Biofuel dream could be a nightmare
A cabinet meeting chaired by president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono decided to accelerate the development of biofuel with ambitious target at 10% of national consumption by 2010, five years ahead of the previous plan. Jatropha is apparently at the center of this plan. Without detail plans, the dream could be the nightmare for everybody. Why?
It's just over simplification if you say that our cars could use biodiesel/biofuel derived from jatropha curcas (castor oil) that could be produced by everybody. It's easy to say that all households could grow jatropha in their fences. It's also easy to claim that Indonesia has 50 million hectares of critical/infertile land that fit for jatropha. But when it comes to implementation, it could be a mess if government failed to establish a good logistic and trading system. It's workable like the way cigarette producers collect cloves from farmers through traders. But can we make sure that government will not repeat the 'monopoly' once implemented by Soeharto regime when his son and cooperatives controlled the clove collection?
It's perfectly OK for government to claim that 50 million people could get job out of jatropha curcas to biodiesel. But how many times government launched grandiose programs like the failed one-million-hectare-plantation?
Besides, there are lots of technical issues that deserved serious attention, especially to prevent government officers keep misleading public at large. One minister once claimed that building biodiesel plants is like soybean cake plants (pabrik tahu). Is it?
Well, it's nonsense. Technically, all oils contains what chemist called free fatty acid (FFA), a corrosive substance. Maximum FFA content allowed is 0.05%. Imagine that crude palm oil (CPO) has 5% FFA. So, there is no way that jatropha as B10 could be used as is. The B10 should be converted to methyl esters (B20-B80). The so-called-biodisel at pabrik tahu-scale could only act as crushing plants stationed in some areas. Their products should be processed further at high-technology-high-investment-scale plants to reduce the FFA to the allowed level. The same applies to biofuel derived from CPO.
Now. Even though many people could invest in methyl ester plants, they have to deal with two side products, dangerous ones, crude glycerine and methanol/water mix. Some of us may say...just leave the side products like what India does. But at the scale of 10% of national consumption, production of biodiesel could seriously harm our environment. We're talking about millions of tones of side products.
Let's say that we care about environment so we need to solve the side products. That would add investment cost by up to 20% and will eventually raise the biodiesel price at gas stations level.
And even so, investors are in difficult position to get the right technology. Not many biofuel technology could give the best standard on biofuel and the handling of two dangerous side products (crude glycerine and methanol).
"One of the technology supplier has overload projects in hands. That's why we can't expect many biodiesel projects in Indonesia could be materialized in two or three years time," one industry player said.
Another critical issue is pricing and the freedom to export. Most investors are entering the business because of high margin booked by existing biodiesel producers. The average price of biodiesel in industrialized countries are US$800/MT, equals to USD0.72/L or Rp6,500/L, almost the same with fossil fuel price. But the price is based on CPO price of USD420/ton. What if CPO price goes up to USD600? Can we afford to sell it in domestic market? Can we guarantee that these investors have the freedom to export their biodiesel and will not be banned like on-off-export ban on CPO?
And till all the above questions answered correctly, it's better for government officers to do their homework more seriously than trumpetting misleading statements!
READ MY PREVIOUS POSTS:
1) Biofuel politiconomics
2) Biodiesel projects mushroomed in Indonesia
READ MORE!!!
It's just over simplification if you say that our cars could use biodiesel/biofuel derived from jatropha curcas (castor oil) that could be produced by everybody. It's easy to say that all households could grow jatropha in their fences. It's also easy to claim that Indonesia has 50 million hectares of critical/infertile land that fit for jatropha. But when it comes to implementation, it could be a mess if government failed to establish a good logistic and trading system. It's workable like the way cigarette producers collect cloves from farmers through traders. But can we make sure that government will not repeat the 'monopoly' once implemented by Soeharto regime when his son and cooperatives controlled the clove collection?
It's perfectly OK for government to claim that 50 million people could get job out of jatropha curcas to biodiesel. But how many times government launched grandiose programs like the failed one-million-hectare-plantation?
Besides, there are lots of technical issues that deserved serious attention, especially to prevent government officers keep misleading public at large. One minister once claimed that building biodiesel plants is like soybean cake plants (pabrik tahu). Is it?
Well, it's nonsense. Technically, all oils contains what chemist called free fatty acid (FFA), a corrosive substance. Maximum FFA content allowed is 0.05%. Imagine that crude palm oil (CPO) has 5% FFA. So, there is no way that jatropha as B10 could be used as is. The B10 should be converted to methyl esters (B20-B80). The so-called-biodisel at pabrik tahu-scale could only act as crushing plants stationed in some areas. Their products should be processed further at high-technology-high-investment-scale plants to reduce the FFA to the allowed level. The same applies to biofuel derived from CPO.
Now. Even though many people could invest in methyl ester plants, they have to deal with two side products, dangerous ones, crude glycerine and methanol/water mix. Some of us may say...just leave the side products like what India does. But at the scale of 10% of national consumption, production of biodiesel could seriously harm our environment. We're talking about millions of tones of side products.
Let's say that we care about environment so we need to solve the side products. That would add investment cost by up to 20% and will eventually raise the biodiesel price at gas stations level.
And even so, investors are in difficult position to get the right technology. Not many biofuel technology could give the best standard on biofuel and the handling of two dangerous side products (crude glycerine and methanol).
"One of the technology supplier has overload projects in hands. That's why we can't expect many biodiesel projects in Indonesia could be materialized in two or three years time," one industry player said.
Another critical issue is pricing and the freedom to export. Most investors are entering the business because of high margin booked by existing biodiesel producers. The average price of biodiesel in industrialized countries are US$800/MT, equals to USD0.72/L or Rp6,500/L, almost the same with fossil fuel price. But the price is based on CPO price of USD420/ton. What if CPO price goes up to USD600? Can we afford to sell it in domestic market? Can we guarantee that these investors have the freedom to export their biodiesel and will not be banned like on-off-export ban on CPO?
And till all the above questions answered correctly, it's better for government officers to do their homework more seriously than trumpetting misleading statements!
READ MY PREVIOUS POSTS:
1) Biofuel politiconomics
2) Biodiesel projects mushroomed in Indonesia
Labels: Biodiesel, SOEHARTO Inc
READ MORE!!!
posted by yosef at 5:46 PM
4 Comments:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/06/22/news/economy/cellulose_ethanol/index.htm
The Government should start something somewhere. This is not business as usual. Be honest to look at the positive side as well. And this is not only about jathropa, but also others such as sugar cane that complimentary to produce biofuel beside sugar. This is also about projects that can reach far accross the nation. Well, we'll see ...
GOODBYE FOREST HELLO WHITE ELEPHANT..
Bro, you need to read more books. Don't misunderstood biodiesel as bio-oil (straight vegetable oil), these two are completely different. What the hell is this: "The B10 should be converted to methyl esters (B20-B80)"; it seems you don't even understand the abbreviation. There is no FFA in biodiesel, even FFA can be converted to biodiesel by esterification. I tell you, we already have a nasional biodiesel standard that meet the requirement of automotive diesel oil standard; you can verify this statement to BSN (Badan Standarisasi Nasional). We are not too stupid to let our engine be corroded.
Biodiesel is not a high technology, please come to BPPT-Serpong, they will show you how. Methanol is recoverable back to the process.
Somewhat agree with glycerin, however you should know that glycerin can be burnt in a boiler needed for supplying steam in biodiesel plant. Furthermore, glycerin can be converted to hydrogen and eventually converted to methanol, a feedstock for biodiesel production. The latter is now being assessed and studied and works well in lab scale.
Finally, find a solution rather than moaning and complaining, be a winner rather than a whinner! Thinking makes people live.
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