tonnes of biomass to a single collection point is going to be a very big undertaking.” Billions of tonnes of agricultural waste are produced worldwide each year, but such material is thinly spread, making it expensive to collect and transport. Moreover, farms use such waste to condition the soil, feed animals or burn for power. Diverting existing sources of wood to make biofuels will annoy builders and paper-makers, and planting fuel crops on undeveloped land is hardly without controversy: one man’s wasteland is another’s pristine ecosystem. Dozens of environmental groups have protested against the EPA’s recent decision to permit plantations of fast-growing giant reed for biofuels, calling it a noxious and highly invasive weed. Just as the food-versus-fuel argument has proved controversial for today’s biofuels, flora-versus-fuel could be an equally tough struggle for tomorrow’s. Continue reading
