Conservation
of fossil fuels :
Biodiesel,
an emerging renewable source.
--------
Leena Mehendale
Twentieth
Century saw an extensive use of fossil fuels all over the world. The
innovations of hundreds and thousands of different uses for petroleum
& natural gas has led to a significant increase in the need for
fossil fuel in the world. A growing number of scientific researchers
and political leaders have urged prompt conservation of fossil fuels
by investing immediately in energy-efficient vehicles, machinery, and
structures and by gradually shifting to alternative sources of
energy.
The
reason most commonly given in support of fossil fuel conservation is
that “Petroleum Resources are finite” and “the need to prevent
future global climate change”. Most of these arguments say, “fossil
fuels provide about 95 percent of the commercial energy used in the
world economy”..... “Combustion of those fuels constitutes the
largest source of emissions of climate-altering greenhouse gases”.
Most scientists agree that such emissions cannot be continued
indefinitely at current or increasing levels without causing
devastating effects on ecosystems and on people. Electricity
generated from fossil fuels such as coal and crude oil has led to
high concentrations of harmful gases in the atmosphere. This has in
turn led to many problems being faced today such as ozone depletion,
global warming and destruction
of useful rain cycles .
The
consumption of non-renewable sources of energy, thus, has caused more
environmental damage than any other human activity. Therefore,
locating alternative sources of energy has become very important and
relevant to today’s world. These sources, such as the sun and wind,
can never be exhausted and therefore are renewable. They cause less
emission and are available locally. Their use can, to a large extent,
reduce chemical, radioactive, and thermal pollution. They stand out
as a viable source of clean and limitless energy, as a source of
non-conventional energy. Most of the renewable sources of energy are
fairly non-polluting and considered clean.
In
Indian context, “Bio-diesel”, as a source of alternative and
renewable source of energy has started gaining momentum in a big way.
Biodiesel (fatty acid alkyl esters) is a cleaner diesel replacement,
made from natural, renewable sources such as Tree Borne Oilseed and
Animal Fats. Just like petroleum diesel, bio-diesel also operates in
compression-ignition engines, in fact the first ever such engine
invented by the German scientist Diesel used peanut oil for fuel.
Blends of up to 20% bio-diesel (mixed with petroleum diesel) can be
used in nearly all diesel equipments and are compatible with most
storage and distribution equipments. These low-level blends (20% and
less) generally do not require any engine modifications. Bio-diesel
can provide the same payload capacity as diesel.
Jatropha
Curcas has been identified for India as the most suitable Tree Borne
Oilseed (TBO) for production of bio-diesel both in view of the
non-edible oil available from it and its presence all throughout the
country. The capacity of Jatropha Curcas to rehabilitate degraded or
dry lands, from which the poor derive their sustenance, by improving
land’s water retention capacity, makes it additionally suitable for
up-gradation of land resources. Presently, in some Indian villages,
farmers are extracting oil from Jatropha and after settling and
decanting it, they are mixing the filtered oil with diesel fuel.
Although, so far the farmers have not observed any damage to their
machinery, yet this remains to be tested by
research
institutes and
agro-mechanical divisions of various agricultural universities. They
need to start
working on it.
Despite
the lack in research, fact
remains that for use in modern machinery as well as for mixing and
storage in
large proportions, this
oil needs to be converted to bio-diesel though a chemical reaction,
called “Trans-Esterification”. This reaction is relatively simple
and does not require any exotic material. The R&D Division of
IOCL has been using a laboratory scale plant of 100 kg/day capacity
for trans-esterification. In
past, some attention has been paid
for
designing
of larger capacity plants in Anand Univ. Gujrat, Delhi Univ, IIP
Dehradun and
PCRA. With their
initiative, suitable technology & equipments for esterification
of bio-diesel on small & medium scales have also been developed.
A few industries have done experimental production even at 50 tonnes
a day. Such
larger plants are useful for centralized production of bio-diesel
though production
can be continued in smaller capacity plants of half
kg
to 20 kg per
day
at decentralized level in villages, till the optimum levels are
worked out. These kind of small plants can be a way out to provide
energy security to our remote and rural areas, while it would also
contribute towards employment generation.
As
such, all kinds of Tree Borne Oilseeds, be it edible or no-edible can
be used as a raw material for production of bio-diesel. From
the Indian point of view, however,
we are yet to meet our current demand of edible oils, hence the
option left out for India is non-edible oilseeds.
With sky rocketing crude oil prices, what is required now is to spread the knowledge of this system and debug some crucial fiscal issues like taxation policy, tax holidays and subsidies, import concessions to palm crude oil. One major apprehention expressed by willing producers is the taxation. Unless govt comes out with a positive statement that non-edible seeds brought in for bio-diesel production will be treated on par with agricultural farm product and hence standard tax exemption will be available for it, no entreprenuers will be attracted towards it. Some large scale production experiments in Maharashtra (by Garwares) and MP were stalled in past because govt was not ready to come out with such a statement.
With
a change of guards at the level of Union Govt. and a change in
political ideology, it appears worthwhile to once again take up
this issue. In
addition, more attention is needed on projecting
these
practices as
earners of carbon-credit through
CDM mechanism, so that this source of alternative energy can be
exploited to its fullest extent in our country.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is modified as above -- 10-10-2017
Biodiesel,
an emerging renewable source.
--------
Leena Mehendale
Principle
Secretary, GAD,
Maharashtra
Twentieth
Century saw an extensive use of fossil fuels all over the world, the
innovations of hundreds and thousands of different uses for petroleum
& natural gas has led to a significant increase in the need for
fossil fuel in the world. A growing number of scientific researchers
and political leaders have urged prompt conservation of fossil fuels
by investing immediately in energy-efficient vehicles, machinery, and
structures and by gradually shifting to alternative sources of
energy. The reason most commonly given in support of fossil fuel
conservation is that “Petroleum Resources are finite” and “the
need to prevent future global climate change”. Most of these
arguments say, “fossil fuels provide about 95 percent of the
commercial energy used in the world economy”..... “Combustion of
those fuels constitutes the largest source of emissions of
climate-altering greenhouse gases”. Most scientists agree that such
emissions cannot be continued indefinitely at current or increasing
levels without causing devastating effects on ecosystems and on
people. Electricity generated from fossil fuels such as coal and
crude oil has led to high concentrations of harmful gases in the
atmosphere. This has in turn led to many problems being faced today
such as ozone depletion global warming and Tsunami.
The
consumption of non-renewable sources of energy, thus, has caused more
environmental damage than any other human activity. Therefore,
alternative sources of energy have become very important and relevant
to today’s world. These sources, such as the sun and wind, can
never be exhausted and therefore are renewable. They cause less
emission and are available locally. Their use can, to a large extent,
reduce chemical, radioactive, and thermal pollution. They stand out
as a viable source of clean and limitless energy, as a source of
non-conventional energy. Most of the renewable sources of energy are
fairly non-polluting and considered clean.
In
Indian context, “Bio-diesel”, as a source of alternative and
renewable source of energy has started gaining momentum in a big way.
Biodiesel (fatty acid alkyl esters) is a cleaner burning diesel
replacement, made from natural, renewable sources such as Tree Borne
Oilseed and Animal Fats. Just like petroleum diesel, bio-diesel also
operates in compression-ignition engines, in fact the first ever such
engine invented by the German scientist Diesel used peanut oil for
fuel. Blends of up to 20% bio-diesel (mixed with petroleum diesel)
can be used in nearly all diesel equipments and are compatible with
most storage and distribution equipments. These low-level blends (20%
and less) generally do not require any engine modifications.
Bio-diesel can provide the same payload capacity as diesel.
Jatropha
Curcas has been identified for India as the most suitable Tree Borne
Oilseed (TBO) for production of bio-diesel both in view of the
non-edible oil available from it and its presence all throughout the
country. The capacity of Jatropha Curcas to rehabilitate degraded or
dry lands, from which the poor derive their sustenance, by improving
land’s water retention capacity, makes it additionally suitable for
up-gradation of land resources. Presently, in some Indian villages,
farmers are extracting oil from Jatropha and after settling and
decanting it, they are mixing the filtered oil with diesel fuel.
Although, so far the farmers have not observed any damage to their
machinery, yet this remains to be tested and PCRA-like institutes
alongwith agro-mechanical divisions of various agricultural
universities must start working on it.
The
fact remains that for use in modern machinery as well as for mixing
and storage this oil needs to be converted to bio-diesel though a
chemical reaction, called “Trans-Esterification”. This reaction
is relatively simple and does not require any exotic material. The
R&D Division of IOCL has been using a laboratory scale plant of
100 kg/day capacity for trans-esterification and designing of larger
capacity plants is being worked out in Anand Univ. Gujrat, Delhi Univ
and IIP, Dehradun. PCRA has developed institutional linkages for
research & development with these R&D Institutes. With this
initiative, suitable technology & equipments for esterification
of bio-diesel on small & medium scales have also been developed.
A few industries have done experimental production even at 50 tonnes
a day. These larger plants are useful for centralized production of
bio-diesel though it can be continued in smaller capacity plants of
.5 to 20kg/day at decentralized level in villages till the optimum
levels are not worked out. These kind of small plants can be a way
out to provide energy security to our remote and rural areas, while
it would also contribute towards employment generation.
As
such, all kinds of Tree Borne Oilseeds, be it edible or no-edible can
be used as a raw material for production of bio-diesel. But from the
Indian point of view we are yet to meet our current demand of edible
oils, hence the option left out for India is non-edible oilseeds.
With sky rocketing crude oil prices, what is required now is to spread the knowledge of this system and debug some crucial fiscal issues like taxation policy, tax holidays and subsidies, import concessions to palm crude oil. In addition more attention is needed on developing agro-economic practices and CDM mechanism, so that this source of alternative energy can be exploited to its fullest extent in our country.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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