Reaping the Benefits of Agricultural Waste
(University of New Castle) Australia’s $63 billion* agriculture sector stands to benefit from a revolutionary fuel technology that will convert multiple agricultural waste streams into valuable biofuel and green chemical products for the first time.
In partnership with the University of Newcastle, Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources (NIER) and Muswellbrook Shire Council, Ethanol Technologies (Ethtec) has received $11.9 million in funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to establish a demonstration facility at Muswellbrook.
In addition to ARENA funding, the $48 million project will be funded by $11.9 million from industry partners as well as contributions from Muswellbrook Shire Council and the University.
Led by a group of researchers including conjoint lecturer and Ethtec senior biotechnologist, Dr Geoff Doherty, the project will develop an environmentally sustainable process to produce biofuels and other renewable chemicals from crop and forestry wastes.
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Ethtec technology will eliminate the food versus fuel tension as the process will use the waste streams left behind once the food portion has been harvested from crops, known as ‘second generation technology’, which will also give farmers a second source of income.
The project will help create a commercially viable process for the country to tap into a $130 billion ethanol industry that currently only makes up approximately one per cent of Australia’s fuel consumption**, and will provide a pathway to a sustainable export market for Australian produced ethanol.
Waste not, want not
Ethtec’s novel ‘strong acid’ technology will use feedstock waste streams such as wheat straw, cotton stubble, sugar cane bagasse and forest material left behind after the valuable food and fibre components have been harvested from crops and timber plantations.
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“Creating a value for fibre will also incentivise land rehabilitation programs, such as mine rehabilitation and the planting of trees to remediate high salinity soils. At the moment, most farmers don’t do it because it’s worth nothing and takes their fields out of action for many years. This process will keep their land productive while also being remediated,” Dr Doherty explained.
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Not only will this technology reduce the environmental impact of ethanol production, but it also has the potential to reduce the cost of biofuel and could be used to produce renewable plastics, industrial lubricants and even pharmaceuticals.
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Ethtec has invested over $18.6 million in the project to date, with $15.6 million coming from shareholders and $3 million from the Federal Government. READ MORE
Australian pilot biorefinery now under construction (Ethanol Producer Magazine)
Excerpt from Ethanol Producer Magazine: Doherty said Ethtec is aware of the challenges producers have faced when producing cellulosic ethanol and second-generation biofuels from crop residue on a commercial scale. However, the methods they are testing differ from what’s currently being done in the United States, he said. The main difference is that Ethtec does not use enzymes during production. “Our approach, essentially, is more of a sledge hammer approach. We hit it with strong acid, but the key difference is that we can recover and recycle that acid so it’s not actually contributing to the process,” he said, adding that the process allows for the use different types feedstocks. “We can use any type of feedstock, as long as we granulate it to a certain size and dry it to a certain moisture content,” he said. “Pretty much all feedstocks behave the same once you get it into those conditions. And that’s a key difference between the enzymatic approach where those enzymes are typically tailored for a certain feedstock.”
Australia imports much of its petroleum, so Doherty said the demonstration plant is a step toward the country’s energy independence. “We think in the medium-term, sort of in that 10 to 15 years when these types of technologies start coming online and we’re starting to produce significant volumes of locally produced biofuels, it’ll certainly assist in that very dangerous liquid fuel security situation we find ourselves in,” he said.
The Australian ethanol industry faces many of the same public perceptions that exist in the U.S., according to Doherty. “A lot of it’s died down, but … 10, 15 years ago, there was a lot of talk about the damage ethanol can do to engines and the corrosiveness of ethanol petrol blends and those sort of things,” he said, adding the Australian biofuels industry is controlled by just one company. “I think the resistance to biofuels in this country will reduce once there’s a bit more public information about the sustainability of it, first of all, and reducing that monopoly, having more players in the market, and seeing it as a true competitive industry,” he said. READ MORE
