Use of bio-diesel technology

The worsening energy crisis in Pakistan has prompted the government to explore possibilities of tapping alternative energy sources to offset the impact of the country's rising oil import bill that has escalated to $11 billion per annum.
The president of ZTBL, Zaka Ashraf has said that Pakistan can save up to $1.6 billion by promoting bio-diesel technology, while blending of ethanol can help save another $500 million, which will make it a saving of 2.1 billion dollars a year - not a small amount by any count. The usefulness of ethanol lies in the fact that it is cheaper than gasoline and is also a useful renewable fuel, which can be repeatedly produced without depleting the country's valuable energy resources. It is commonly used to power automobiles and is derived from sugarcane molasses.
Ethanol and bio-diesel can be produced from food crops, including sugarcane, corn, maize, rapeseed and soyabean. According to the ZTBL president, Pakistan can produce an additional 160,000 tons of fuel without losing additional dollars on fuel imports. (Pakistan consumes approximately eight million tons of diesel per annum, of which around three million tons is imported.) A high-level committee on use of ethanol has been constituted to explore possibilities of its production and use as an alternative fuel. Large-scale production of bio-fuel has both positive and negative implications for the country.
The world-wide energy crunch has generated global interest in developing alternative fuels, with the US and European countries having developed useful technologies for producing bio-fuels. For instance, the US produced 3.9 billion gallons of ethanol in 2006, and expanded its production to 6.5 billion gallons in 2007. But this has taken millions of hectares of farmland out of food production, the consequence of which only a grain exporting country like the US can withstand. Having been badly hit by high food inflation and shortages, implementation of this option can lead to greater food supply crisis in Pakistan.
Molasses, a by-product of sugar industry, can be easily converted into ethanol and its low price has made it an ideal raw material for ethanol production. In fact, no other raw material in the country can match the benefits of use of molasses for ethanol production. However, because of an increase in the price of molasses and its growing availability constraints, this raw material has lost some of its attraction, although the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) has reportedly been lobbying to convince the government for an upfront tariff of 11 cents per unit instead of the existing indicative tariff of 7.8 cents for co-generation projects it has offered to set up in the country. According to one estimate, the country's 77 sugar mills are producing 12 tonnes of baggase - a by-product that can generate more than 2,000 megawatts of additional electricity. It is said that sugar industry can initially co-generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity within two years, which is rather a longish period, going by our worsening power crisis.
Other crops that can be used for bio-fuel production include corn, maize, rapeseed, and soyabeans. However, diversion of any of these crops can make a multi-faceted negative impact. For instance, corn, which is mainly used for manufacturing chicken and cattle feed, can lead to an increase in prices of poultry, eggs, beef and dairy products. As use of food crops for production of bio-diesel obviously has tremendous drawbacks, a much cheaper alternative is rice and wheat straw, which is available in abundance as a by-product from the rice/wheat cropping system, and can serve as a low-cost alternative for ethanol production.
And technologies for converting straw into ethanol have been demonstrated in numerous pilot projects. According to an expert, commercial use of wheat and rice straw for producing ethanol can, however, present major technological challenges. The success of this technology mainly depends on developing an environmentally friendly pre-treatment procedure, highly effective enzyme systems for conversion of pre-treated wheat straw into fermentable sugars and an efficient micro-organism to convert multiple sugars into ethanol.
While use of bio-diesel technology can indeed help reduce our oil import bill, it can hardly keep pace with the country's spiralling energy demand. Can use of such cumbersome technologies make much of a difference to our energy sector in the long run, for instance? Why not devote our scarce financial resources to tapping our vast hydropower and coal resources? As we have often argued in this space earlier, being essentially a water economy our salvation lies in developing our immense water resources, which will automatically shift the focus off the thermal option. Use of bio-diesel etc can indeed help reduce our oil import bill, and can spare funds for development of other sources of energy in the country. There is a need to utilise all available sources of energy and technologies, including bio-diesel technology, to tide over the country's energy crisis.