Brazil demonstrating that reducing tropical deforestation is possible while expanding biofuels
Brazil is not only a success story when it comes to biofuels, it is also an example of how a smart series of policies and economic incentives can reduce tropical deforestation, while at the same time increasing biofuel production. Despite what some campaigners claim, Brazil's energy crops do not grow in tropical rainforest zones, and deforestation is not automatically fuelled by the expansion of these crops. Land-use change and deforestation resulting from agricultural production for food is not simply causally related to land-use changes from expanded energy cropping. For this reason, Brazil has been able to steadily increase its biofuels output, while at the same cutting deforestation rates by half, in less than 5 years. A major achievement of the left-wing government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that has been noted by climate scientists and policy makers alike.
Tropical deforestation is the source of nearly a fifth of annual, human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. Recent studies by Woods Hole Research Center scientists demonstrate that during years of severe drought, tropical rainforest fires can double emissions from tropical forests. Now, an international team of forest and climate researchers has found that halving deforestation rates by mid-century would account for 12 percent of total emissions reductions needed to keep concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere at safe levels - and they take Brazil's efforts as an example of the way forward. The scientists' work [*abstract] is profiled in a recent issue of Science.
"Compensated reduction"
A policy mechanism is needed that rewards those tropical nations that succeed in lowering their emissions of heat-trapping gases from deforestation and forest degradation. This is a particularly urgent need since most of these emissions are associated with only modest economic gains, but provoke high losses of biodiversity. Such a policy mechanism is now under discussion in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The "Compensated Reduction" (CR) (earlier post) of greenhouse gas emissions from tropical forests would provide payments to those tropical nations that succeed in lowering their emissions from deforestation and tropical degradation, beginning during the second compensation period of the UNFCCC (beginning 2013). This proposal has now been endorsed by the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, which currently represents 29 tropical countries who support the CR proposal, and which formally advanced the CR proposal during the Conference of the Parties in Montreal, 2005, and will be voted on by the UNFCCC delegation in Bali Conference of the Parties in December.
Brazil's example
"More than any other country, Brazil has demonstrated that it is feasible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from tropical deforestation", says co-author Daniel Nepstad, Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center. He, along with colleague Marina Campos, showed that since the beginning of 2004, Brazil has created more than 20 million hectares of parks, extractive reserve, and national forests in the Amazon region, and many of these protected areas are located in the agricultural frontier. These protected areas, if fully enforced, will prevent one billion tons of carbon from being transferred to the atmosphere through deforestation by the year 2015. Brazil's deforestation rates have been cut nearly in half in recent years through a combination of government intervention and economic trends:
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: land use change :: deforestation :: UNFCCC :: compensated reduction :: Brazil ::
"We are encouraging the Brazilian government to fully endorse the Compensated Reduction proposal", states Paulo Moutinho, Scientist and Coordinator of the Climate Change Program of the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research (IPAM), a non-governmental research institute in Brazil. CR would help Brazil offset the costs of slowing deforestation rates. In Brazil, the cost of reducing deforestation emissions by half will be less than $5 per ton of carbon dioxide, as estimated in an unpublished study of IPAM and the Woods Hole Research Center.
"Slowing tropical deforestation won't, by itself, solve the climate problem," said Dr. Peter Frumhoff, co-author and organizer of the study and Director of Science and Policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "But for many developing countries, it is their largest source of emissions. Climate policymakers have a historic opportunity to help developing countries find economically viable alternatives to deforestation and participate in the global effort to address climate change."
Biofuels expansion
The Brazilian government has been trying to decouple the problem of deforestation and biofuel production, and stresses that increased use of tropical biofuels over fossil fuels offers an equally potent strategy to mitigate climate change. Energy crops grown in Brazil for liquid fuels like ethanol (sugar cane and cassava), biodiesel (jatropha, palm oil and castor beans), and biomass (eucalyptus), do not thrive in former rainforest zones. Land-use changes resulting from agricultural production for food and agricultural production for energy are different and not simply causally related. Pressures on land from the biofuels sector are not straightforwardly translated into pressures on land for food cropping, because both systems require different climates, growing conditions and soils. Some organisations however have launched an uninformed campaign against biofuels, by coupling both forms of land-use change and claiming that biofuel production fuels deforestation.
Brazil's biofuels efforts explicitly take sustainability into account. Strict zoning rules and land use management policies are under development, organic energy farming is becoming more common, and policies aimed at strengthening the social sustainability of biofuels have been implemented. Moreover, the country has over 100 million hectares of degraded pasture-land that could be recovered and restored by planting biofuel crops. In this context, the Brazilian government has launched a financing mechanism making it easier for ranchers and land-owners to convert their pastures into land suitable for energy plantations.
More information:
Eurekalert: Brazil demonstrating that reducing tropical deforestation is key win-win global warming solution - May 15, 2007.
Raymond E. Gullison, Peter C. Frumhoff, Josep G. Canadell, Christopher B. Field, Daniel C. Nepstad, Katharine Hayhoe, Roni Avissar, Lisa M. Curran, Pierre Friedlingstein, Chris D. Jones, Carlos Nobre, "Tropical Forests and Climate Policy" [*abstract], Science, May 10, 2007, DOI: 10.1126/science.1136163
Article continues
Tropical deforestation is the source of nearly a fifth of annual, human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere. Recent studies by Woods Hole Research Center scientists demonstrate that during years of severe drought, tropical rainforest fires can double emissions from tropical forests. Now, an international team of forest and climate researchers has found that halving deforestation rates by mid-century would account for 12 percent of total emissions reductions needed to keep concentrations of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere at safe levels - and they take Brazil's efforts as an example of the way forward. The scientists' work [*abstract] is profiled in a recent issue of Science.
"Compensated reduction"
A policy mechanism is needed that rewards those tropical nations that succeed in lowering their emissions of heat-trapping gases from deforestation and forest degradation. This is a particularly urgent need since most of these emissions are associated with only modest economic gains, but provoke high losses of biodiversity. Such a policy mechanism is now under discussion in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The "Compensated Reduction" (CR) (earlier post) of greenhouse gas emissions from tropical forests would provide payments to those tropical nations that succeed in lowering their emissions from deforestation and tropical degradation, beginning during the second compensation period of the UNFCCC (beginning 2013). This proposal has now been endorsed by the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, which currently represents 29 tropical countries who support the CR proposal, and which formally advanced the CR proposal during the Conference of the Parties in Montreal, 2005, and will be voted on by the UNFCCC delegation in Bali Conference of the Parties in December.
Brazil's example
"More than any other country, Brazil has demonstrated that it is feasible to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from tropical deforestation", says co-author Daniel Nepstad, Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center. He, along with colleague Marina Campos, showed that since the beginning of 2004, Brazil has created more than 20 million hectares of parks, extractive reserve, and national forests in the Amazon region, and many of these protected areas are located in the agricultural frontier. These protected areas, if fully enforced, will prevent one billion tons of carbon from being transferred to the atmosphere through deforestation by the year 2015. Brazil's deforestation rates have been cut nearly in half in recent years through a combination of government intervention and economic trends:
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: land use change :: deforestation :: UNFCCC :: compensated reduction :: Brazil ::
"We are encouraging the Brazilian government to fully endorse the Compensated Reduction proposal", states Paulo Moutinho, Scientist and Coordinator of the Climate Change Program of the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research (IPAM), a non-governmental research institute in Brazil. CR would help Brazil offset the costs of slowing deforestation rates. In Brazil, the cost of reducing deforestation emissions by half will be less than $5 per ton of carbon dioxide, as estimated in an unpublished study of IPAM and the Woods Hole Research Center.
"Slowing tropical deforestation won't, by itself, solve the climate problem," said Dr. Peter Frumhoff, co-author and organizer of the study and Director of Science and Policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "But for many developing countries, it is their largest source of emissions. Climate policymakers have a historic opportunity to help developing countries find economically viable alternatives to deforestation and participate in the global effort to address climate change."
Biofuels expansion
The Brazilian government has been trying to decouple the problem of deforestation and biofuel production, and stresses that increased use of tropical biofuels over fossil fuels offers an equally potent strategy to mitigate climate change. Energy crops grown in Brazil for liquid fuels like ethanol (sugar cane and cassava), biodiesel (jatropha, palm oil and castor beans), and biomass (eucalyptus), do not thrive in former rainforest zones. Land-use changes resulting from agricultural production for food and agricultural production for energy are different and not simply causally related. Pressures on land from the biofuels sector are not straightforwardly translated into pressures on land for food cropping, because both systems require different climates, growing conditions and soils. Some organisations however have launched an uninformed campaign against biofuels, by coupling both forms of land-use change and claiming that biofuel production fuels deforestation.
Brazil's biofuels efforts explicitly take sustainability into account. Strict zoning rules and land use management policies are under development, organic energy farming is becoming more common, and policies aimed at strengthening the social sustainability of biofuels have been implemented. Moreover, the country has over 100 million hectares of degraded pasture-land that could be recovered and restored by planting biofuel crops. In this context, the Brazilian government has launched a financing mechanism making it easier for ranchers and land-owners to convert their pastures into land suitable for energy plantations.
More information:
Eurekalert: Brazil demonstrating that reducing tropical deforestation is key win-win global warming solution - May 15, 2007.
Raymond E. Gullison, Peter C. Frumhoff, Josep G. Canadell, Christopher B. Field, Daniel C. Nepstad, Katharine Hayhoe, Roni Avissar, Lisa M. Curran, Pierre Friedlingstein, Chris D. Jones, Carlos Nobre, "Tropical Forests and Climate Policy" [*abstract], Science, May 10, 2007, DOI: 10.1126/science.1136163
Article continues
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Dedini achieves breakthrough: cellulosic ethanol from bagasse at $27cents per liter ($1/gallon)
Dedini's São Luiz Mill in São Paulo state began producing cellulose bioethanol from bagasse - the leftover cane stalk after the sucrose is pressed out - at about US$ 40 cents a liter in 2002. But production costs have now fallen with improvements in processing technologies to below €20/US$ 27 cents a liter (US$ 1.02 per gallon). "This means the fuel is cost-competitive with oil at US$42 a barrel," said Dedini Operations Vice President José Luiz Olivério at the seminar.
The technology is based on a combination of two processing steps that convert bagasse, the lignocellulose-rich byproduct from cane processing, into ethanol: (1) pretreatment of the biomass with organic solvents, and (2) dilute acid hydrolysis. The innovation consists of the pretreatment phase which allows the diluted acids to do their work much faster and more efficiently. The liquid hydrolyzates are then easily fermented and distilled into ethanol. Because of the speed of the process, the proprietary technique was dubbed 'Dedini Rapid Hydrolysis' (DHR) [*Portuguese, *.pdf] (see below).
Efficiency leaps
Brazil has the world's most advanced biofuels market, with 30 years of experience in national ethanol production. The state-of-the-art ethanol mills can produce the biofuel from cane sucrose at or below €13/US$18 cents a liter (US$0.68/gallon), experts say. This makes the fuel competitive when oil is at around US$35-40 per barrel.
During the production of sugar cane ethanol, a large stream of bagasse is released. Bagasse is a fibrous, cellulose rich biomass material that is most often burned in co-generation electric power plants on site to run operations at the mill. Excess is sold as green and renewable electricity to nearby cities and industries. To cope with the bagasse residue, many of Brazil's cane mills have even installed out-of-date, inefficient blast furnaces so they would not be left with excess biomass, for which they would otherwise have to pay for disposal. But Dedini's breakthrough may now change all this.
Analysts have predicted that the efficiency and productivity of Brazil's ethanol sector may double within two decades (previous post). This would be a repeat of the achievements made over the past 25 years, when Brazilian producers achieved a 75% cost reduction in the production of the biofuel (earlier post). Sugar cane based ethanol is by far the most efficient biofuel available. One hectare of cane now yields an average of around 6000 liters of ethanol, but if bagasse were to be converted efficiently this could increase to 12,000 liters. Likewise, the average energy balance of cane ethanol currently stands at around 8 to 1 (compared to corn's 1.5 to 1) and would reach well into the ten-point mark with the advent of cellulosic ethanol. This would put the energy balance of this type of biofuel on a par with that of petroleum production.
Commenting on the efficiency and productivity leap, Oliverio said "this will be able to boost a mill's ethanol output by 30 percent without planting one more cane stalk". In short, a hectare of sugar cane will deliver a third more ethanol and now yield up to 9000 liters, three to four times more than corn. In other words: with the technique, less land is needed to obtain a similar amount of liquid biofuel.
The technology: rapid acid hydrolysis
Cellulosic ethanol production comes under three broad conversion pathways: a thermochemical route (gasification, pyrolysis) , a biochemical route and a purely chemical conversion known as dilute acid hydrolysis. The biochemical pathway makes use of special enzymes to break down the cellulose to release its sugars, whereas the chemical pathway relies on an hydrolyzing lignocellulosic biomass by means of acids. The liquid hydrolyzates are then fermented into ethanol. Dedini's breakthrough is based on this latter technique:
biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: sugar cane :: bagasse :: biomass :: cellulose :: acid hydrolysis :: ethanol :: Brazil ::
The chemical acid wash (acid hydrolysis) of the biomass breaks up the protective lignin fibers in the cane stalk and allows a type of sugar cell to be washed out. "This type of acid method typically inhibits fermentation of the syrup that comes from the sugars in the bagasse, so mills will have to figure out how to overcome this," said Professor Carlos Rossell at the State University of Campinas, or UNICAMP. But Olivério says Dedini has overcome the problem as the company's system uses a very diluted acid to free the sugars in the cane. The trick is to use high dilution levels on a pretreated slurry of dissolved lignocellulose.
The process was dubbed 'DHR' - 'Dedini Hidrólise Rápida' - and was developed in collaboration with the Centro de Tecnologia Copersucar (CTC) and with the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (Fapesp). Carlos Rossel was the lead researcher who achieved the breakthrough.
The DHR technology relies on a combination of two steps: the acid hydrolysis and a pretreatment with organic solvents. The technique was developed specifically for the conversion of bagasse. By pretreating the biomass with organic solvents, the lignocellulose is decomposed, which allows for a much faster attack of the acids. The hydrolyzed fraction that is then to be turned into ethanol is easily fermentable because it consists of hexoses - a monosaccharide consisting of 6 carbon atoms.
Dedini's first large scale demonstration facility produced 5000 liters per day. The objective is now to optimize the technique by means of process integration, automatisation and by increasing the stability and safety of the sensitive conversion process. Olivério thinks it must be possible to go beyond the current 30% increase in sugar cane ethanol production per hectare, and achieve a doubling within a few years.
Enzyme research continues
Meawhile, many researchers in the area of cellulose technology believe enzymes, or natural proteins that accelerate the breakdown of the lignin fibers, will be used in future cellulose ethanol production too.
But Rossell and Professor Elba Bom at Rio de Janeiro's UFRJ University pointed at to two challenges: reducing the exorbitantly high cost of industrial production of enzymes and shortening the time required for the enzymes to act on the lignin.
Bom said her research team has been developing methods of leaving shredded bagasse outside in something like a large compost heap to allow naturally occurring enzymes to go to work in a pretreatment stage to loosen the lignin's hold on the sugar, but this requires as much as a week. "We've already identified the best brews of enzymes, the challenge is bringing down production costs which are currently two to three times the cost of conventional ethanol," Bom said. "We're shooting for 1.5 times the cost of standard ethanol."
More information:
FIESP: Etanol brasileiro: novas tecnologias, perspectivas e competitividade - May 15, 2007.
Dedini: Dedini Hidrólise Rápida [*Portuguese/*.pdf], overview of the process.
Article continues
posted by Biopact team at 8:15 PM 4 comments links to this post