How biofuels could power SA’s future
TEQUILA-fuelled fighter jets. Cars that run on wine waste. The Australian booze industry could soon be powering our vehicles in a novel twist on the concept of “drink driving”.
TEQUILA-fuelled fighter jets. Turbines powered by wine. It’s a new twist on the concept of “drink driving” — but is this a new industry that will drive South Australia into the future?
It’s an idea that provides answers for a three-pronged problem: Secure fuel supplies. The carbon imbalance in our atmosphere. A state economy struggling for direction and innovation.
Advances in biofuel technology — where energy-rich combustible fuels are made from plants — are rapidly approaching the point where it becomes economically viable.
Ethanol. Biodiesel. Biocoal. Biogas.
They’re already ecologically desirable.
And they can be fed direct to existing fuel tanks and furnaces.
But there is a problem. Critical mass.
It takes much more than tequila juice to drive a state-scale economy.
And no, it doesn’t involve emptying bottles of Penfolds into your fuel tanks. But it does make use of the discarded crushed grapes and vine clippings.
ENERGETIC AMBITION
South Australia has several aces up its sleeve.
Wheat. Barley. Citrus. Vines. Wood pulp.
All involve massive local businesses which produce organic waste.
All can contribute to stoking the fires of a new industry.
All would benefit from a new income stream through selling previously unwanted or low-value waste.
“There’s so much waste organic material in the world, we really should put it to use,” says Associate Professor Rachel Burton of the University of Adelaide’s School of Agriculture, Food and Wine.
No longer would we be reliant on enormous tankers travelling from Asia and the Middle East.
Locals would be fuelling locals. And SA could be at the heart of it.
It’s an industry that would benefit the climate.
“It also means you can mitigate climate change as you’re using fuel sources that can make your fuel carbon-neutral,” Associate Professor Burton says. “You’re not releasing fossilised carbon buried millions and millions of years ago. You’re fixing new carbon in plants and then releasing it in a sustainable cycle.”
But there remains the hurdle of raw economics.
You need to get more out of any process than you put in.
Such a large-scale new industry needs a diverse network of suppliers to come together in one central stream. Only this could guarantee the consistency of supply needed to drive a large-scale industry.
That’s where government comes in.
And it’s not as though this hasn’t been done before.
Notice the rusting rail networks when you drive the countryside? See all those huge white silos in country towns?
They were built to provide the freight superhighway and processing chain needed to make the wheat and barley industries efficient.
“The beauty of it is we can set up a new industry from existing infrastructure,” says Professor Gus Nathan of the University of Adelaide’s Centre for Energy Technology. “And the product is a drop-in fuel — something we can use in what we already have.”
So where is the potential? What are the hurdles?
SUPERCHARGING WASTE
Around Australia, several hundred thousand tonnes of winemaking leftovers — called grape marc — piles up as waste.
This is usually disposed of at a cost to the wineries.
It includes grape skins, stalks, seeds and vine pruning offcuts.
These cast-offs, while not as rich as the wine-producing juices themselves, remain full of useful carbohydrates.
This can be fermented into biofuel.
The challenge is to make yields worth the effort.
Currently, one tonne of grape marc can produce about 270 litres of ethanol.
Discarded agricultural plant matter can be difficult to convert because of the recalcitrant structural complexity of cells in stalks, branches and leaves.
But new University of Adelaide research has almost doubled this yield — via pre-treatment with acids and enzymes — to up to 400 litres per tonne.
Even the waste of this process remains useful.
It can be turned into fish and animal feed pellets, freeing up valuable wheat and barley for human consumption.
Some can become compounds used in paints and varnishes. It can even be used to produce vanilla.
But it applies to many more crops than just grapes.
In South Australia this means castoffs from the grain, bean and pea crops.
Then there is sawdust, old fish and chip oil … and so much more.
Put together, it’s called biomass.
Biomass which can feed reactors — and produce fuel.
“That industry doesn’t exist at the moment,” Associate Professor Burton says.
“But the thing we need to start thinking about now is a lifecycle analysis to work out how much inputs cost, versus how much output profits you would make — and whether that would balance out in our favour.”
While the leftovers of the existing agricultural industry may provide a strong foundation for a state-based biofuels industry, it’s still not enough.
Nor is it the most efficient. Most of the carbohydrates have already been removed for the production of wine and food grains.
But there are supplementary alternatives.
And these offer a rare opportunity.
A biofuel industry could itself drive the production of whole new range of crops.
And these do not have to compete with vital food harvests like grains and pulses.
EXPLOSIVE GROWTH
South Australia has broad expanses of arid land which are marginal or unviable when it comes to conventional agriculture.
But it is ideal for dedicated biofuel crops.
Agave. This is a Mexican desert cactus which — once its juices are fermented — already makes an impact on the world as tequila.
Sorghum. This heat-tolerant grass has long been the world’s fifth most important cereal crop. It can also produce rich syrup.
Algae. It needs sun. It can use salty water. Put together in the right mix, algae’s growth can be almost explosive.
All thrive where wheat and barley do not.
All offer SA the basis of a whole new agricultural industry: Feeding carbohydrate-rich plant matter into facilities from which fuels can be extracted.
Agave trials are already underway in SA. AusAgave is testing six varieties that have been imported as test crops from Mexico. Studies are under way to find out which are the fastest-growing, easiest-processed types under our climate.
It could become part a new Outback industry to replace evaporating mining jobs and increasingly heat-stressed conventional crops.
STATE-BUILDING INFRASTRUCTURE
Nuclear reactors are not the only potential salve for SA’s struggling economy.
The same can be said of plant-matter reactors.
Instead of directly producing electricity, these processing plants can convert carbon-consuming plants into liquid biofuels, biogas, biocoal — or even crude oil.
Muradel — a cooperative effort between the University of Adelaide, Murdoch University and the majority shareholder SQC Pty Ltd - has an experimental reactor near Whyalla.
It’s called hydrothermal liquefaction. What it does is compress into a few hours what nature does to dead plants over millions of years.
It takes finely ground plant matter. It adds high pressure and extremely hot water.
It produces crude oil.
The only difference from real black gold is that this one is deep green.
It can be processed and refined into everything from petrol to plastic — just like the real thing.
Another process, Professor Nathan says, could involve an adaptation of an innovation driven by Germany’s desperation during World War II: Turning coal into liquid fuel.
“The Fischer Tropsch process is commercially available at large scale,” he says. “It’s not exactly what we need. But it’s a hell of a long way down the track. We’re wanting to adapt this system to the next generation of technologies which would use biomass.”
In our case it would turn biocoal or plant stock into synthetic gas. This, in turn, can be converted into synthetic diesel and petrol.
“The analysis we’ve done definitely suggests these fuels can be made at costs below a dollar a litre,” Professor Nathan says. “But these numbers are still loose.”
Introducing solar at any point of this production process can only improve the value — and carbon footprint — of the end product, Professor Nathan says.
FUELLING THE FUTURE
The major advantage of most biofuels is that they can readily be integrated into infrastructure already around us. Cars. Trucks. Generators. Gas furnaces.
But, ultimately, it’s an industry that thrives through all elements being local.
Once significant supplies of organic feed stock have been identified, the pressing issue remains.
How to get useful biomass of all kinds to a refinery before the cost of transport overwhelms the profit margins and carbon savings it can produce?
Waste biomass has a relatively low energy level per kilogram. Dedicated crops — such as algae or agave — are better, but also limited.
Planning. Investment. Resolve.
There is no one solution to processing biofuels. And which process ends up being the most cost-effective remains uncertain.
An inspired government can manage the risk of finding out.
“We’re academics,” Associate Professor Burton says. “What we really need is to be supported by government to build a demonstration plant, or we would need industry to come to us and say ‘we’re really keen on doing this’ to make this start to happen.”
What South Australia would get out of it is a whole new industry — built from and for the existing economy.
“These things don’t happen overnight,” Professor Nathan says. “But if the state and nation are prepared to invest in it, it will accelerate development.
“If we get a critical mass of belief that there is potential in this for the state, we can be a real world leader in this arena.”
READ MORE
PART 1: How odd hours are making you ill
PART 2: The fight to bring animals back from the brink
PART 3: Could you stomach bugs? Our future may depend on it
Interested? Find out more about the University of Adelaide’s research at http://blogs.adelaide.edu.au/research/