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Renewable Energy Technologies for the Production of Bio-Fuels: Survey of Appropriate Technologies and Perspectives for A

High Technology & New Materials Area. First High Level AU/Brazil/UNIDO Bio-Fuels Seminar in Africa Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - 30 July – 1 August 2007. Renewable Energy Technologies for the Production of Bio-Fuels: Survey of Appropriate Technologies and Perspectives for African Countries.

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Renewable Energy Technologies for the Production of Bio-Fuels: Survey of Appropriate Technologies and Perspectives for A

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  1. High Technology & New Materials Area First High Level AU/Brazil/UNIDO Bio-Fuels Seminar in Africa Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - 30 July – 1 August 2007 Renewable Energy Technologies for the Production of Bio-Fuels: Survey of Appropriate Technologies and Perspectives for African Countries Graziano Bertogli

  2. Energy High Technology & New Materials Area The world’s energy consumption is constantly increasing and will pass from 411in 2006 to 900 EJ in 2050 that is, from 10 to 22 Gtoe. Also, the world’s population will go from 6 to 9 billions in the same period, per-capita energy consumption will go from 68 to 100 GJ/y and security of energy supply and North-South energy balance will be unequal due geopolitical distribution, exhausted reserves, and increase in the oil price among others. Moreover, the local and global environmental problems will increase, that is, human action is responsible of 90% of greenhouse gases emissions (IPCC 2001), there will be an increase of mean global earth temperature between 1.8 °C and 4 °C, also an increase of sea level between 18 and 59 cm, the CO2 emissions in the next 100 years will remain and an environmental damage ranging from 5 to 20% of world’s GDP.

  3. Renewable Energy High Technology & New Materials Area As a matter of fact, RES are the only resources capable to increase the sustainability and the security of the energy supply; nevertheless there are still fundamental barriers to their development, the main are the following: uncompetitiveness: in most cases the power plants have higher investment and energy costs than the conventional ones.But if we take into account the “external” costs (those related to the health and ecosystem damages and other “externalities”) usually also the worst uncompetitive cases become profitably; planning, legal and financial instruments, and methods are useless and frequently incoherent: RES development have to be supported, indirectly, by tax put on non RES resources (carbon tax, ecc) to recover the “external” costs, directly, by subsidise investment and/or use and making regulations that really support its diffusion. All have to be coherent with an energyplan that must have a clear, shared and steady goal of RES developing; technologies and infrastructure improvements needed: in some cases there are not technologies and capability to develop and carry out RES projects or market.

  4. Renewable Energy High Technology & New Materials Area Summary of the RES potentials in EJ/y Source: (WEA, UNDP, 2000)

  5. Renewable Energy High Technology & New Materials Area World energy consumption per sources (1860-2060)

  6. Renewable Energy High Technology & New Materials Area

  7. Renewable Energy High Technology & New Materials Area

  8. Renewable Energy High Technology & New Materials Area

  9. Renewable Energy High Technology & New Materials Area Large hydro in developing countries is near to its technical potential; small hydro can double its production capability in the next years; wind energy coming from ground and offshore can achieve similar performance as hydro technologies in short time, while geothermal technology be similar in terms of output to the small hydro. The contribution of the solar energy will depend on the investments and improvements, sustainable biomass energy use increase is a real challenge. Thus, RSE have good prospects to increase their contribution to the world’s energy balance.

  10. Bio Energy High Technology & New Materials Area Bioenergy production can be a promising opportunity for African countries as it can provide large employment generation schemes, can be linked to ecosystem conservation, and even rehabilitation; furthermore, investments in biomass energy can be an effective tool to combat desertification, can have a significant impact on global climate change and can become a valuable tool in promoting gender equity within the associated natural resources management activities. Considering that DCs are mostly agriculturally based economies with favourable conditions for growing biofuel crops, bioenergy can be a relevant source of income for them, adding value to raw agricultural goods. Moreover, the development of the biofuel industry can foster economic development and job creation (as the Brazilian case shows).

  11. Bio Energy - Factors of risk High Technology & New Materials Area Many of the current practices however are unsustainable, as already indicated, due to many factors. It is imperative to understand the implications of these aspects specifically from the socio-economic point of view as they addresses quality of life, gender, health, environment, poverty and rural development.

  12. Bio Energy - Factors of risk High Technology & New Materials Area Furthermore, it is worth to mention that agriculture is by far the largest freshwater consumer and polluter. Agriculture used to account for up to 70% of world water consumption, with the remaining 20% and 10% respectively devoted to industry and domestic use. This proportion was previous to the agroenergy boom and already requires a significant update because of increasing cultivations. The most commonly grown agrofuels crops are among the most water demanding ones There is an inescapable contradiction between agrofuels and Food Security: in livestock production up to 80% of costs are represented by feedstuff, with soy and corn being the crops mainly used for feed and fuelling. In order to obtain 1 kg of cow meat, 10 kg of feedstuff are required, 2-3 kg for 1 kg of kitchen meat. The corn required to fill a SUV tank with agroethanol would feed a man for one entire year.

  13. Bio Energy - Factors of risk High Technology & New Materials Area It has been calculated that in order to reach the previous target to substitute 5.75% of fuels used in the EU, if Italy was to self produce its own biofuels, it would have to devote 30% of its agricultural land and 20% of the water it uses. This target has been doubled by now; it’s more than evident that EU states will need to further their dependence on imports. The biomass use, especially on the large-scale, involves a wide range of environmental implications: soil fertility; leaching of nutrients and biodiversity; deforestation and erosion; landscape, water use; fire and disease; air, water and ground pollution, etc. In fact, if the “ideal” biomass energetic use produces just the CO2 that the biomass has fixed, there can be polluting emissions due to the “bad” use of fertilisers and pesticides production, cultivation and harvesting, etc.

  14. Bio Energy - Ensure suistainability High Technology & New Materials Area Create a policy support to small producers and cooperatives in terms of financial incentives such as access to credit, tax benefits, greater use of the CDM. Create a policy support to facilitate sustainable international biofuel trade and to guarantee the access to it.

  15. Bio Energy - Ensure suistainability High Technology & New Materials Area Develop economies of scale in order to control the production cost of the industry in the future. The need to match social and environmental benefits with the achievement of these economies of scale means that action needs to be taken to organise small producers and cooperatives.

  16. Bio Energy - Ensure suistainability High Technology & New Materials Area Support the access to technology and improve investment in R&D in countries that have just started to produce bioenergy. It is necessary a transfer of technology from the countries already exporting bioenergy. For example, technologies for sugarcane based, bioethanol and oilseed-based biodiesel are already well developed; technologies for other types of feedstocks such as jatropha require further development. Policies are needed to expedite the transit into the second generation of feedstock and technologies that will enable dramatically increased production at lower cost, while reducing negative environmental impact. In this perspective, the bionergy -related technology transfer can be an interesting test for more ambitious South-South cooperation.

  17. Bio Energy - Ensure suistainability High Technology & New Materials Area Corporate social responsibility goals: Fostering a clear and common valued certification scheme including a criteria and indicators system that can test the sustainability of bio energy production and trade. This scheme, aims to include all levels of sustainable development (environmental, social and economic) through an integrated analysis of a broad spectrum of sectors (agriculture, forestry, energy and trade) in all production and trade chain in order to improve society well being in terms of better environmental performance, higher social standards (e.g. standard minimum requirement for working conditions, human rights, gender equity) and economic development in an ethical and sustainable way (e.g. Creating opportunities for economically disadvantaged producers, improving transparency and accountability, creating trade relationship). For the agricultural sector several certification systems exist. They refer to different forms of farming, i.e. organic, integrated or good practice agricultural production (Lewandowski, 2004).

  18. Bio Energy - Ensure suistainability High Technology & New Materials Area Promote participatory decision making. Involve rural people and all stakeholder in planning and decision-making is important to achieve a sustainable energy development. In particular, special attention should be devoted to involving women, because they bear the burden of traditional energy systems and are likely to be the greatest beneficiaries of improved systems. More active involvement of rural people and their institutions in identifying rural energy problems, and in formulating and implementing plans to overcome them, would result in more efficient, rational use of resources and more equitable sharing of the benefits of development.

  19. Bio Energy - Ensure suistainability High Technology & New Materials Area Implementation of land-use policies to prevent negative impacts from land-use changes (e.g. by controlling access to and use of high-nature-value areas and habitats, cultural sites, etc.). Bioenergy production has to be concentrated on available arable land. If there is an ineffective land use policy bioenergy crop development must be restricted to areas that are not in competition with other uses.

  20. High Technology & New Materials Area Hydro Sun Wind Geoth

  21. Thank you High Technology & New Materials Area AREA Science Park Padriciano 99 • 34012 Trieste • Italy tel +39 040.9228.126 • fax +39 040.9228.122 bertogli@ics.trieste.it • www.ics.trieste.it

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