An interested inquirer Ron W. Larson asked about Jathropa as a biofuel after he
read a very favorable article about its successful use in a Latin
American
country. Ron is very knowledgeabl about Biochar so he provided valuable feedback, some of which is included below.
Is Jathropa the best for biofuel?
In addition to biofuel properties it has medicinal properties that we tend to overlook. It reduces swelling of ligaments, tissue and muscle when the heated bark is applied as a compress to the injured area.
The frame of reference for my answer is limited to the
Philippines and common sense learned while in the field, rather than scientific
data. Jatropha was widely abandoned
here in the Philippines for the basic reason that it did not meet projections
by a significant amount. That does not mean that it is not the answer in other
areas and it does not mean that future attempts here will also fail. The poison
issue and other negative social issues did not stop anyone, only the money issue when it
was all said and done. Those who favor its use find the positive side of the poison issue in which to promote its use while opponents take the opposite side. You decide: Is plantation farming of biofuels of any type the answer? Should social issues be solved by the social group that is most affected?
Traditional Thinking
As long as we use traditional thinking we will continue to
perform traditionally. We are now
in a time of great issues that traditional approaches will not solve. Most of the world does not live the way we do, but they live where most of the land is located.
The Single Plant Solution or is there another way?
Instead of looking for the single plant
solution that we can grow on large plantations as part of a big agribusiness
approach, maybe we should look at a more diverse approach at the local level
where there are millions of people, but in low density, and there we can perhaps find the real
solution that is also sensitive to the social issues.
Alternative fuels
For alternative fuels that will compete with fossil fuels we
need to think out of the box and use a new thinking profile, perhaps the one
our Foundation uses:
1. first examine the traditional approach that is in use
today,
2. examine the traditional approach that is going to be
applied to the alternative fuel,
3. compare,
4. think of non-traditional ways for using the alternative
fuel,
5. compare.
As Ron Larson says: “and for me the big non-traditional difference is the
co-production of bio-fuels and Biochar.”
In this way the result is of use and value.
The question you should ask:
Has anyone found one alternative fuel that can be used in the
traditional ways and successfully compete with fossil fuel? The simple
answer is “No”. The keyword is "traditional".
Generally we can all agree that traditional uses will not
let go and fossil fuel used in the traditional ways will not die in our
lifetime. Ron thinks that a very small (and well-justified)
subsidy for including Biochar will solve both the climate and soil issues - but
also peak oil. He is pretty sure that we have already gone past the
half-way point in oil production and fossil fuel prices can only go up.
Biofuels are absolutely needed. Whether this is the case or not we must move away from fossil fuel consumption regardless of supply, however is that really possible?
Non-traditional Ways
Alternative fuels, when grown in non-traditional ways and
used non-traditionally, open a whole new vista.
No one alternative
bio-fuel is the best answer either.
The diversification of plant species used to create biomass has spin-off
benefits of lower risk of calamity, such as those caused by storms and disease. Even the risk of public outcry is
minimized.
Additionally, the positives are further realized with the
increase in sustainable income to the farmers from daily harvests and daily
processing.
Diverse uses of the products produced
from the various plants.
Each plant has multiple uses but generally when grown by big agribusiness many
of those potential uses are ignored in favor of a focused high profit use or
product. However, when produced
locally some uses are in greater demand than others and it is easy to gravitate
to the greatest demand first, service it and then the others.
Each locality has its
own profile.
Processing of the products at the local level using simple technology. In the currently used traditional model
we all waste fossil fuel getting raw material to the sophisticated, centrally
located, mammoth processing plant.
However, local processing in the non-traditional model is completed at
the site of the production; it is an efficiency that fossil fuels cannot
compete against, quite simply because fossil fuel cannot be produced everywhere
like trees and plants nearly can.
(At the suggestion of Ron,
just add that Biochar fits into a lot of this list.)
1.
So let’s
compare and improve upon the idea:
We waste fossil fuel getting the finished product from the processing plant
back to the local consumers.
Local consumption of locally processed alternatives is another efficiency that
fossil fuels cannot compete against.
Local production, processing and consumption is efficient, does not produce
unused waste since all of the waste produced is organic and is placed back into
the cycle of growing and using organic fertilizers made from the production
waste.
Local production means
millions of production sites and millions of brains
Participants think about the same things and millions of
better ideas develop for the
system each day. Since the local producer is his own boss his better
ideas are tried, tested, abandoned or used and told to others.
>
Agroforestry looks at more than biofuels.
The biomass portion of agroforestry will produce tomorrow’s
alternative fuels. Even the fruit trees, when trimmed, become
contributors to the process. Modern industry's sophisticated technologies require
efficiency of scale and so on and so forth in order to be competitive with the
existing technology of using the traditional fuel that alternatives cannot compete with
from the same footing.
We must change our footing.
If the local person can fuel his vehicle with a locally
produced fuel for less than what the local gasoline/diesel station is offering,
he is going to use it regardless of whether it is good for the climate or
not. If he makes money by producing the fuel, even one gallon a week, he
is going to produce that gallon. The
average per capita family earnings at the local level is less than $1,000 per
year. So, his family's using of one
gallon of community produced biofuel is one less gallon that is going to be
pumped from the local fossil fuel station that week. If that station
normally pumps 5,000 gallons a week in the local village then that only
requires 5,000 agroforester families in the area producing one gallon a week. At that rate it won't be long
before that fossil fuel station dries up due to a lack of demand. The
biofuel is a byproduct of agroforestry (and
Ron adds: and of making char and
says that he is “very committed to local production of fuels. Brazil has
done a great job of supplying ethanol, as near as I can tell (probably a
lot of undesirable forest-cutting - but Biochar can help in that regard.”)
In more parts of the world than not the roads are used for purposes other than vehicular traffic, which is minimal.
The initial market
is at the local level.
In the Philippines we have 42,005 local villages (barangays).
In the Philippines the above example would mean most of the barangay
families or about 5,000 would produce one gallon of biofuel per week or
nationwide 210,025,000 gallons of fossil fuel would not be needed each week.
The Philippines uses 340,000 bbl per day or 85,680,000
gallons per week. The simple
non-traditional approach of producing and using bio-fuel at the local level
would overnight change the nation from being a net importer of fossil fuels to
being a net exporter of bio-fuels.
Don’t make rocket
science out of it.
If you keep this simple and don’t try and complicate it you
will see that the answer is at the local level. Should you want to complicate the solution that is not
difficult, but it is not necessary.
Yes, there are some bio-fuels that are better than others and some that
are not so good at all but there are others that are exceptionally good. Let the locals work that out and they
will show you the results faster than any laboratory study could or any premature regulation requires.
Example
The following two examples are to provoke you into simple
thought, not complicated thought.
If you were a local farmer wanting to make some extra income and were exploring growing 1,000 square meters (1/10th of a hectare) with one
of the following plants, which would you choose?
1.
Jathropa
a.
grows very quickly in very poor soil,
b.
requires little water, and
c.
produces a seed that has a profitable rate of
production.
d.
sustainable
e.
wind storm tolerant
f.
heavy rain tolerant
On the downside the seeds are
very poisonous to man, animal, fish and soil. Cross cropping is not recommended. Soil enhancement is not a quality.
2.
Moringa
a.
grows very quickly in very poor soil,
b.
requires little water, and
c.
every part of it is edible, nutritious and safe
d.
multiple uses from the same tree include, food
for human consumption, food
supplements, feedstock for animal feeds,
Biochar
e.
sustainable
f.
cross cropping is recommended
g.
wind storm tolerant
h.
heavy rain tolerant
i.
improves the soil
j.
one of the cleanest bio-fuels
k.
one of the most efficient bio-fuels
On the downside proper management of the tree and the various harvests within a cycle is required in order to maximize this tree's potential.
3. Other Plant/Tree Choices
Example after example using hundreds of
plants/trees can be presented from coconut, palm oil, grasses, roots, pili nut, to any tree that produces branches and leaves that can be trimmed on a
regular and rotational basis.
Food for Fuel
Ron asked about the controversial use of Palm Oil since it involves the use of
food for fuel. To answer his
question I wrote him that if you take it out of plantation
production and add it to agroforestry as one of 600 different species planted
per hectare then no one is going to yell and scream about the food/fuel issue
because the local production and use will balance that one.
This is one more case in point that shows how First World policy makers (not Ron) may not completely understand the totality of their policies on the rest of the world, conversely they may not recognize how the Third World may be the solution to the First World's problems.
The real threat to plantation farming is that it is big business in the rural setting which only makes day laborers out of the locals and perpetuates poverty. The other threat is that Mother Nature does not support plantations and therefore man has to fight pests, diseases and weeds with chemicals that kill the insects, the weeds and only forestall the inevitable plight.
On the other side of the coin, agroforestry, using biodiversity at the grassroots level, will build locally based economies and supply the local and distant consumers. Because of the diversity an entire ecosystem emerges and this is something that Mother Nature not only condones, she embraces.
The local farmer becomes an agroforester and learns that his family is now in business and can work its way out of poverty by harvesting something of value each day and delivering it to the local processing area where one member of the family is employed. By the way they walk to work.
At the end of the day the worker brings home a kilo or two of organic fertilizer produced from the waste at the processing plant that processed whatever fruit that the 5,000 local agroforesters delivered to the processing plant that day. By the way, the final portion of the biomass was turned into crude biofuel, not much, but the equivalent of about one gallon per week per family.
This system uses 600 species per hectare or approximately 3 trees/plants of each species. With this many species there are so many different growing cycles that a near-daily harvest of something is guaranteed throughout the calendar year. This quality alone mitigates calamity since the time preceding the calamity was productive.
Three trees/plants per family per day is small enough to be manageable by the individual agroforester family and large enough when combined with the other families to keep the processing center, that is centralized and within a walkable 3.5 km from the farthest family, busy. At the processing center one member of each family may be employed or find work within the commerce matrix that develops from the immense capacity building.
There are 5,000 families devoting one hectare each to agroforestry in a 15,000 hectare area. Two-thirds of the land remains traditional agriculture but the one third, which was previously idle land, is agroforest. The three trees producing daily for each family is the equivalent of having 600 plantations with 15,000 trees each. Yes, the diversity is seen by some as a negative, but not for us.
4. Is Urgent Action Necessary?
My very first comment in the Biochar Warm Room
discussions was that we should be careful not to over regulate before we know
what we are doing. I still see that there is a rush to regulate.
We continue to loose 17 million trees a year to the mere making of charcoal for cooking, the number one cooking fuel throughout the Philippines. Ten years ago when I first researched this matter the original forest in the Philippines was between 4 and 5 percent of the original 27 million hectares of forested land. Now it is down to 2.7%.
The need to move the discussion into the field for trials is urgent.
An Other issue about Biochar
T Field trials and grants can easily stop the cutting of the 17 million trees per year for cooking fuel and replace it with the charcoal briquette making from forest waste. We are doing it already on a tiny scale. It is scalable.
With little modification the Biochar can be produced sufficiently for all kinds of field trials using the whole continuum of soil types. We are organizing now to reforest 7% of the Philippines and with the right support this project could fast track and provide mountains of useful data long before any other approach that is on the table.
If Biochar is detrimental after so many years is that level of negative going to be greater than what we are facing at the moment through inaction? Will the negative be irreversible? If we see the negatives building up as we proceed can we take intelligent steps to mitigate and/or turn a negative into a positive?
It is imperative that we get started!
Please do not forget to donate at the top right of this page. We need your $3.00. Scroll up and donate so we can plant more. Thank you.
W
W
...
Recent Comments