The fashion of biofuels
The fashion of biofuels in Sweden – a personal contemplation.
Renewable energy is on the march forward. Grateful for being able to follow that development from the very start, beginning with vegetable and animal fats and oils, I could not help noticing that there has become a fashion development within biofuels. Some would call it a result of technical development, but also a result of focus upon the side streams from ordinary industrial activities. I would say that the government and state actions are equally important in this development because that kind of actions can create possibilities as well as inhibitions, hopefully serving the growth of renewable energy. This development started before the greenhouse effect was debated and considered as a scientific fact. Arguments like “higher degree of national self-sufficiency”, “sensible use of agricultural waste-land”, and “lowered tail pipe emissions” were brought forward in order to promote this development. These arguments are in many senses still valid today, and recently we had one more: Peak oil, threatening our energy supply, which makes the development even more important.
Biodiesel Biodiesel and vegetable and animal fats and oils were the first biofuels entering the market here in Europe, by the mid 1990ties supported by the work done in South Africa before 1990, by Bruwer, Fuls and coworkers, where a major development in biofuels was carried out. The aim with this development was to have the possibility to withstand any fossil oil embargo, which was a threat pronounced by the oil producing Gulf States as a protest against the South African apartheid system. The research and development of biodiesel and vegetable and animal fats and oils were continued by researchers in Austria, Germany and the United States. These biofuels found many entrepreneurs all over the world and also quite a deal of enthusiastic consumers. And it is reasonable to claim that the production peak was reached in the late 1990-ties, at least regarding the intention the use of these biofuels as neat fuels without any fossil compounds present, except for the incorporated methanol content of biodiesel. It was by that time that many consumers decided to try the fuels, as supplements for and together with fossil diesel fuel. The idea that diesel engines could be ran on (almost) non fossil fuel was revolutionary and the manufacture technologies invited to domestic production, in many cases in far more small scale operations than the world had ever seen before within the energy sector. And some diesel engine manufacturers actually realized that these fuels may have a growing future and decided to approve the fuels in their engines, with or without any mixing with fossil diesel fuel. The diesel engine manufacturers have nowadays, with some exceptions, decided to cut out biodiesel and vegetable and animal fats and oils from their engines, blaming the legislations for exhaust control. These fuels (mostly biodiesel) have now their greatest use as renewable add-ins in fossil diesel fuel.
Ethanol Today´s gasoline engines were originally developed with motor alcohols (ethanol and methanol) as fuels by Nicolas Otto. These alcohols were then driven out by the cheaper gasoline. During the mid-1990ties came the commercial ethanol fuel, demanding so called FFV (flexible fuel vehicle) engines, in this country first dominated by a fleet of specially imported Ford Taurus. But first after that a fuel standard was set for the so called E85 fuel, mainly consisting from 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, did almost all car manufacturers follow the Ford example beginning to offer cars adapted for this fuel. The biggest advantage for the consumers here in Sweden was that almost all tank stations offered the E85 fuel, and still do, making it easily accessible. So ethanol driven cars became the most recent fashion in renewable energy by this time. There was also another ethanol fuel, ED 95, developed for adapted diesel engines, mainly for use in bus fleets within public transportation. This however, is to be regarded as an exception from the fashion due to the adapted diesel engines, which only could run on this fuel, in contrast to the E85 engines, which also could be driven by ordinary gasoline. Nevertheless, I think of ethanol fuel as a dream fuel in many senses, especially when the engines are fully prepared for neater ethanol, since many of the advantages of the ethanol fuel will be apparent only then.
Biogas The production of biogas from different types of waste has steadily increased over the years. The major advantages of this fuel, are two: - Biogas is by many reports, regarded as the fuel that has the highest rate of carbon dioxide neutrality. - Gasoline engines also equipped for fossil natural gas can also run on biogas, which mainly consists from methane. Biogas is apart from that relatively easily accessible, since some oil companies and other actors can offer biogas fuel along with more traditional fuels. Biogas has also been quite popular in bus fleets of public transportation, especially in city environments. The bus engines in question are spark plug assisted with the possibility to run also on natural gas. It is no exaggeration to claim that the use of biogas in bus systems above is a kind of renewable energy fashion, although it may be expected that the gas consumed is a mix of biogas and fossil natural gas, which of course diminishes its environmental benefits. There are, however, a group of users that can be called enthusiasts regarding biogas and its present and future potential.
Electricity and hybrid vehicles The electrical and hybrid vehicles are to my knowledge recent but not the most recent fashion within renewable energy. The environmental friendliness is of course depending upon how the electrical power is produced. Electricity produced from hydro power, wind mills and solar cells are preferable, in contrast to electricity from gasoline and fossil diesel oil (hybrid cars) coal and natural gas plants along with nuclear power plants. The reason for this is obvious; it makes no sense to move any pollutants from the vehicles to the source of power production. This concerns oil, coal and natural gas power plants. This is also valid for nuclear power plants, since the nuclear fuel often has engaged fossil transportation in its life cycle and because that nuclear fuel is not a renewable source of energy. What yet is keeping the electric and hybrid vehicles from entering the market as dominating is the retail price of these vehicles. And as pointed out above; the environmental benefits are questionable, unless the electricity is produced from renewable sources.
HVO; hydrogenated vegetable oil HVO is in general a mixture of hydrocarbons derived from animal and vegetable oils and fats, designed to technically correspond to fossil diesel fuels, with the exception that the feedstocks are renewable. This is to be regarded as the most recent fashion within biofuels, since the HVO is very similar to fossil diesel fuels, and so similar that many diesel engine manufacturers already have approved of this fuel, assuming that the fuel meets the standards of TS 15940:2012 and the upcoming EN 15940. The process of manufacturing HVO involves the addition of hydrogen gas and the disassociation of the tri-glycerides and the free fatty acids in the feedstock and in consequence of that the removal of oxygen and sulfur . Among the by-products can be mentioned propane gas, hydrogen sulfide and water. The technology has many similarities to the hydrogenated tall oil introduced as add-in by the Swedish oil company Preem. It is very likely that this fuel can be very successful on the market, since it can be manufactured from sludge feedstocks of too low quality for the biodiesel industry, not able to produce biodiesel (FAME) meeting the EN 14214 standard. There are already signs suggesting that bus fleets with diesel buses will go from fossil diesel oil to HVO. The Achilles heals are of course the production capacity and the feedstock availability. But assuming those are diminishing problems and that the energy balance of the HVO is favorable, then there is nothing much preventing a commercial success.
Comprehension In all and all, this so far 25 year pathway of renewable fuels was visualized by the introduction of vegetable oils and biodiesel as a battering ram. And the legacy is that these fuels showed us and made people in common to be aware that there is a technically possible future without fossil involvement, something that only a handful of people had realized before that. So biodiesel and vegetable and animal fats and oils were the heralds that proclaimed to us a new and different future, carrying more of self-sufficiency and smaller scale operations in a far more environmentally way than ever before. We became aware that energy could be produced locally and nationally without major involvement of fossil compounds even before the greenhouse effect was debated and considered as a scientific fact. There is a fashion behavior developed among the users, switching to the most recent biofuel at the time, and in the process of car replacement. This fashion of biofuels is hopefully a transitory phenomenon, since all biofuel technologies will be needed permanently in the present and for future prospects.
https://www.neste.com/sites/default/files/attachments/hvo_handbook_original_2014.pdf
