Role of bioenergy, biorefinery and bioeconomy in sustainable development: Strategic pathways for Malaysia

Malaysia has a plethora of biomass that can be utilized in a sustainable manner to produce bio-products for circular green economy. At the 15th Conference of Parties in Copenhagen, Malaysia stated to voluntarily reduce its emissions intensity of gross domestic product by upto 40% by 2020 from 2005 level. Natural resources e.g. forestry and agricultural resources will attribute in achieving these goals. This paper investigates optimum bio-based systems, such as bioenergy and biorefinery, and their prospects in sustainable development in Malaysia, while analyzing comparable cases globally. Palm oil industry will continue to play a major role in deriving products and contributing to gross national income in Malaysia. Based on the current processing capacity, one tonne of crude palm oil (CPO) production is associated with nine tonnes of biomass generation. Local businesses tend to focus on products with low-risk that enjoy subsidies, e.g. Feed-in-Tariff, such as bioenergy, biogas, etc. CPO biomass is utilized to produce biogas, pellets, dried long fibre and bio-fertilizer and recycle water. It is envisaged that co-production of bio-based products, food and pharmaceutical ingredients, fine, specialty and platform chemicals, polymers, alongside biofuel and bioenergy from biomass is possible to achieve overall sustainability by the replacement of fossil resources. Inception of process integration gives prominent innovative biorefinery configurations, an example demonstrated recently, via extraction of recyclable, metal, high value chemical (levulinic acid), fuel, electricity and bio-fertilizer from municipal solid waste or urban waste. Levulinic acid yield by only 5 weight% of waste feedstock gives 1.5 fold increase in profitability and eliminates the need for subsidies such as gate fees paid by local authority to waste processor. Unsustainable practices include consumable food wastage, end-of-pipe cleaning and linear economy that must be replaced by sustainable production and consumption, source segregation and process integration, and product longevity and circular economy

Techno-economic evaluations for feasibility of sago-based biorefinery, Part 2: Integrated bioethanol production and energy systems

To reduce reliance on fossil fuel and environmental issues, alternative energy sources such as biomass are vital to be recovered and converted into value-added products. In sago industry, a huge amount of sago biomass (i.e., sago barks and fibres) is generated and discharged to the environment during sago starch extraction process (SSEP). In order to reduce environmental pollutants, the biomass can be utilised as feedstocks for energy, and bioethanol production. Therefore, Part 1 of these articles in series presents a techno-economic analysis to examine the feasibility of sago biomass-based combined heat and power (CHP) system ( Wan et al., 2015a ); and Part 2 is to examine the feasibility of integrated bioethanol production and energy systems. In this part, a conceptual integrated sago-based biorefinery (SBB) is envisioned and analysed based on the bioethanol plant study conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Besides, techno-economic performance as well as environmental performance of this integrated SBB is evaluated via Aspen Plus software and a spreadsheet based yield prediction model. For the performance evaluation, various feedstocks such as sago fibres, barks and combined biomass (fibres and barks) are considered. In addition, techno-economic and environmental performance of the integrated SBB with on-site and off-site enzyme production as well as the impacts of labour cost on the economic performance of the integrated SBB is also evaluated. Based on the evaluation and analysis, the integrated SBB with combined biomass (fibres and barks) has the highest technical, economic and environmental performance amongst the sago biomass. A total of 4.75 t/d of bioethanol and 252 kW/d of electricity are expected to be produced; and reduction of 16.32 tCO2 equivalent/d of carbon dioxide emission is expected. In addition, the payback period of the integrated SBB with on-site enzyme production and using current available labour from SSEP is estimated as 6.6 years. Based on the analysis, it is noted that enzyme and labour costs are critical cost contributors to the new development of the integrated SBB and hence, a sensitivity analysis on such parameters is performed

Synthesis of Biomass-based Trigeneration Systems with Uncertainties

A biomass-based trigeneration system produces heat, power and cooling energy simultaneously. To synthesize a biomass-based trigeneration system, decision makers are required to consider a wide range of technologies based on various factors (e.g., capital investment, operating cost, availability and reliability of the technologies, etc.). In addition, both short-term and long-term uncertainties that may arise during the course of operations should also be taken into consideration. If not considered at the synthesis stage, uncertainties would prevent the designed energy system from meeting the required energy demands and cause possible bottlenecks during operation. With such consideration, not all available technologies are economically and operationally sensible. Thus, it is essential to develop a systematic approach to synthesize a biomass-based trigeneration system with consideration of uncertainties. In this work, a multiperiod optimization approach for the systematic synthesis of a biomass-based trigeneration system with variations in raw material supply and corresponding energy demand is presented. Following the concept of multiperiod optimization approach, the fraction of occurrence for each biomass supply and energy demand scenario is included. Meanwhile, the maximum capacities of each technology that can operate in all scenarios are determined. In addition, selection of design capacities based on available sizes in the market is also performed simultaneously. To illustrate the proposed approach, a trigeneration system with palm-based biomass as feedstock is solved

Rovdjursinventering Järv 2015 : Rovdjursinventering Järv 2015. Järvstammen i Sverige – något minskande

Den senaste populationsberäkningen 2015 visar att järvstammen minskar något. Beräkningen visar att det finns omkring 921 (793–1 142) järvar i Skandinavien varav 585 (481–758) i Sverige. Inventeringarna ger kunskap om rovdjursstammarnas storlek, var de lever och hur stammarna utvecklas över tiden. Bra underlag är nödvändiga för att det ska vara möjligt att bedriva en ansvarsfull och långsiktigt hållbar förvaltning av våra stora rovdjur.

Unified pinch approach for targeting of carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems with multiple time periods and regions

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a key technology for the mitigation of industrial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. It involves the reduction of emissions from large industrial facilities (i.e., sources) by capturing the CO2 from the exhaust gases and subsequently storing it in appropriate geological storage sites (i.e., sinks) such as depleted oil and/or gas reservoirs, saline aquifers, coal seams and other similar formations. In practice, these sites may not be readily available for storage at the same time or before the sources are operating, which gives rise to a temporal aspect in the planning problem. At the same time, sources and sinks may need to be clustered geographically to minimize the need to transport CO2 over long distances. This work presents an improved pinch analysis based methodology by simultaneously considering injectivity constraint of every sink as well as time of availability of various sources and sinks. Three illustrative case studies are used to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology. The first two case studies illustrate graphical and algebraic variants, while the third case studies shows an extension that involves two distinct geographical regions. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

A Graphical Approach for Pinch-Based Source-Sink Matching and Sensitivity Analysis in Carbon Capture and Storage Systems

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is regarded as an important interim technology for the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from large industrial facilities such as power plants and refineries. CCS involves capture of concentrated CO2 streams from point sources (industrial flue gases), followed by subsequent secure storage in an appropriate natural reservoir. Such reservoirs include various geological formations such as depleted oil or gas wells, inaccessible coal seams, and saline aquifers. In practice, such storage sites will have limitations on both CO2 storage capacity and injection rate, subject to geological characteristics. In this work, a graphical approach is proposed for matching multiple CO2 soruces and storage sites (sinks) optimally within a predefined geographical region. The technique is developed on the basis of analogies withe existing graphical pinch analysis approaches for the synthesis of industrial resource conservation networks (RCNs). Generalized principles for optimal CO2 source-sink matching based on pinch analysis insights are discussed in this work. In addition, sensitivity of the system to the uncertainties that occur in CCS planning (e.g., variation of actual injectivity and capacity as well as options for increase or decrease of source lifetime) is considered. Realistic case studies are shown to illustrate these various aspects of methodology

Role of Bioenergy, Biorefinery and Bioeconomy in Sustainable Development: Strategic Pathways for Malaysia

Malaysia has a plethora of biomass that can be utilized in a sustainable manner to produce bio-products for circular green economy. At the 15th Conference of Parties in Copenhagen, Malaysia stated to voluntarily reduce its emissions intensity of gross domestic product by upto 40% by 2020 from 2005 level. Natural resources e.g. forestry and agricultural resources will attribute in achieving these goals. This paper investigates optimum bio-based systems, such as bioenergy and biorefinery, and their prospects in sustainable development in Malaysia, while analyzing comparable cases globally. Palm oil industry will continue to play a major role in deriving products and contributing to gross national income in Malaysia. Based on the current processing capacity, one tonne of crude palm oil (CPO) production is associated with nine tonnes of biomass generation. Local businesses tend to focus on products with low-risk that enjoy subsidies, e.g. Feed-in-Tariff, such as bioenergy, biogas, etc. CPO biomass is utilized to produce biogas, pellets, dried long fibre and bio-fertilizer and recycle water. It is envisaged that co-production of bio-based products, food and pharmaceutical ingredients, fine, specialty and platform chemicals, polymers, alongside biofuel and bioenergy from biomass is possible to achieve overall sustainability by the replacement of fossil resources. Inception of process integration gives prominent innovative biorefinery configurations, an example demonstrated recently, via extraction of recyclable, metal, high value chemical (levulinic acid), fuel, electricity and bio-fertilizer from municipal solid waste or urban waste. Levulinic acid yield by only 5 weight% of waste feedstock gives 1.5 fold increase in profitability and eliminates the need for subsidies such as gate fees paid by local authority to waste processor. Unsustainable practices include consumable food wastage, end-of-pipe cleaning and linear economy that must be replaced by sustainable production and consumption, source segregation and process integration, and product longevity and circular economy