Thursday, April 14, 2011

By Natalie Heng

ALLEGATIONS by various quarters that edible crops grown for biofuels will compete with food resources and agricultural lands have attracted controversy. NGOs and human rights groups say this will be to the detriment of the poor.

This perceived moral dilemma is what initially led to the rise of jatropha (Jatropha curcas) as a major contender in the biofuels arena. A non-edible crop which produces seeds containing up to 40% of oil, it grows on marginal lands thereby avoiding competition for agricultural land.

However, four years after investment banking and securities firm Goldman Sachs cited it as being one of the best plant contenders for future biodiesel production, there has been rising scepticism about the “miracle” properties of jatropha.

Many growers have been “burned” during their attempts at entering the jatropha biofuels market, according to Khoo Hock Aun, the chief executive officer of a plantation advisory management company that is part of the Cosmo Biofuels Group.

Not only have jatropha growers found the yields to be variable (some scientists have pointed out that growing it on marginal lands may just mean you get marginal yields), the high costs involved in harvesting its small seeds have also proven prohibitive. On top of all that, Western Australia banned the shrub in 2006 after declaring it to be an invasive species with high level of toxicity to humans. Some have reacted to the ban by pointing out that poisonous plants are common in backyards.

Khoo hones directly in on the many project failures, saying these have mainly been due to inadequate systems, supply chains and logistics.

“The failure of jatropha is not a failure of the crop itself but rather a failure of the systems behind the crop. These, however, are minor issues that can be solved over time,” says Khoo. He points out that time needs to be given for the development of high-yielding strains. “At the moment, research and cross breeding of jatropha have only had a few years, whereas oil palm has had 40 years and soya bean has had hundreds.”

He also says that the high cost of harvesting could be solved by adapting harvesting methods according to local conditions. One example would be to use manual harvesting in countries with high labour supply, and a mechanised system in areas with labour shortages.

It does however look like jatropha might currently be more appropriate for domestic uses, a market Khoo says growers should be looking at supplying as this also negates costly transportation.

Until jatropha’s unreliable productivity issues are solved through further genetic and agronomic developments of high-yielding strains, there is at least evidence it has good potential on a local scale. One exemplar of success has been its use within the Indian state of Kanataka. There, the state government has integrated it into a decentralised community approach to harvesting and processing a variety of biofuel crops. Intercropping of these crops (jatropha included) within local communities where oil extraction is performed at village level, and esterification into biofuels at village cluster level, has proved a success, transforming rural economies and communities.

New hopefuls

With the limelight having faded from jatropha, commercial viability remains the largest barrier to most biofuels. Central to this is the question of fuel price parity to petroleum. Since the National Biofuel Policy was launched in March 2006, only 10 out of the 29 biodiesel plants which were established are operating today, albeit sporadically. The initial optimism for crude palm oil (CPO) conversion into biodiesel crashed along with the commodity’s escalating prices, turning the CPO biofuels industry a non-starter.

Assuming CPO prices do not drop to a favourable rate any time soon, the disused biodiesel plants arguably stand ready and are just waiting for a new wonder crop. They would probably require only slight modifications to start whirring into action.

Malaysia Debt Ventures Berhad, a project financing body owned by the Finance Ministry says the current rally in crude oil prices has renewed interest in biofuels. It views cellulosic biofuels (derived from plant biomass) optimistically, due to their low cost and diverse, non-food sources but says commercialisation is still premature. It also looks at algae as having a lot of potential as up to 80% of these organisms comprise fats and oils that can be extracted and processed as fuels.

On a similar note, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board is researching into cellulosic bio-ethanol and collaborating with Universiti Malaya on algae research, but it is too early to comment on any results.

There is also a wave of excitement surrounding a potential new wonder crop: Pongamia pinatta.

The new jatropha?

Pongamia pinnata, also known as Indian beech, poonga oil tree or karanja, is a medium-sized tree with pleasant pink flowers, popularly used for landscaping along the shady streets of Brisbane, Australia.

Indigenous to the Indian sub-continent and South-East Asia, it has been successfully introduced to humid tropical regions within Australia, New Zealand, China and the United States.

If all goes to plan, it could be the next big thing in renewable biofuels. What is special about this non-edible plant, apart from the usual biofuel crop requirements of producing seeds with a high oil content (40%) and ability to grow on marginal lands, is its ability to take in nitrogen from the soil. This means it needs minimal amounts of nitrogen fertiliser, according to plant geneticist and research scientist Peter Gresshoff.

Production of nitrogen fertilisers releases large amounts of carbon dioxide and the fertilisers form nitrous oxides (another greenhouse gas) once they are washed into the ground by rain.

Head of the University of Queensland’s ARC centre of excellence for Integrative Legume Research, Gresshoff believes that for a biofuel crop to be truly sustainable, it should have the ability to fix nitrogen in the soil.

He points out how favourable a nitrogen-fixing biofuel crop looks in comparison with established biofuel feedstocks: “The problem when you grow sugar cane or oil palm is that you have to put in 100kg to150kg of fertiliser per hectare per year.”

Indians have been using the Indian beech for thousands of years as a source of traditional medicines, animal fodder, green manure, timber, fish poison and fuel but research has only really been done on an agronomic scale.

Gresshoff’s group is using cutting edge science to develop the potential of the plant.

Over the last three years, they have isolated and sequenced a variety of important genes to create DNA markers useful for further studies into the molecular biology of the plant. Their studies have revealed a huge diversity within the species, so by amassing the genetic profiles for high-yielding variants of the species, they hope to further improve its productivity through genetics and agronomics.

Even without further improvements to the yield, Gresshoff says his group has produced enough biofuel from pongamia to run a jet plane. The task now is to wait for savvy investors to come along.

“We are now looking for partners in order to certify the oil for jet fuel and to expand,” says Gresshoff.

But what about the major commercial key, achieving fuel price parity? He thinks he’s there and says that the pricing of pongamia biofuel is competitive with fossil fuels at US$500 to US$600 (RM1,550 to RM1,860) per tonne.

Meanwhile in Malaysia, Cosmo Biofuels Group has caught on to the so far untapped potential of pongamia. It has signed a memorandum with a research group from Utkal University in India to study potentially beneficial microbes in the propagation of pongamia.

The company, which is headed by Khoo, is in talks with various investors and development agencies. Khoos says the plan is to form a consortium comprising investors and leading researchers from India and Australia with a view to eventually establish plantations in India, Malaysia, Australia and the United States.

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