The use of algae as a source of energy is being researched in different countries across the world and is at an advanced stage in the United States.

But as research has grown so has the realization that converting algae into energy may not be as cost-effective as originally thought possible. As a result, new research and investigation has been two-pronged, both to make optimum use of algae as a source of energy and to do it cheaply.

Scientists at the National Technological University of Mar del Plata, on Argentina’s Atlantic coast, said they focused on developing techniques that would be both economically viable and environmentally sustainable.

A production module already in place would seek to convert micro-algae into energy with the minimum amount of energy being used in the whole process. The scientists said they would seek to achieve a ratio below 1:5 — to limit consumed energy to below 20 percent of the energy produced.

A fundamental factor in the project is the replacement of high-cost raw materials, such as carbon dioxide and cultivation agents, with “environmental liabilities” like industrial waste and emissions and sewage mud, the university said.

The research work is being conducted with the participation of scientists and technicians with an established knowledge base in aquaculture, biotechnology, environmental engineering and phycology, MercoPress reported.

The production of biofuels, particularly biodiesel from marine micro-algae, has won support from environmentalists and politicians because it doesn’t restrict human food consumption, as is the case with soybean and other agricultural crops, and fresh water is not used. Sea water cools the equipment deployed to convert micro-algae into energy.

Analysts said it was too early to determine if energy produced from micro-algae could be cost-effective on a longer term and if the technology could be used for large volumes of energy.

A hectare of micro-algae yields about 8,000 liters of bio-diesel.

Argentina is reviewing its energy efficiency strategies amid a continuing economic downturn and changing demographics, with forecasts that the upwardly mobile younger generation, although environmentally conscientious, will be consuming more energy in the coming years because of changing lifestyles and improved living conditions.

Argentina began exploring the micro-algae project in 2008. Scientists began the work with micro-algae species carrying high oil content. The micro-algae was cultivated in pools of up to 2,000 liters during the four seasons of the year, then collected in vats before being transported for processing.

 Source: upi

“Biodiesel will be incorporated into the energy matrix, initially accounting for 5 percent of domestic demand, that is 742 million liters (196 million gallons) per year, which is equivalent to the amount of conventional diesel fuel imported by Argentina in 2008,” Planning Minister Julio de Vido told a press conference.

The minister predicted that over the next four years biodiesel’s share of the conventional diesel-biofuel blend will rise to 20 percent.

The law mandating that diesel fuel contain a renewable component dates back to 2006 and stipulates that the measure must go into effect in 2010.

Separately, the minister said that in the face of “persistent record-high temperatures” in the current Southern Hemisphere summer, the electrical system has responded “perfectly within the normal parameters.”

He acknowledged that “there may have been some isolated” problems with the service, but nothing serious.

De Vido added that the government has already invested 18 billion pesos ($4.66 billion) to expand electricity generation and transport capacity in Argentina.

In that sense, he said investment projects totaling 29 billion pesos ($7.51 billion) are currently being carried out, in addition to planned future projects that will cost 31 billion pesos ($8.03 billion) EFE.

Source: Laht efe

In justifying its stance the EBB explained that Argentine exports to EU had increased dramatically from less than 5,000 tons in July 2008 to almost 100,000 tons per month in July 2009, a twenty-fold increase. For the whole of 2009, Argentine exports are expected to exceed the 1 million metric tons threshold, as compared to only 70 000 tons the previous year.

This surge in Argentine biodiesel exports to EU is, claims the EBB, driven by a regime of differentiated export taxes (known as DETs). A system which, it says, creates a clear distortion, in the market, and one which needs rebalancing.

The differential between the 32% export tax on soybean oil and the 20% export tax on biodiesel creates a clear financial incentive to process soybean oil into biodiesel rather than exporting it, argues the EBB. This incentive is already substantial on paper, but is even higher in practice. The EBB says it has received indications that the tax differential between soybean oil and biodiesel is in reality in the range of 20% due to a number of ad hoc implementing rules. This information proved difficult to obtain despite EBB repeated contacts with Argentinean authorities and stakeholders.

The EBB is keen to stress that it has always been in favour of an open EU biodiesel market considering the EU’s objective of 10% renewable energy in transport by 2020. However, it is also keen to highlight the discrepancy in the market where Argentine biodiesel enjoys duty-free access to the EU biodiesel market, whereas Argentina levies a 14% customs duty on biodiesel from Europe and other countries.

The EBB is clear that it has to oppose any trade practices that distort competition between European and foreign producers. “EBB takes very seriously the challenge of Argentine biodiesel exports to EU. We stand ready to defend our interests, as we already did successfully against subsidised imports from the United States”, said Raffaello Garofalo, EBB Secretary-General.

In the view of EBB, it would be appropriate for Argentinean authorities to withdraw at the earliest opportunity the DETs regime currently applied on soybean products and biodiesel. The continuation of this trade distorting measure would call for an appropriate reaction from EU biodiesel producers.

Written by Giles Clark, London

Source: Biofuel Review

The Principles of Sustainability will be integrated in the Financial Operations of Climatic Change of the IDB based on a New Collaboration with the Round Table on Sustainable Fuels.

  MIAMI- The Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative of the Inter-American Development Bank (SECCI, for its initials in English) announced today an association with the Round Table on Sustainable Fuels to integrate the principles of sustainability of the Table in its operations of loans and to support the participation of their partners from Latin America in the global process of establishing standarts.

In next two years, SECCI intends to put on approval these principles in five projects, to which it plans to finance, and it will promote four regional meetings of the interested parts to make sure that the actors from Latin America contribute to write the global norms of sustantion of the biofuels.

With 40 percent of the global production of bioethanol and a market of biodiesel that is quickly expanding to satisfy the demands of the region and of Europe, Latin America is a world leader of the industry of the biofuels.

From Mexico to the Argentina, farmers, companies, governments and rural communities are investing in a change toward the biofuels while grows the conscience on its enormous potential to prevent the climatic change and to create new economic opportunities in the rural areas. But without protection, some biofuels can have negative impacts, including the deforestation of valuable forests, affecting the wild life’s habitat, due to the increment of arable land, the use of scarce water, and the reduction of available lands for the food production.¼br />  To foment such cautions, in April of the 2007, a group of companies, organizations of the civil society, experts, governments and intergovernmental groups started a Round Table on Sustainable Fuels to develop until June of this year standards and global norms for the production and the biofuels prosecution, to assure that the biofuels fulfills their promise of sustainability.

“Hundred of interested people from around the world have been involved in developing the principles of the Round Table on Sustainable Fuels from its launching, almost one year behind” Claude Martin said, former Director-general of WWF International and President of the Board of directors of the Round Table. “When agreeing to put on approval these principles in the projects that are going to be financed, and when supporting the integration of more producers of Latin America, ONGs, and governments in our own work, the IDB is showing a real commitment with this multi-participative process.”

The Bank is committed in the financing of projects that assure the sustainable development”, said Juan Pablo Bonilla, Coordinator of SECCI and former Vice minister of Environment in Colombia. “We are extremely interested in putting on approval the standards that are being developed in the Round Table in real projects to which we finance, to make sure that they are contributing with our vision of a future with sustainable energy.”

The first regional meeting of the interested parts that will take place under this new association will do so in Bogotá, Colombia. It is expected that more than 60 associated of Central and South America discuss the draft of standards of the Round Table and how they can be implemented in the context of Latin America. Controversial topics as the global increment of prices of foods and the agricultural expansion that threatens valuable conservation areas will be debated in an open atmosphere and of search of consents, with the intention of guaranteeing the promotion of opportunities for the region and the reduction of the associates risks.

The Inter-American Development Bank

The IDB, the oldest and biggest regional bank of development in the world, is the main source of multilateral financing for the economic, social and institutional development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its loans and donations help the financing of development projects and promote strategies to reduce the poverty, to increase the growth, to increase the commerce and the investment, it promotes the regional integration and foments the development in the private sector and the modernization of the State.

In 2006 the IDB launched the Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative (SECCI) constituted by four pillars, one of them biofuels. Specifically, the biofuel pillar provides a platform to channel the necessary help in specific lines of activity, including the evaluations of economic viability of the biofuels, political help at country level for the biofuel development, financial help for the development of raw materials, facilities of biofuels production and related infrastructure for the production and distribution, as well as for the help in the development and adaptation of emergent technologies.

Round table on Sustainable Fuels. The Round Table on Sustainable Fuels is an initiative of multiple interested parts, integrated by farmers, companies, governments, organizations of the civil society, experts, and intergovernmental agencies that intends to develop standards for the sustainable biofuel production, through a transparent advisory process. More than 200 organizations of 30 countries are participating at the moment in open video conferences through Work groups, regional meetings of the interested parts and discussions in the Internet to create standards that can assure that the biofuels are able to fulfill their sustainability promise.

The Secretariat of the Round Table has its headquarters in the Center of Energy of the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), one of the two federal institutions of technology of Switzerland. The founding members of its Board of directors include, among other, people coming from the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF), Toyota, BP, the Mali Folkecenter, National Wildlife Federation, Shell, the governments from Holland and Switzerland, the Foundation of the UN, Petrobras, the World Economic Forum, the University of California in Berkeley, Bunge, and TERI India.

IT WILL TURN THEM INTO THE MAYOR LOCAL PRODUCERS.

The cereal companies, that the Renova company conformed, will duplicate their present capacity in July, when they inaugurate new works. Thus, they will surpass AGD and Bunge, and Dreyfus.

Biodiesel plant/Photo: Fernando López King

The local cereal Vicentín and the multinational Glencore are building a second biodiesel plant elaborated from soya in San Lorenzo, Santa Fe, that will be ready between June and July of this year. This way, they hope to duplicate the production capacity of this biofuel that they have from last October, when they inaugurated in that point of the santafesino agro-industrial cord, one of the two majors factories in the country, with a production capacity of 240,000 annual tons.

Managers of both companies confirmed the project, although they preferred not to give more precisions. The plant that is operative, according to what was announced at the time, counts with a unit of crude soya oil refining with a capacity for 330,000 annual tons, that demanded an investment of u$s 40 million.

Renova, the company under which they merged in this business, is one of the two mayor biofuel exporting companies of the country. In fact, along with Ecofuel (the company of the other national-multinational cereal pair, Bunge and Aceitera General Deheza (AGD), that has the same present  production capacity and technology that Renova), were responsible for more of 90% of the exports of that product last year. According to the Secretary of Agriculture, in 2007, the sales of the exported biodiesel reached u$s 268 million, that came from 319,093 dispatched tons (equivalent to a value of u$s 841 per ton). Of those shipments, almost three quarters (73%) were destined to the United States, whereas the rest went to countries of Europe.

Interest of several

In the country there are eight qualified companies to export these vegetal fuels. Besides Renova and Ecofuel, the other plant that has certain weight in the export is the one that has Vicentín in its place of origin, Avellaneda, in the north of Santa Fe, with a capacity of 47,500 tons. The others are Biomadero, with a capacity for 72,000 tons, located in the Buenosairean locality of Villa Madero; Soy Energy, in the Buenosairean locality of Pilar, with a capacity for 32,400 tons; Energía Sanluiseña Refinería Argentina, in the city of Villa Mercedes, with a capacity for 30,000 tons; Advanced Organic Materials (AOM), also in the Buenosairean Pilar, with a capacity for 15,800 tons, and Biodiesel, in the santafesina Sancti Spiritu, with a capacity for 6,480 tons.

There are another five projects under construction, all in Santa Fe. Unitec Bio, of the media entrepreneur Eduardo Eurnekian, of 220,000 annual tons. Mills, food company of the Perez Companc family, began to construct a plant in Rosario, with a capacity for 100,000 tons. The French Trader Louis Dreyfus is building a greater plant, of 300,000 tons, in its General Lagos complex. Explora will produce 120,000 tons in Puerto San Martin, and Patagonia Bioenergía, 250,000 in San Lorenzo. Mean while, ACA just announced their association with two European companies to build a mega-plants of 250,000 tons of biodiesel in Puerto San Martin.

Alejandra Groba Buenos Aires

Source: Cronista.com

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