Evolving science can be energy panacea

A technology that is not as exotic as that of the darlings of renewable energy, wind and solar, is gaining notice, taking off from the movie Back to the Future with its DMC De Lorean time machine that is powered by a waste-to-fuel engine.

Just recently, energy giant British Petroleum obtained the first license for the technology that seeks to convert biodegradable waste into fuel, specifically low carbon jet gas.

It involved a chemical process that can turn rotting organic matter into liquid fuel, which is a technology that has been around for 100 years. Recent developments led the BP-backed US start-up Fulcrum Bioenergy to start producing biojet fuel.

“BP first got interested in a technology called Fischer-Tropsch, or FT, in the 1980s while looking to turn gas into liquid fuel. But, with the roller coaster of oil prices, the project to develop the FT technology at our UK sites almost got shut down,” according to BP’s head of group research, Angelo Amorelli.

The current BP technology looks promising.

”BP then changed the recipe for the catalyst and, by combining that with the’ baked beans’ reactors, we trebled the productivity and halved the cost of building the technology compared to traditional FT reactors,“ Amorelli said.

Segregation a must

Further development may result to even non-biodegradables like plastic to be part of the technology.

The BP’s adopted technology works by converting synthesis gas. a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, generated from sources, such as municipal solid waste and other renewable biomass, into the sorts of long-chain hydrocarbon molecules that make up diesel and jet fuels.

The country, which has among the highest yearly trash production globally, is expected to be a main beneficiary when the technology enters mass use.

The new science may be an alternative to the waste-to-energy, or WTE, process as incinerating solid waste to fuel produces pollution.

A proposed measure is pending at the Senate that seeks to institutionalize WTE. It, however, overlooks other much-cleaner waste management technologies, such as waste-to-fuel, or WTF, which is a much safer, cleaner way to convert garbage dumps into a repository of fuel sources.

Use of the technology would require an entirely different law that must straighten the maze of bureaucracy involving at least three agencies — DENR, DoE and DILG.

The DENR is there because the system involves waste and the WTF industry’s impact on the environment in the process of turning wastes into fuel for power generation.

The DoE is involved because the system is centered on the industry’s main product — electricity.

The DILG is in the loop, too, because it is supposed to oversee the waste management operations of local governments from where raw material for fuel, garbage, will emanate.

The current law must give an emphasis on waste segregation.

Plastics, food waste, textile, rubber, PVCs, polyurethane, name it. With or without effective segregation, these materials are toxic.

Without segregation, a number of studies indicated burning waste to produce electricity causes harm to both humans and the environment.

“There is insufficient evidence to conclude that any incinerator is safe,” said a report of the Melbourne-based Friends of the Earth.

“Community groups have a basis for legitimate concern,” it said.

“Burning the waste doesn’t cause it to disappear,” the group said, adding that 15 to 25 percent of the waste thrown in incinerators “remains as ash in the end.”

More thought should be put into the law regarding the use of waste as energy source to prevent collateral problems such as toxic residues.