Salman's Infobahn

Image via Wikipedia South Africa has tremendous biofuel potential when considering the capacity to grow total plant biomass (all lignocellulosic plant biomass. According to conservative estimates, South Africa produces about 18 million tonnes of agricultural and forestry residues every year. The South African biofuels target for 2008‐2013, according to Industrial Biofuels Strategy (2007), has been fixed at 2% penetration level in the national liquid fuel supply, which corresponds to 400 million litres per annum.  When considering the use of 50‐70% of this plant biomass with second generation biochemical and thermochemical technologies, South Africa has the potential to substitute the bulk of its current liquid fossil fuel usage (currently 21.2 BL/annum) with renewable biofuels. However, the only real activity has been US$437 million investment by the South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and Energy Development Corporation (EDC) in two biofuels projects that...

Image via Wikipedia The growing concerns about climate change have brought biochar, a charcoal produced from biomass combustion, into limelight. Biochar is a carbon-rich, fine-grained residue which can be produced either by ancient techniques (such as covering burning biomass with soil and allowing it to smoulder ) or state-of-the-art modern pyrolysis processes. Combustion and decomposition of woody biomass and agricultural residues results in the emission of a large amount of carbon dioxide. Biochar can store this CO 2 in the soil leading to reduction in GHGs emission and enhancement of soil fertility. Biochar holds the promise to tackle chronic human development issues like hunger and food insecurity, low agricultural productivity and soil depletion, deforestation and biodiversity loss, energy poverty, air pollution and climate change. Thus, biochar could make a difference in the energy-starved countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as the industrialized world wi...

Image via Wikipedia The renewable resource with the greatest potential in South Africa is solar energy. The total area of high radiation in South Africa amounts to approximately 194,000 km2, including the Northern Cape, one of the best solar resource areas in the world.  South Africa has average daily solar radiation of between 4.5 and 6.5 kWh per m 2 . Solar thermal heating is the predominant mode of solar energy utilization in South Africa.  Eskom is building a 100MW concentrated solar (CSP) power project in Upington (Northern Cape) with financial assistance from the World Bank.   The Clinton Climate Initiative is partnering with the   Department of Energy to set up a solar park in the Northern Cape, which will add 5GW to South Africa’s electricity generation. Siemens is also currently   conducting a feasibility study on a possible 210 MW CSP plant in the Northern Cape to possibly come online by 2014 and the Industrial Development Corporation is also invest...

Image via Wikipedia Like any developing country, the Philippines is facing a formidable challenge of fostering sustainable energy options to support the energy requirements of its economic and social development goals with minimal adverse effects on the environment. In the Philippines, renewable energy sources contribute 43 percent to the country’s primary energy mix, one of the highest in Southeast Asia. The Philippines has an existing capacity of 5,500 MW of renewable energy power. Out of which, 61 percent is hydropower while 37 percent is geothermal power. Biomass energy application accounts for around 15 percent of the primary energy use in the country. The resources available in the Philippines can generate biomass projects with a potential capacity of around 200 MW. The country has abundant supplies of biomass resources, offering much potential for clean energy generation.  These include agricultural crop residues, forest residues, animal wastes, agro-industrial wastes, ...

Image via Wikipedia The production of biofuels from lignocellulosic feedstocks can be achieved through two very different processing routes. They are: Biochemical – in which enzymes and other micro-organisms are used to convert cellulose and hemicellulose components of the feedstocks to sugars prior to their fermentation to produce ethanol; Thermo-chemical – where pyrolysis/gasification technologies produce a synthesis gas (CO + H 2 ) from which a wide range of long carbon chain biofuels, such as synthetic diesel or aviation fuel, can be reformed. Lignocellulosic biomass consists mainly of lignin and the polysaccharides cellulose and hemicellulose. Compared with the production of ethanol from first-generation feedstocks, the use of lignocellulosic biomass is more complicated because the polysaccharides are more stable and the pentose sugars are not readily fermentable by  Saccharomyces cerevisiae.  In order to convert lignocellulosic biomass to biofuels the ...