Farming energy is a global reality. While biomass fuel wood is still the energy of peasants, used by nearly 2 billion people living on the planet earth, biological fuel is rapidly becoming popular in the developed countries. Modern agriculture is for food, industrial raw materials for manufacturing consumer goods, biological fuel feed stock and biomass for cogeneration.

Biofuels has been produced commercially in USA and Brazil for several decades, currently all developed countries and countries in transition have a biofuel plant. Globally, biofuel sector has been growing in the last 10 years , biofuel production grew from 16 billion litters in the year 2000 to more than 100 billion litters in 2010. Currently biofuels provides global average 2.7 percent of global road transport fuel. Some countries are pretty farming fuel, Brazil has reached 21 percent of transport fuel being biofuel, USA has achieved 4 percent and European Union average is 3 percent. The biofuels includes cellulosic-ethanal, biomass to liduids diesel, biosynthetic gas and other innovations.

Installed advanced biofuel capacity such as ligno‐cellulosic ethanol, biomass‐to‐liquids and other types, today is roughly 175 million liters gasoline equivalent (lge)/year. Additional 1.9 billion lge/year production capacity are currently under construction.

There trends have been as a result of global energy market investors strategies and sound government policy. The most important policies to encourage biofuels include mandatory sustainability requirements, blending targets or mandates for biofuels with traditional fuels and loan guarantees and other financing mechanism that address the investment risk of developing commercial‐scale advanced biofuel production units. Sustainability criteria ensure that biofuels develop with a positive social impact and without competing with food or causing negative impacts for biodiversity.

The debate that biofuels negatively affect food production is mere propaganda, as farming modernizes to embrace income and value addition, food security becomes easier to achieve. While mere food production targeting in households has deepened food insecurity, the hybrid of production targeting and food in markets is the way to have all people food secure in nations, therefore income strategy for poor people is the fundamental challenge to have hybrid of production targeting and food in markets as the way to feed the world. Biofuels will commercialize agriculture and put money in the pockets of the poor as famers of feedstock. This will encourage food markets as the priority way to feed the world, peasantry is due to limited income targeting in livelihood strategies. Lack of income limits use of better farming technologies such as mechanization, improved breeds and fertilizers , this has made 2 billion people hungry.

The EU’s Renewable Energy Directive requires that biofuels generate GHG savings of at least 35% compared to fossil fuels started at the end of 2010; these requirements rise to 50% Savings in 2017 and 60% in 2018. The European Union will also maintain a target of 5.75% renewable fuels (by energy content) in transport by 2010 and a 10% renewable energy mandate for 2010. Further, advanced biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass counts twice against the EU targets. Funding is provided under the EU’s Research Framework Programme;
some Member States, e.g. Denmark and Germany provide specific financial support for advanced biofuels plants. These nations are out rightly farming fuel.

Globally Africa has the potential of biofuel production given the robust agriculture sector with capacity for feed stock production. Africa is bedeviled by widespread poverty, income disparity relate to opportunity various social groups have to earn money. Given the 50 percent poor population in Africa and diminishing agriculture markets caused by global competition, poverty may be increasing. Bio fuel production can put billions of dollars in the wallet of the poor as feed stock farmers. The widespread disparity in oil deposits of Africa, with most of the oil in Africa produced by a few countries while some countries don’t have any oils wells, farming fuel will be the bigger option to oil imports and surging oil prices everyday weakening economy of oil poor countries. Well developed green energy encompassing biofuels, solar, wind, geothermal and hydro is the way out of oil poverty that bedevil some African countries. It can be done.

– Joshua Okomo, Proprietor Environment Stores & Logistics

Related posts:

I’m delighted that Ben Thorp has become friendly with us here at 2GreenEnergy. Here’s a guy who’s forgotten more about biomass than 99% of professionals in this arena know, and who frequently sends me scholarly papers he’s penned on the subject, in a patient and thoughtful effort to bring me up to speed. Here’s one of his recent publications, An Efficient and Sustainable Use of Biomass for Heat and Power.  Hope you enjoy. 

Related posts:

Here’s a short video in which I discuss the future of algae and other biofuels, synthetic fuels, and cold fusion.

Related posts:

A reader wrote in with a question about his plans to get in the ethanol business, using a certain feedstock in which he’s an expert.  Indeed, one of the most interesting things about biofuels is the enormous diversity of feedstocks.

The plant pictured here, Arundo donax, a type of cane that is highly prized for its growth rate, and the diversity of soils and climates in which it grows.  But the energy density of all terrestrial plants is at least 30 times less than algae, which is the main reason for the interest in the latter.

Related posts:

Ben Thorp is one of the true gentlemen in the biofuels industry, humbly but energetically chairing the non-profit BioEnergy Deployment Consortium. Retired from business after an enviable lifetime of successful engagements, he’s dedicated himself to the proposition that biomass needs to be a) understood, and then b) implemented on a pragmatic basis. Yet this represents a considerable challenge.

“There are 11 definitions of the term ‘biomass’”, he told me. “What fits for a business plan to a VC firm might fail completely in an application for a loan guarantee or a permit application.  And how about this: is MSW (municipal solid waste) really ‘renewable energy?’ In some places it’s regarded as such, but not in others.”

These really are tough questions – one of the reasons that my hat’s off to these folks for trying to make sense of all this.

Then, of course, there are the political issues. What happens when a biomass project comes up against the most powerfully moneyed forces on the planet, e.g., the utilities?   Consolidated Edison has put asunder many potential players, large and small, who have attempted to disrupt how they buy and sell electrical power — whether that disruption was threatened by biomass or some other form of renewables.   

We all remember start-up hydrokinetics player Verdant Power, who had the temerity to want to take a few kilowatts out of the East River in NY and sell it to ConEd customers.  Due to a combination of governmental over-regulation and corruption, it took Verdant no fewer than six years to get a permit to make this happen – and in order to get the permit approved, they had to pay ConEd for the power that the utility was unable to sell.  

And what about organized crime? Isn’t it common knowledge that the mob owns the flow of garbage out of New York City?  (For the record, I don’t know.  Hell, I don’t want to know.)

Ben tactfully acknowledges all this, but doggedly goes on with his work, which seems largely based around sorting out the truth from the lies – or at best, gross exaggerations in this space. “We only list technologies that we’ve been able to validate,” he told me. “Have you noticed that there are a great many unproven claims in this arena?” he asked.

You could say!  It takes me hours to sort through this stuff, some of it obviously written to confuse or deceive, the reader.  It’s no country for old men like me.  Fortunately Ben is made of sterner stuff.  I hope you’ll check out this group’s fine work.

Related posts:

As Donald Trump famously said, “As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.”  That certainly seems to apply to what we’re doing in clean energy, doesn’t it? It’s really not smart to apply time and effort to projects that don’t scale.

Consider for a moment, municipal solid waste, as a component of the biomass wedge. 130 millions tons of MSW are converted annually into energy and other useful products, in an industry that will reach $29 billion by 2015. Yet this is a minute fraction of the total MSW generated by our worldwide population.

And here’s a useful point to keep in mind: the disposal of MSW constitutes a significant problem — especially for the world’s most densely populated cities. Imagine you’re chartered with the responsibility to deal with MSW in a population center like Shanghai, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangkok, Beijing, Seoul, or Mexico City. Think of the issues that all conspire against you: land scarcity, air and water pollution, disease, odor, and the expense of logistics.

But then, realize that you’re sitting on a fortune! You have tens of thousands of tons a day of energy-rich biomass that, with the right equipment, can be converted to energy – some combination of electricity and liquid fuels, as well as other valuable products — and sold back to a huge population of energy-starved people, all living and working within a short distance.

As it turns out, one of our 2GreenEnergy clients just sent me a 61-page feasibility study they completed in one of the mega-cities I just mentioned. It calls for the deployment of a patented waste-to-energy technology to convert 3000 tons of MSW per day into 130 megawatts of electricity plus ancillary products. Strategic partners, including one of the five largest engineering/construction companies on Earth, are ready to start the 14 month build process; and a 25-year power purchase agreement is solidly in place, signed off at the highest level of government.

My job, as usual, is to round up investors. Between debt and equity, the total project cost is about $400 million, and the IRR numbers (return rate) look quite attractive. If you know of anyone who might be interested and can invest at that level, I hope you’ll let me know.

I think “The Donald” is quite correct here: If you have to think, you might as well think big.

Related posts:

I responded:

As I’ve told you, I love your project, and I’d like very much to meet you.

Not to sound like I’m totally out of the pop-culture (which I am), but what’s the main attraction of UFC?

It’s not that I don’t appreciate a good fight.  When I was 10, my best friend and I laid awake into the wee hours after the Cassius Clay/Sonny Liston fight, talking about the stunning event, challenging each other with our thoughts as to the turning point in the bout.

Three decades later, I boarded a flight back home (as the super-frequent flier I was at the time) to Los Angeles from Columbus OH, after the 15-ring day I had just experienced as a business consultant, only to realize I was sitting next to a huge, muscled black man with a ridiculously large gold and jeweled ring.

“I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re an athlete,” I smiled, leaning toward him and offering my hand, which was immediately swallowed by his.  I looked up at his massive grin. ”Yes,” he whispered softly. “I’m James — James Douglas,” he beamed politely.

“As in James … ‘Buster’ Douglas?” I asked, wide-eyed.  He nodded humbly, and generously let me pepper him with questions about fighting, technique, his wife, his kids, his aspirations.  I asked about the sanity of Mike Tyson, and the ethics of Don King, a man who, I would come to learn, would sell his own grandmother for a pack of cigarettes.  We laughed like school kids.  I know I’ll never enjoy a flight any more thoroughly.

In any case, it’s an easy trip to Las Vegas from here.  I’d be pleased to meet you at your convenience.

Related posts:

In this short video, I discuss a new twist on pyrolysis to create high-grade biodiesel from a stream of waste-tires. Some of the many appealing aspects of this approach are:

1) It’s modular; each plant costs less than $5 million to build.

2) The technology is proven; it’s been running 24/7 in the Ukraine for the past two and a half years, and

3) It’s “omnivorous.” It’s very easy and quick to convert to another feedstock if necessary.

Related posts:

Skeptics may say that this has been tried hundreds of times by people who couldn’t make it work effectively, which is true. Personally, however, I think this is the real deal.

Related posts:

Related posts: