Archive for Biofuels

Hi Dave and Chris
Can I add my bit?
UK homegrown biofuel could, at extreme, only supply 3 or 4% of UK transport fuel.
Ethanol is such poor EROEI and competes directly with food, wheat, sugar, it should not count.
We only have ~6M hectares of ploughable land (as in WWII). The figures for WWII are sobering and illustrate for example the limited supply of milk and meat from  permanent grass pasture. We had tight rationing and still needed to import 1/3 of all our calories. Now with 61M people we have about 4 persons per acre of cultivable arable land. Even if the yield per acre of wheat is now double, because modern varieties can use much higher NPK input, we would see biofuels increase imports of both food and, from very dubious sources, vegetable oil.
Oil Seed is better than ethanol but must be grown in rotation and realistically could supply considerably less than the 5 – 6% of UK diesel demand that might be reached if the maximum possible OSR crop were all devoted to diesel.
This means large imports of bio-oil if refineries are to reach an economic critical throughput.
In which above cases, Dave A’s concerns apply in spades.(Are you aware that already there are extant planning applications for power stations that will burn imported vegetable oil; actually Palm Oil? An appalling waste IMHO.)
A similar case for biofuel / diesel increasing net imports for EU as a whole is made by JRC Reports to the EC.

Gasification of coppice energy crops grown on poorer ground and under poorer growing conditions might supply another few % if a case could be made for changing our transport to NG (gas) driven. Not going to happen? We are not US of A. Savings and electricity from renewables / nuclear for transport seems better way to go.
best
Phil
— On Sun, 9/5/10, dave andrews <> wrote:
From: dave andrews <

Hi Chris – thank you for inviting me to pontificate!!!  (not that I need much encouragement)
 
I am only against bio diesel etc when it involves chopping down perfectly good rain forest, or Savannah or the other land category in South America no one has ever heard of, and growing oil crops; or turning grain production into petrol etc.
 
It has been shown that all of these are very dubious in terms of carbon savings and very bad for orangutans.
 
I would be in favour of Sea Water Green House, plus ADRECS to create fresh water and to create NEW biomass in deserts along with renewable electricity  which could then be converted into some sort of bio fuel. Some of the carbon residues could be sequestrated.
 
That works for me.
 
As you know I am pretty keen on ammonia as a fuel source for heavy vehicles, planes etc.
 
And of course we should have far less personal transport and more directly powered electric transport such as trams and railways.
 
And of course, coal can readily be made into fuel and with CCS…….not so much of a problem.
 
best
 
Dave A
 
On 8 May 2010 22:55, Chris Hodrien < wrote:
> Dave, I hadn’t hoisted in that you were quite so ‘anti’ bio-diesel (and
> liquid biofuels in general?).
> It seems to me that they have a legitimate transport role (especially for
> air travel),  though smaller than once thought because of ‘fuel vs. food’
> and ‘fuel vs. forest’ issues, and that the attraction of refining into a
> product compatible with retrofitting into all the millions of existing
> engines on the road (while recognising the resulting refining costs + energy
> losses) were self-evident. So I would be interested in a bit more detail on
> your own arguments against it, especially where (what end-uses) you think
> that ‘available’ biomass (wastes if nothing else) should go instead. I am
> quite amenable if you want to argue that animal/human food products are
> higher ‘value-added’ than fuels, if that’s part of it – you might well be
> right! Rgds,  Chris.

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Dave
 
How very sensible of you to recommend trams as the preferred solution for public transport in urban areas. I attach a note on the potential for integrating waste recycling with ultra light trams. If really good tram networks are installed (and the cost of installing lightweight rail has now been brought below £2 million per route kilometre double track) then, together with pedestrianisation, cycling and rickshaws, urban mobility can be brought to a very high level before having to bring in a few electric taxis. 

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Acording to National Grid “Renewable gas has the potential to make a significant contribution to the UK’s renewable energy and carbon reduction targets for 2020. And in the longer term, with the right government policies in place, renewable gas could meet up to 50% of UK residential gas demand. Produced mainly via a process of anaerobic digestion (AD) or thermal gasification of the UK’s biodegradeable waste, renewable gas represents a readily implementable solution for delivering renewable heat to homes in the UK.

Renewable gas can also deliver greater security of energy supply for the country as well as a solution for waste management as UK landfill capacity declines. In terms of the cost to the UK of delivering renewable gas, it is estimated that the marginal cost (i.e. that over and above the cost of the waste infrastructure which must be built anyway in the UK to deal with reducing landfill capacity) would be in the region of £10bn. This cost compares well with the likely cost of delivering other large scale renewables such as wind.

The unit cost of renewable gas would be of a similar level to the cost of other sources of renewable energy which are currently supported with subsidies. There are no insurmountable technical or safety barriers to delivering this solution (the technology is already being deployed in many other countries).

Full report at: Renwable Gas

 

 

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Jan
16

ASA bans renewable fuels ad

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The ad which claimed that biofuels were a sustainable answer to OPECs oil, was found to have breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 3.2 (Division of informed opinion), 7.1 (Truthfulness), 49.1, 49.2 and 49.3 (Environmental claims). The ASA said that the the ad must not appear again in its current form. ASA told RFA to remove the claim “BIOFUELS – A … SUSTAINABLE ANSWER TO OPEC’S OIL” from their ad.

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/Public/TF_ADJ_45582.htm

Thanks for this to:


Dave Auty
Entec UK Ltd, Leeds
Office: 0113 280 6384
www.entecuk.com

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The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) had a meeting to discuss the generation costs of energy technologies in November last year. This exercise happens every so often and its objective is to update inputs that might be used in any energy-related modelling work carried out by the department.

The link represent DECC’s initial thinking. It is subject to change and may or may not be published.

They give for example the following costs, all in UK Pounds/kWe:

CCGT – 600 – 690

Coal 1250 – 1500

Onshore wind – 1074

Offshore wind – 1429

The table on the link gives a lot more detail.

 

http://claverton-energy.com/pipermail/claverton-group_claverton-energy.com/2009-January/000351.html

Surprisingly, perhaps (or perhaps not given the historical bias), there is no mention of the capital costs, or the running costs of the cheapest means of cutting CO2 and fuel costs – Combined Heat and Power with District Heating  CHPDH for cities, and micro-CHP for suburbs.

If you have any evidence to suggest that any of the assumptions differ from what is attached in the spreadsheet, you may wish to contact Stephen Green, Senior Economist, Energy Strategy, Security and Markets Directorate Department of Energy and Climate Change, at DECC.

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