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    Spanish company Ferry Group is to invest €42/US$55.2 million in a project for the production of biomass fuel pellets in Bulgaria. The 3-year project consists of establishing plantations of paulownia trees near the city of Tran. Paulownia is a fast-growing tree used for the commercial production of fuel pellets. Dnevnik - Feb. 20, 2007.

    Hungary's BHD Hõerõmû Zrt. is to build a 35 billion Forint (€138/US$182 million) commercial biomass-fired power plant with a maximum output of 49.9 MW in Szerencs (northeast Hungary). Portfolio.hu - Feb. 20, 2007.

    Tonight at 9pm, BBC Two will be showing a program on geo-engineering techniques to 'save' the planet from global warming. Five of the world's top scientists propose five radical scientific inventions which could stop climate change dead in its tracks. The ideas include: a giant sunshade in space to filter out the sun's rays and help cool us down; forests of artificial trees that would breath in carbon dioxide and stop the green house effect and a fleet futuristic yachts that will shoot salt water into the clouds thickening them and cooling the planet. BBC News - Feb. 19, 2007.

    Archer Daniels Midland, the largest U.S. ethanol producer, is planning to open a biodiesel plant in Indonesia with Wilmar International Ltd. this year and a wholly owned biodiesel plant in Brazil before July, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The Brazil plant is expected to be the nation's largest, the paper said. Worldwide, the company projects a fourfold rise in biodiesel production over the next five years. ADM was not immediately available to comment. Reuters - Feb. 16, 2007.

    Finnish engineering firm Pöyry Oyj has been awarded contracts by San Carlos Bioenergy Inc. to provide services for the first bioethanol plant in the Philippines. The aggregate contract value is EUR 10 million. The plant is to be build in the Province of San Carlos on the north-eastern tip of Negros Island. The plant is expected to deliver 120,000 liters/day of bioethanol and 4 MW of excess power to the grid. Kauppalehti Online - Feb. 15, 2007.

    In order to reduce fuel costs, a Mukono-based flower farm which exports to Europe, is building its own biodiesel plant, based on using Jatropha curcas seeds. It estimates the fuel will cut production costs by up to 20%. New Vision (Kampala, Uganda) - Feb. 12, 2007.

    The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has decided to use 10% biodiesel in its fleet of public buses. The world's largest city is served by the Toei Bus System, which is used by some 570,000 people daily. Digital World Tokyo - Feb. 12, 2007.

    Fearing lack of electricity supply in South Africa and a price tag on CO2, WSP Group SA is investing in a biomass power plant that will replace coal in the Letaba Citrus juicing plant which is located in Tzaneen. Mining Weekly - Feb. 8, 2007.

    In what it calls an important addition to its global R&D capabilities, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is to build a new bioenergy research center in Hamburg, Germany. World Grain - Feb. 5, 2007.

    EthaBlog's Henrique Oliveira interviews leading Brazilian biofuels consultant Marcelo Coelho who offers insights into the (foreign) investment dynamics in the sector, the history of Brazilian ethanol and the relationship between oil price trends and biofuels. EthaBlog - Feb. 2, 2007.

    The government of Taiwan has announced its renewable energy target: 12% of all energy should come from renewables by 2020. The plan is expected to revitalise Taiwan's agricultural sector and to boost its nascent biomass industry. China Post - Feb. 2, 2007.

    Production at Cantarell, the world's second biggest oil field, declined by 500,000 barrels or 25% last year. This virtual collapse is unfolding much faster than projections from Mexico's state-run oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos. Wall Street Journal - Jan. 30, 2007.

    Dubai-based and AIM listed Teejori Ltd. has entered into an agreement to invest €6 million to acquire a 16.7% interest in Bekon, which developed two proprietary technologies enabling dry-fermentation of biomass. Both technologies allow it to design, establish and operate biogas plants in a highly efficient way. Dry-Fermentation offers significant advantages to the existing widely used wet fermentation process of converting biomass to biogas. Ame Info - Jan. 22, 2007.

    Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited is to build a biofuel production plant in the tribal belt of Banswara, Rajasthan, India. The petroleum company has acquired 20,000 hectares of low value land in the district, which it plans to commit to growing jatropha and other biofuel crops. The company's chairman said HPCL was also looking for similar wasteland in the state of Chhattisgarh. Zee News - Jan. 15, 2007.

    The Zimbabwean national police begins planting jatropha for a pilot project that must result in a daily production of 1000 liters of biodiesel. The Herald (Harare), Via AllAfrica - Jan. 12, 2007.

    In order to meet its Kyoto obligations and to cut dependence on oil, Japan has started importing biofuels from Brazil and elsewhere. And even though the country has limited local bioenergy potential, its Agriculture Ministry will begin a search for natural resources, including farm products and their residues, that can be used to make biofuels in Japan. To this end, studies will be conducted at 900 locations nationwide over a three-year period. The Japan Times - Jan. 12, 2007.

    Chrysler's chief economist Van Jolissaint has launched an arrogant attack on "quasi-hysterical Europeans" and their attitudes to global warming, calling the Stern Review 'dubious'. The remarks illustrate the yawning gap between opinions on climate change among Europeans and Americans, but they also strengthen the view that announcements by US car makers and legislators about the development of green vehicles are nothing more than window dressing. Today, the EU announced its comprehensive energy policy for the 21st century, with climate change at the center of it. BBC News - Jan. 10, 2007.

    The new Canadian government is investing $840,000 into BioMatera Inc. a biotech company that develops industrial biopolymers (such as PHA) that have wide-scale applications in the plastics, farmaceutical and cosmetics industries. Plant-based biopolymers such as PHA are biodegradable and renewable. Government of Canada - Jan. 9, 2007.


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Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Social sustainability crucial for biofuels - Brazilian official

We say: biofuels production offers an opportunity to bring social justice and poverty alleviation to the Global South. Through becoming energy farmers, poor smallholders can diversify their crops and cut their dependence on single cash crops for which markets have crashed so often; in energy crops for biodiesel and ethanol they find a (government-supported) market, with demand growing on a global scale now that petroleum resources are in decline (as some suggest), cannot keep up with rising demand and are plagued by geopolitical troubles.

Brazil understands this best and has a long experience with the mass production of ethanol. The country's president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has pledged to reduce Brazil's infamous inequality, has now launched a nation wide biodiesel programme (Pro-Biodiesel) aimed at reducing poverty, and he is making sure that the mistakes made under the Pro-Álcool programme are not repeated. Rodrigo Augusto Rodrigues, the federal government’s biodiesel coordinator, reminds us that social sustainability is absolutely crucial in this programme. In a country where the landless have organised into Latin America's largest social movement and are struggling to acquire land, where millions live in endemic poverty, where internal migration of rural people to the mega-cities results in vast slums, and where social inequalities are greater than anywhere else in the world, social sustainability might well be the single most important factor determining the long-term success of the biofuels strategies.

Let us see how this social vision of biofuel production as a means for poverty alleviation plays out for Sebastian Luis de Sousa, an ordinary, poor farmer living in central Brazil.

For the better part of his 64 years, de Sousa has scratched a meager living in the paprika-red soil of the vast plains of the Brazilian cerrado. So when offered a chance to grow castor beans to produce an alternative fuel called biodiesel, the rawboned father of nine reckoned he had nothing to lose. The US$200 he earned this summer from his tiny harvest wasn’t much. But rising demand for renewable fuels has de Sousa wanting to expand his 7 1/2 acre farm:
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::
"I want to buy more land," he said, rolling a prickly castor bean seed pod in his calloused hand. "This is an important thing that Brazil is doing."

Already the world’s largest producer of ethanol, Brazil is now betting on biodiesel, with an eye to helping small farmers such as de Sousa capitalise on what some see as the next big thing in green energy. Derived from animal fats or vegetable oils, this substitute for petroleum diesel is generating ten of millions of dollars from investors.

Major companies, including US agri-business behemoth Archer Daniels Midland Co, are building production plants, encouraged by a federal mandate requiring every liter of diesel fuel sold in Brazil to contain two per cent biodiesel by 2008, rising to 5 per cent by 2013.

Brazil’s state-owned petroleum giant Petrobras is already selling a fuel blend with 2 per cent biodiesel at hundreds of its retail gas stations. The company is investing in manufacturing facilities. It is also patenting a new fuel known as H-Bio that it says will save million of barrels of oil by using vegetable oil in the refining process to create a low polluting petroleum diesel.

Even McDonald’s has collaborated with Brazilian researchers looking to power vehicles with recycled grease from its restaurants. The involvement of big players is crucial if Brazil hopes to reach its goal of embracing biodiesel on a massive scale.
Current production is modest, but is projected to jump to 840 million litres by 2008, which would put Brazil among the worlds’ large producers. Still, officials are looking to involve more subsistence farmers such as de Sousa, who have yet to profit from the nation’s biofuels bonanza.

No country on the planet has been more successful at displacing fossil fuels with green energy than Brazil. Hammered by the oil shocks of the 1970s, the nation committed itself to developing a domestic ethanol industry to reduce its dependence on imported petroleum. Today, 40 per cent of the fuel that powers passenger cars here is made from homegrown sugar cane. That’s been a boon for Brazilian agriculture. But the economic fruits have been reaped by a small number of large farmers growing a single crop.

With biodiesel, officials see a chance to spread the wealth from a fast growing fuel whose demand in Brazil could top that of ethanol. At present, petroleum diesel accounts for more than half of all the vehicle fuel consumed in Brazil, about 42 billion litres a year, thanks to its heavy dependence on truck and bus transport.
By promoting a cleaner-burning alternative made from Brazilian-grown castor beans, soybeans, palm oil, jatropha and other crops, the government is looking to slash diesel imports and improve air quality in its cities, as well as to generate rural income and employment.

President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, who is currently running for re-election, has touted biodiesel production as a way to spark development in some of the poorest regions of the country, particularly the rural northeast. Biodiesel producers who want to qualify for hefty federal tax breaks must purchase anywhere from 10 per cent to 50 per cent of their raw materials from small growers, depending on the region. That requirement is how poor farmers get connected with companies which provide them with seed and technical advice in addition to purchasing their crops.

Rodrigo Augusto Rodrigues, the federal government’s biodiesel coordinator, says the effort could eventually involve 360,000 family farms nationwide, up from about 2,500 at present. He says the varied crops provided by small growers would keep small farmers on the land and provide them a reliable stream of income.

"We don’t want to repeat the same mistakes we made with ethanol," Rodrigues says. "The social aspect is critical." But some energy experts are dubious that peasant farmers toiling on tiny plots will be more than bit players. Large-scale cultivation and ruthless efficiency were crucial to the nation’s success with ethanol. Mass produced soybeans, while not the most efficient feedstock, are fast emerging as the crop with the greatest potential to help producers achieve economies of scale:

"There is a lack of focus in this biodiesel program," says Luiz Augusto Horta Nogueira, former director of the Brazil’s National Agency of Petroleum, National Gas and Biofuels. "One group of stakeholders is looking to substitute large amounts of diesel. Others want rural development. ... It’s a real problem."

Some observers doubt the fuel can be cost competitive without fat government subsidies such as those that propped up Brazil’s ethanol market for years. Others say the environmental benefits may be overblown. Biofuels emit fewer greenhouse gases than fossil fuels when burned in combustion engines. But other factors must be considered when making the comparison, such as how much petroleum was needed to plant, harvest, produce and transport the renewable fuels, and how many native trees and plants were plowed under in the process.

Soybean farming has already destroyed large swaths of Brazil’s Amazon forest. The long standing agricultural practice of burning sugar cane fields prior to harvest is a major pollutant. Renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel are "not as green as we like to think they are," said Joe Ryan, who manages air-quality projects in Brazil for the Menlo Park, Calif.-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Still, with the government projecting more than three dozen manufacturing plants to be on line by 2008 with a capacity of 1.7 billion litres, producers here, and across the globe, are bullish on biodiesel.

Worldwide production is surging, led by the European Union, which has adopted a goal of substituting 5.75 per cent of petroleum diesel with biodiesel by 2010 as part of its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The world’s top producer is Germany, where biodiesel made from rapeseed is widely available in gas stations.

Asia is fast becoming a major player, with the cultivation of palm oil for use in biodiesel growing rapidly in Malaysia and Indonesia. In the United States, where soybeans are the primary feedstock, production is projected to more than triple this year to around 250 million gallons or almost 950 million litres. The US already boasts 86 biodiesel plants, with another 62 under construction, according to the National Biodiesel Board.

Just like in the US Midwest, soybeans are the principle feedstock for biodiesel refineries in Brazil’s heartland. On a recent afternoon, near the city of Anapolis about two hours west of the nation’s capital Brasilia, workers with hardhats and torches welded seams on the gleaming steel storage tanks of a $20m biodiesel plant.
The plant, which will be produce up to 100 million litres of biodiesel annually, is one of three production facilities that Brazilian soybean processor Granol plans to have running by next year. Company executives see biodiesel as a lucrative new outlet for its soybeans, with domestic sales of its cooking oil and animal feed stagnating, and exports hurt by Brazil’s strong currency, .

"Renewable fuels are the future," says manager Paulo Donato, explaining his employer’s $45m bet on biodiesel. Hours to the north in Porto Nacional, farmer de Sousa says that he hoped that future would include small farmers like him. "I’m just one man," he said, poking at the soil with his sandal. "But I’m proud to play a part in this."

Original story:
The Peninsula: Brazil wagers on biodiesel - [s.d] Sept. 2006.


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