Ron Oxburgh 14th May 2008, Royal museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium

1. Food and Fuel
– innovative options for
developing countries
Ron Oxburgh

2. 21st Century - a Changing & less
Predictable World
• A more unpredictable climate
• The need to limit GHG emissions
• Profound changes in price relativities with much local variability
– >$100 oil; all fossil fuels more expensive
– Other non-renewable raw materials – more expensive
– Water - scarcer/costlier many places
– Land – more competition
– >6.5 billion people & rising - labour – relatively cheaper ?
• Future total dependence on what can be grown – food, materials
and some fuel
What hasn’t changed:
• The need to eat
• the urge to travel

3. Travel – Internal Combustion
Engine!
• Rising demand for liquid fuel – needed as long as the
ICE is used – minimum 25 years
• Mineral oil – environmentally damaging – alternatives?
• Hydrogen? – very distant future
• Fuels from plants:
– Can be less damaging to the environment than mineral oil
– Opportunities for poor farmers

4. Suitable bio-molecules
Available in: • Food crops:
• sugars & starches – Corn
• Vegetable oils – Wheat
– Sugar
• Proteins
– Barley
• Cellulose – Canola
• lignin rich residues – Soy
– Palm
• Bye products • Non-food products
• Straw from marginal land
• Forestry • Jatropha
• Animal wastes • Prolific grasses
• Sewage • Others?

5. Biofuels
• Fuel liquids can be made from anything
that can be grown or once grew:
• Must make sense:
– Financially
– In energy-balance
– Environmentally
Even if otherwise acceptable, a mono-
product biofuel industry based on
agricultural land would be too small to be
globally significant – not enough land

6. Biofuels – impossible on agricultural land
?+ other bye-
products and
Forests Deserts organic wastes
42CONTINENT
45
+?Algae
New crops
150
Crops 16 Tropical
Savannah 23
OCEANS
Wetlands, Tundra, Grass, Ice, etc.
360
World Diesel
World Gasoline Requirement
Requirement
(areas – million km2 )

7. Ethanol from Straw
1. Agricultural residues
First Cellulose Ethanol
Shipment: April 21, 2004
Co-production of food and fuel

8. 2. New Feedstocks i
NATIVE JATROPHA TREES
Robust & undemanding
on marginal land

9. Jatropha curcas
• Perennial tree – 30-40 yrs; full
fruiting after 5 yrs.
• Grows on degraded or
marginal land - reforestation
• Efficient use of water
• Minimum-tillage planting
• Can be largely fertilized with
residues
• C-sequestration in root system
• Oil inedible

10. Jatropha curcas (2)
• Labour intensive: ca. one
person/ha – jobs where needed
• Wild tree yield ca. 1.7 t/ha
• Crude oil used directly in heavy
static diesel engines
• Emissions saving >60% over
mineral oil
• Anti-feedant properties
• D1/BP – ca. 200,000 Ha on
three continents

11. Jatropha, Swaziland with okra intercrops

12. J. Curcas - Expelling the oil

13. Jatropha - sustainable biofuel story
• Reforestation of degraded or marginal land with
orchards of jatropha curcas
• Short rotation intercrops between j.c. rows
• Carbon sequestration in root systems
• Fruit:
– Seeds for fuel oil (non-edible)
– Seed cake for protein feed
– Hulls for char
• About one job/ha created
• Local self-sufficiency in biodiesel

14. 2. New Feedstocks ii
Miscanthus

15. 3. ALGAE The Joker?

16. Jatropha Carbon Economics –
System Approach
A: ‘C-credits’ B: ‘C-debits’
– Energy content of biofuel – Tillage soil gas release
– Carbon sequestration in
– Fuel – transport,
tree & root system
processing, cultivation
– Credit for co-products
– ? Fertilizer
– ? Displaced plant life
• Environmental Impact
P
e.g. drainage, water use & quality, erosion,
ecosystems, community life etc.

17. Jatropha Cash Economics
• Land costs
• Planting and husbandry costs
• 1.7 Toe/Ha - or more?
• Local transport
• Crushing and de-gumming costs
• Crude oil transport to refinery
• Key economic differentiators
– Yield
– Logistics
• Unless oil price collapses, within five years Jatropha
oil should be fuel of choice on both cost &
environmental grounds

18. Kg CO2eq/ MJ
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Biofuels & Biofuels – C saving
Data from Elsayed et al 2003

19. Conclusions
• Agriculture will be of massive importance in 21st century -
sustainability
• All parts of the plant will be used – co-production
– Food
– Fuel
– Raw materials
– Fabrication
– Fertiliser
• New cultivars needed for more variable conditions
• Job opportunities for the very poor
• There are ‘good’ biofuels and ‘bad’ biofuels