The ambitious Scottish biofuel landscape

Stella Allen from the Scottish Biofuel Programme explains how the country is using imaginative ways to convert waste products into sustainable biofuels

The UK biofuel landscape is varied and dependant on a number factors such as feedstock availability and land availability as well as government policy and subsidies.  Tough greenhouse gas emission targets have created focus upon replacement of existing combustion-engine based vehicles with greener alternatives.

The most promising routes to a green fleet include the use of electric vehicles charged from the grid and new engine types that can use hydrogen fuel. Whilst development of these technologies has accelerated in recent years, the costs are still high compared with conventional vehicles, making mass market deployment unlikely in the short to medium term. Electric vehicles whilst more readily available than their hydrogen counterparts, need wholly renewable electricity generation to deliver their full impact, and at present the current grid mix in the UK is heavily reliant on coal and gas.

Infrastructure
Both technologies require the implementation of their own supportive infrastructure, the cost of which would be substantial. This is where biofuels come in to play, as they can work with already existing infrastructure and vehicles while significantly reducing carbon emissions.  

Not a new fuel
Biofuel is not a new invention. It has a long history in the motor industry, stretching all the way back to the 1800s and the development of the internal combustion engines. Rudolf Diesel designed his compression engine to run on peanut oil. The first Model T Fords ran on bioethanol. Henry Ford was an advocate for bioethanol and he had a vision to “build a vehicle affordable to the working family and powered by a fuel that would boost the rural farm economy.”
    
Great – sign me up. Unfortunately the road to an economically viable biofuel is a bumpy one. There are many factors which need addressed for the biofuel market to compete with established fossil fuels.

Indeed some biofuel production practices can have as much of a carbon foot print as fossil fuels so care must be taken to ensure sustainability. Sustainable biofuel should not compete with food, however making resource-efficient use of waste offers an attractive vision.
    
In recent years there has been a lot of creative thinking around potential feedstocks, for example ‘fatbergs’ formed from fats and oils in the sewerage system, the Bath ‘poo bus’ running on biogas made from human and food waste. The advantage of biofuels it that they offer a higher value and environmentally-preferable solution than sending material to landfill.

Cashing-in on biofuel expertise
The Scottish Biofuel Programme is a Scottish Government and EU-funded programme set up to provide Scottish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) access to academic expertise to take advantage of new biofuel  opportunities. Our focus is on the Scottish biofuel landscape, and, the possibilities within a circular economy to convert organic wastes to renewable biofuels.  
    
The recently enacted Waste (Scotland) Regulations require various waste streams, including food waste, to be source‑separated, and this has stimulated interest in recovering added‑value from these materials. Generation of biogas from food waste is but one example. If fully utilised biofuels can contribute to considerable CO2 savings compared with conventional fossil fuels. It has been reported that Scotland could meet around 10 per cent of its liquid fuel needs through the utilisation of purely local feedstock sources. Giving locally produced biofuel an important role in the de-carbonisation of the Scottish transport fleet over the next 10 years.

What does the biofuel landscape look like in Scotland?
Scotland has a globally-recognised industry producing ethanol by fermentation – the product is whisky rather than biofuel. Celtic Renewables is currently working on a scale up plant that will produce biofuels from by‑products of the whisky industry.

Argent Energy uses waste tallow and fats to make high quality biodiesel. Its plant is the only one in the UK to use distillation technology which ensures that their fuel is a clean, clear, homogeneous biodiesel.
    
There are a number of large scale anaerobic digestion plants across the central belt producing biogas mainly from agricultural and food waste which is primarily used for heat and electricity generation, but which as an alternative could be upgraded for direct use as a biofuel.
   
In Scotland there is a surplus of poor quality agricultural land not fit for food production. This land has the potential to be a valuable resource and there are current trials to see if it can be put to work to grow energy crops such as camelina and reed canary grass without competing with human or animal food production.
    
Another resource in Scotland is seaweed. Although it is not currently economical to harvest seaweed for biofuel production alone there are many high value products that can be extracted from seaweed and there could be opportunities to integrate biofuel production with the residue from the primary process.
    
Synthetic biology, the development of more efficient strains of microbes, the work horses of biofuel production, will open up a number new feedstock options and more efficient production which will greatly improve the economic production of biofuels.
    
In the future, a promising feedstock is the development of energy rich algal strains which would be suitable for growing in controlled artificial environments. These could take advantage of waste heat and CO2 providing a breakthrough in the economically viable production of biofuels.

EAE Case Study
EAE are Scotland’s premier ‘what’s on’ leaflet display and distribution network, and are committed to a wide range of green technologies. Sustainability is deeply embraced throughout the business’s functions. They have won awards for their environmental strategy.

EAE have installed a number of energy saving technologies including their own on-site wind turbine, a wildlife garden, rain water collection and an electric vehicle which is charged using renewable energy from the wind turbine overnight. EAE aims to be fully carbon neutral by 2015.
    
In line with its creative approach to sustainability and forward thinking EAE worked with Edinburgh Napier University researchers to investigate new emerging technologies to generate fuel from their waste including paper from recollected leaflets, with the future potential to further reduce their carbon footprint.

They have deployed a holistic approach to minimise the environmental impacts of their business. Their drivers undertake training in eco-driving to promote more economical use of fuels. They estimate this training reduces their emissions by up to 15 per cent pa (and results in lower van maintenance costs). Additionally, by using a network of regional depots they reduce the number of van journeys to and from their two national storage and distribution centres.
    
In 2011, they took delivery of seven B30 Citroen Relay vans that run on bio-diesel. This high quality biofuel is made from locally collected waste fats and uses 30 per cent less diesel than normal fuels. The vans reduce their overall carbon emissions by 39 per cent. EAE are looking to replace their entire fleet with these vehicles. They have installed a 5,000 litre capacity B30 bio-diesel fuel tank to fuel the new bio-diesel powered fleet.

Celtic renewables case study
Celtic Renewables is a spin-out company working to scale up research undertaken by the Biofuel Research Centre based at Edinburgh Napier University. The award-winning company was formed to commercialise a patented process for producing a superior next generation biofuel (and other high value sustainable products) from the by-products of biological industries.  
  
Celtic Renewables Ltd are innovatively re-developing a century-old fermentation technology, the ABE (Acetone Butanol Ethanol) process to combine the two main by-products of whisky production, namely “pot ale” (the copper-containing liquid from the stills) and “draff” (the spent barley grains), to produce high value renewable products, including biobutanol. The whisky industry annually produces 1,600 million litres of pot ale and 500,000 tonnes of draff, all of which could be converted into biofuel as a direct substitute for fossil-derived fuel. The production process also produces other sustainable chemicals, acetone and ethanol, as well as high grade animal feed.
    
Biobutanol has 25 per cent more energy per unit volume than bioethanol; it has a lower vapour pressure and higher flashpoint (making it easier to store and safer to handle); it can be blended without requiring modifications in blending facilities, storage tanks or retail station pumps. In sharp contrast to ethanol, it can be run in unmodified engines at any blend with petrol and may also be blended with diesel and biodiesel; it is less corrosive than bioethanol and can also be transported using existing infrastructures.
    
First developed in 1912 in the UK, the ABE process was used extensively during the First and Second World Wars to produce solvents, falling out of favour with the rise of cheaper synthetic equivalents during the 1950s. The re-introduction of the once dominant ABE fermentation process in a modern biotechnology context using sustainable substrates is an exciting development with huge global potential.

Celtic Renewables will initially deploy the technology throughout Scotland to develop a new bio-butanol industry providing fuel and energy on a community basis which will lead to increased energy security and significant carbon emission reductions (over 70,000 tonnes per annum).
    
Thinking globally
Scotsman Patrick Geddes is believed to be the first to outline the concept of acting locally while thinking globally. It’s likely that growing demand for renewable biofuels will be met by large-scale global solutions, and that biofuel import will be a key part of local solutions.

However, work already underway in Scotland shows that there is space for local solutions too, producing biofuels from local resources so that best-value is recovered from valuable biological resources.

Further information
www.biofuels.scotland.co.uk
www.eae.co.uk
www.celtic-renewables.com
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