We had three aims in learning to make biodiesel and ethanol:
Both biodiesel and ethanol are
clean, grow-your-own fuels that can be made on-site in small villages from
renewable, locally available resources, for the most part using simple equipment
that a village blacksmith can make and maintain.
These fuels are among a wide range of sustainable rural energy options. Others
are methane (biogas) digesters that turn livestock and crop wastes into cooking
and heating gas, solar energy (see Solar
box cookers), wood
gas, charcoal and fuelwood (good fuels unless overharvesting
destroys the trees themselves), wind power, water power.
Usually the "answer" is in a mix of technologies. Biofuels can be used
to power small-scale farm and workshop machinery and electricity generators as
well as local vehicles. Knowing how to make them provides a useful set of
ecological questions in investigating local energy options which makes it more
than worthwhile even if the final answer is "No".
For instance, should a crop such as peanuts be used to make fuel, or would the
villagers be better off eating the peanuts? Or selling them? Or should they
press them to make oil, for cooking or for selling, and feed the high-protein
residue "cake" to livestock, which in turn they can either eat or
sell, while using the livestock wastes (and the crop wastes) to make compost to
renew the soil, or to generate biogas for cooking and heating? (The heat
generated by the composting process can also be harnessed for heating.) Or
should they grow a different crop altogether?
Should a grain crop be distilled to make ethanol fuel or should the villagers
eat the grain? If they use the grain for livestock feed, it can be used for
ethanol and still feed the livestock: the distillation process to
produce ethanol converts the carbohydrates in the grain while leaving the
protein. The protein residue is excellent stockfeed, which can be supplemented
by forage crops which humans can't eat. This could mean improved utilization of
the available resources.
This is the sort of question we'll have to find answers for in our work in rural
villages. As always, it will be the villagers' views that decide the issue.
Foundation
for Alternative Energy,
Slovakia -- a good summary of the various ways to derive useful energy from
biomass (34,000-word article):
http://www.seps.sk/zp/fond/dieret/biomass.html
A common objection to biomass
energy production is that it could divert agricultural production away from food
crops in a hungry world -- even leading to mass starvation in the poor
countries.
True or not? Not true: at best it's an oversimplification of a complex issue. It
just doesn't work that way, and neither does hunger.