Biodiesel production from crops
chemical process called transesterification whereby the glycerine is separated from the fat or vegetable oil. The process leaves behind two products - methyl esters (the
chemical name for biodiesel) and glycerine. The process involves drying the oil or fat to remove water. Methanol is mixed with sodium or potassium hydroxide catalyst and
the resultant solution is mixed with the oil. After the reaction the glycerine settles and the biodiesel is drawn off and then washed. High technology processing plants have been constructed in central Europe (Company: Biodiesel international BDI). A cottage industry of amateurs exists.
Large areas of Brazil, Argentina, Canada and eastern Europe are diverting sugar cane, palm oil and soybean crops to biofuels. The result, exacerbated by energy price rises, speculation and shortages because of severe weather, has been big increases of all global food commodity prices.
Researchers have made a breakthrough in the development of "green gasoline," a liquid identical to standard gasoline yet created from sustainable biomass sources like switchgrass and poplar trees.
Since bioethanol production is already a relatively mature technology, then to calculate the ethanol yield from wheat all that is required is to find what sort of yield levels existing plants achieve. The calculations that follow are based on the production yields of the Bioethanol Galicia Plant in Spain (ref16).
For Each tonne of wheat: 0.336m3 of bioethanol is produced.
From 2,576,000 tonnes of wheat:
Bioethanol Yield = 2,576,000 * 0.336 = 865,536 m3 (683,773 tonnes) per Year
= 865,536,000 Litres of Bioethanol per Year
Bioethanol Yield From Sugar Beet
Similar to Wheat an empirical formula can be used to calculate the bioethanol yield:
For Each tonne of Sugarbeet: 0.108m3 of bioethanol is produced.
From 17,066,000 tonnes of Sugar Beet:
Bioethanol Yield = 17,066,000 * 0.108 = 1,843,128 m3 (1,456,071 tonnes) per Year
= 1,843,128,000 Litres of Bioethanol per Year
Total Bioethanol Production
The total bioethanol production assuming use of 100% of the set aside land would be 2,708,664,000 Litres. For simplicity this can be rounded to 2.7 billion litres.
In 2002 the UK released for consumption 27.9 billion litres of petrol (ref18). By volume, the bioethanol produced from the set aside land could displace 9.7% of this petrol. This figure however is inaccurate unless the energy content of the fuel is taken into account.
Petrol has an energy content by volume of 31.5 MJ/L. Bioethanol has an energy content by volume of 21.1 MJ/L.
The total energy contained in 27.9 Billion litres of petrol:
= 27.9 billion * 31.5 = 878.85 billon MJ
The total energy contained in 2.7 billion litres of bioethanol:
= 2.7 billion * 21.1 = 56.97 billion MJ
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Biodiesel production from crops
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