Growing beyond oil with biofuel

Transcript

Glen Paul: G’day, and welcome to CSIROPod. I’m Glen Paul. Transport fuels are the third largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, after stationary energy and agriculture. So if Australia is to help mitigate climate change, we’ll need to develop low carbon transport fuels.

One area of immense growth around the world is biofuels, which can be used to not only reduce transport’s carbon footprint, but also offer domestic energy security, reducing our dependence upon the supply and pricing dictated by the world oil market.

A new scientific group, involving CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship, the Australian National University, RMIT University, the University of Manchester, and the University of Queensland, has been formed to help mitigate climate change by developing low carbon transport fuels.

The biofuels cluster, as it’s been named, will run for three years. Joining me on the line is the Director of CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship, Dr Alex Wonhas, and from the Australian National University, Professor Chris Easton.

Firstly Alex, the concept of biofuel is hardly a new one, so what is the cluster setting out to do that differs from other research?

Dr Wonhas: Well, you’re right; biofuels have been around for a while. What’s really unique about this cluster is that it focuses on second generation biofuels, so these are fuels where we are trying to use for example waste products that are currently not having a good application, and transferring them into useable fuels.

Glen Paul: OK. So we’ll get onto more of that in a moment.  Just getting back to the team itself, what roles, Alex, will each institution play in developing this?

Dr Wonhas: Well the cluster is a really fantastic combination of some of the best researchers from Australia, and also around the world, to investigate those questions around second generation biofuels. And I’m sure my colleague, Chris Easton, can tell you more about the specific roles and the specific projects that will be conducted at the different Universities.

Glen Paul: And so Chris, how well is the ANU placed then to do this type of research?

Prof Easton: Well, this is an area that’s been of interest to us for some time, and for a number of years we’ve been collaborating with CSIRO in this area, and so we have quite a bit of expertise already assembled. But this is the first opportunity that we’ve really had to address this problem on the scale that’s allowed through the cluster.

And that is true also of the collaborators at RMIT University, the University of Queensland, and the University of Manchester. They all have a history of collaborating with CSIRO, but this cluster brings us together to work on this problem.

Glen Paul: OK. So let’s get down to the nitty gritty then.  Obviously biomass sugarcane has been used for biofuel for some time now, so what processes will you be looking at it to make it and other biomass then more efficient as a source of biofuel?

Prof Easton: Well our particular approach is to use enzyme biotechnology, and by using enzyme biotechnology, rather than whole organisms – and most of the other work in this area is based on whole organisms – but by using enzyme biotechnology we can concentrate on use of materials such as cellulose and lignin, which is otherwise a waste product from most of the biofuels approaches. So we can work on material that is a by-product of the agricultural process.

Glen Paul: Right. So what sort of waste product then stands out as being the most useful?

Prof Easton: Well lignin is basically the component left of wood after most of the nutrients have been taken out, and likewise with sugarcane mass. So whereas a lot of the current work on biofuels relies on sugarcane as a whole or other plant material, we are particularly focusing on ways of using those components of, for example, sugarcane and waste, or crop stubble, which is not otherwise converted into fuels.

Glen Paul: Well, that then negates the argument of food versus fuel because if you’re just using the waste products it’s unlikely then that we’ll see crops specifically for biofuel taking the place of crops that could have been used for human consumption, particularly with food security as a major issue.

Is that the case, or do you think there could be situations where fuel is given precedence over food?

Prof Easton: No, I think quite the opposite in fact. I mean this is an issue of supply and demand of course, and because we will be using the waste products from those crops, it’s going to increase the value of those crops, and therefore will encourage the production of the crops as foods. So I think it will value add to those crops, rather than be a competing process.

Glen Paul: Hmm. But what about the carbon dioxide itself that’s going to be emitted from burning biofuel – that differs from the carbon and fossil fuels because it’s now part of the current carbon cycle? Is that how it works? Whereas the carbon in fossil fuels was put there a long time ago, taken out of the system, but then combustion puts it back in, disturbing the balance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

Dr Wonhas: Yeah.

Prof Easton: Yes. The transport fuels that we intend to produce will emit carbon dioxide when they are used as transport fuels.  But in the process of their production, they will consume as much carbon dioxide, and therefore they’ll be carbon dioxide neutral. Whereas most of the fuels, well certainly the conventional fuels that are used at the moment just contribute directly to carbon dioxide emission.

Glen Paul: Right. OK.

Dr Wonhas: Yeah, maybe just a small clarification – I guess what you’re referring to is what are the emissions over the life cycle of the usage of the fuels, and as Chris said there is amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed at the beginning of the process when you actually grow the plants, there’s actually a little bit of carbon dioxide, depending on the process, being emitted when you turn the biomass into the fuel, and then there’s obviously carbon dioxide released again at the back end.

So it’s actually quite a fine balance of what the total life cycle emissions are, but the total life cycle is… of biofuels is much, much lower than conventional fuels. And I think especially the pathways to biofuels that we are trying to investigate with this research cluster has a great promise to have lower life cycle emissions than many other biofuels, and especially first generation biofuels that are currently being used.

Glen Paul: Hmm. OK. Well thanks for setting us straight on that. Now with transportation fuel, obviously aviation plays a big role in that, and I know rightly so the industry has very stringent safety and technical fuel standards, and I realise there’s been trials in aviation biofuel. But do you think with all the pressures on aviation biofuel to meet those standards that it could still be economically viable to produce?

Dr Wonhas: The answer is yes. CSIRO is actually currently conducting a very comprehensive study with all of the major players in the aviation space in Australasia, and we’ve found that there’s certainly a pathway for the aviation industry to satisfy a substantial share of their fuel needs from biofuels. 

However, in order for that to be taken up, we need to look in more detail also at the other potential users of this biofuel in say the general public transport sector, or other sectors. 

So it will depend on the regulatory environment where those biofuels will ultimately flow in an end use sense.

Glen Paul: So is this research also forming part of the transportation fuel cluster as such?

Dr Wonhas: The aviation fuels part is not part of this specific project, but that’s actually part of another project that the Energy Transformed Flagships are undertaking. But the new pathways to biofuels that hopefully come out of this research activity might well be applicable to the aviation sector, or other sectors for that matter.

Glen Paul: OK. So at the end of the cluster who then takes the data, and how will it be used?

Prof Easton: Well we intend to continue this work in collaboration with CSIRO, and the objective of the cluster is that we will produce technology that will then be pursued or developed through CSIRO and its commercial partners.

Glen Paul: Right. And will that information be shared with other nations that didn’t participate in the cluster?

Dr Wonhas: I think certainly there will be no doubt academic publications resulting from this work, but if there is a real commercial opportunity to create really the foundation of a new industry, then we’ll certainly work together and try to ensure that it’s especially being used in a commercial production process. That would be the ultimate aim and would, I think, deliver a very significant impact for Australia, and the world.

Glen Paul: Hmm. OK. So Chris, now the cluster has been launched, what’s the first plan of attack?

Prof Easton: Well, essentially our projects are enzyme biotechnology. We have at this stage identified enzymes, and sources of enzymes, and we literally need to develop those to make them robust, produce them on large scale, optimise their catalytic efficiency, and then develop methods for basically isolating the biofuels that we expect the enzyme catalysed processes to produce.

Glen Paul: Right. Well look, the clock’s ticking now, you’ve got three years, and we’re all no doubt looking forward to some big results.  So thank you both for taking time out to talk to us about it today.

Prof Easton: Thank you.

Dr Wonhas: It’s a great pleasure, Glen.

Glen Paul: Dr Alex Wonhas from CSIRO’s Energy Transformed Flagship, and Professor Chris Easton from the Australian National University.  For more information visit www.csiro.au.