Singapore's first jatropha biodiesel plants eye exports to China
A new joint-venture, Van Der Horst Biodiesel, is planning to build Singapore's first biodiesel plant that uses Jatropha curcas and not palm oil as feedstock.
The plant on Jurong Island is the project of a joint venture between the Institute of Environmental Science and Engineering, which is linked to Nanyang Technological University, and Van Der Horst Engineering. It will see an investment of around S$40 (€19.7/US$26.3) million and have an annual capacity of 200,000 tons per year.
The move is seen as a boost for the local biodiesel sector and Van Der Horst said it is planning a second plant in Johor.
Currently, all biodiesel firms in Singapore use palm oil as a raw material to produce fuel. But Van Der Horst Biodiesel is seeking to be the first to use a new feedstock – the oil-rich nuts from the Jatropha curcas plant.
Jatropha has advantages over palm oil, which is commonly produced in Indonesia and Malaysia. Professor Tay Joo Hwa, Director and CEO, Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, said: "Jatropha can grow in very harsh environment. And we're not using that as a food source so it doesn't compete with the food and farmland."
"And because we have the plantation, and we have the technology, the cost of the feedstock will be much lower than the cost of other feedstock, such as palm oil in this part of the world and rapeseed in Europe."
Van Der Horst plans to secure land in Cambodia and China for the planting of the Jatropha nut:
biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: biodiesel :: jatropha :: Cambodia :: China :: Singapore ::
The company plans to ship the biodiesel to major markets in China and the region.
Peter Cheng, CEO, Van Der Horst Biodiesel, said: "Within the region, we already have several parties wanting to take up all our production. We have the oil companies in Cambodia and also the oil companies in China."
Industry experts expect biodiesel to replace a significant portion of the diesel market over time. Most recently, the European Union mandated the use of biofuels – of which biodiesel is a component – to form 10 percent of its transport fuel.
Van Der Horst expects the United States, Japan and Korea to follow suit by legislating the use of biofuels in the next few years.
Biodiesel is an up-and-coming alternative energy industry and Singapore has attracted enough biodiesel investments to become a major biodiesel production base by 2008. Industry experts project that Singapore will be producing 1.5 million tonnes of biodiesel by next year.
Article continues
The plant on Jurong Island is the project of a joint venture between the Institute of Environmental Science and Engineering, which is linked to Nanyang Technological University, and Van Der Horst Engineering. It will see an investment of around S$40 (€19.7/US$26.3) million and have an annual capacity of 200,000 tons per year.
The move is seen as a boost for the local biodiesel sector and Van Der Horst said it is planning a second plant in Johor.
Currently, all biodiesel firms in Singapore use palm oil as a raw material to produce fuel. But Van Der Horst Biodiesel is seeking to be the first to use a new feedstock – the oil-rich nuts from the Jatropha curcas plant.
Jatropha has advantages over palm oil, which is commonly produced in Indonesia and Malaysia. Professor Tay Joo Hwa, Director and CEO, Institute of Environmental Science and Technology, said: "Jatropha can grow in very harsh environment. And we're not using that as a food source so it doesn't compete with the food and farmland."
"And because we have the plantation, and we have the technology, the cost of the feedstock will be much lower than the cost of other feedstock, such as palm oil in this part of the world and rapeseed in Europe."
Van Der Horst plans to secure land in Cambodia and China for the planting of the Jatropha nut:
biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: biodiesel :: jatropha :: Cambodia :: China :: Singapore ::
The company plans to ship the biodiesel to major markets in China and the region.
Peter Cheng, CEO, Van Der Horst Biodiesel, said: "Within the region, we already have several parties wanting to take up all our production. We have the oil companies in Cambodia and also the oil companies in China."
Industry experts expect biodiesel to replace a significant portion of the diesel market over time. Most recently, the European Union mandated the use of biofuels – of which biodiesel is a component – to form 10 percent of its transport fuel.
Van Der Horst expects the United States, Japan and Korea to follow suit by legislating the use of biofuels in the next few years.
Biodiesel is an up-and-coming alternative energy industry and Singapore has attracted enough biodiesel investments to become a major biodiesel production base by 2008. Industry experts project that Singapore will be producing 1.5 million tonnes of biodiesel by next year.
Article continues
Thursday, March 22, 2007
CarbonTracker: powerful new tool to track atmospheric carbon dioxide by source
The online data framework distinguishes between changes in the natural carbon cycle and those occurring in human-produced fossil fuel emissions. It also provides verification for scientists using computer models to project future climate change. Potential users include corporations, cities, states and nations assessing their efforts to reduce or store fossil fuel emissions around the world.
Increasingly, observations of the Earth are demonstrating a remarkable impact on our understanding of human and natural systems. We are transitioning this understanding gained from intensive research into operations that benefit the environment and the economy.
CarbonTracker distills an accurate assessment of greenhouse-gas increases or decreases. The resolution will increase to observe differences in concentration on finer geographical scales over time as data become available. Using the limited data that currently exist, the model can characterize emissions each month among U.S. regions, such as the West or the Southeast. As the observation network becomes denser, however, policymakers will be able to check the CarbonTracker Web site to compare emissions from urban centers. For instance, the resolution will be fine enough to determine the difference in net emissions from Sacramento as compared to San Francisco:
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: climate change :: carbon dioxide :: carbon cycle :: greenhouse gas emissions :: NOAA ::
CarbonTracker’s initial applications are primarily for scientists, and to attract new partners in NOAA’s efforts to expand greenhouse gas observations in the United States and globally. NOAA and its partners are encouraging the addition of new monitoring sites around the United States and around the world to increase the resolution of point sources. Ultimately the site will provide easy-to-use information on local scales for policymakers, business leaders, teachers, and the public.
“CarbonTracker’s potential is enormous,” said Pieter Tans, head of NOAA/ESRL’s Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases group, who developed the tool. “We are moving into an era where emissions could have a price tag. If carbon trading, emissions reduction and sequestration schemes become more common around the globe, society will need the ability to compare their relative value. Accurate and objective information on changing atmospheric concentrations will be essential for both research and impact assessments.”
Until now, scientists have relied on limited direct records of atmospheric carbon dioxide, mainly from remote locations. Also, previously available computer models could not maximize the utility of the information derived. Only analyses of very broad global patterns of carbon dioxide emissions and uptake were possible. Estimates of local carbon emissions have used proxy data, such as reported point-source inventories, gasoline sales records, and other tallies from energy organizations and nations monitoring greenhouse gases, but there has been no way to verify what was actually released into the atmosphere.
CarbonTracker uses many more continuous observations than previously taken. The largest concentration of observations for now is from within North America. The data are fed into a sophisticated computer model with 135 ecosystems and 11 ocean basins worldwide. The model calculates carbon release or uptake by oceans, wildfires, fossil fuel combustion, and the biosphere and transforms the data into a color-coded map of sources and storage “sinks.” One of the system’s most powerful assets is its ability to detect natural variations in carbon uptake and release by oceans and vegetation, which could either aid or counteract societies’ efforts to curb fossil fuel emissions on a seasonal basis.
“Only the atmosphere itself can give us the real answer on all sources and sinks,” said Wouter Peters, who led the development of CarbonTracker at NOAA/ESRL and also is affiliated with the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences. “This information will be critical. How atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases change in the future is one of the key uncertainties in the global climate models and the biggest driver behind climate change.”
NOAA collaborates with partners in France, Australia, Brazil and other nations to measure greenhouse gases globally. Through a longstanding collaboration, Environment Canada has provided a quarter of the data for North America. However, the global network is still sparse. Using today’s data, the system can distinguish surface emissions on a broad scale, but plans are underway to refine observations and modeling of carbon sources on much smaller scales.
NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab is the only institution measuring atmospheric greenhouse gases globally and provides more than half of the world’s data. The network includes individuals gathering air samples in flasks that are then shipped to the Boulder lab for analysis, aircraft carrying automated samplers to grab air from higher altitudes, and sensors atop tall towers transmitting data via telephone.
CarbonTracker is a NOAA contribution to the North American Carbon Program, a multi-agency effort to quantify, understand, and predict the continent’s carbon cycle. CIRES is a partnership between NOAA and the University of Colorado.
Article continues
posted by Biopact team at 4:34 PM 0 comments links to this post