**Mahendrarajah, S.
***Kennedy, 0liver
Abstract
Pacific island economies suffer from a diesel dependency syndrome. The development path in industry, transport, and household energy consumption has seen a dramatic expansion towards using fossil fuels, especially diesel. To meet the cost of import of these fossil fuels and associated combustion technologies, the society not only allocates an ever growing proportion of its hard earned foreign exchange, but also finds itself under heavy pressure to meet the growing demand for foreign exchange by destructive enviromnental practices such as intensive logging of native forests. Besides, the current energy consumption path seeds long term environmental problems for these beautiful nations through pollution, global carbon emissions and destruction of forest carbon-sinks and biodiversity.
A successful domestic biofuel energy program involves an efficient grass-root level production technology of the fuel and appropriate combustion or use technologies. On both counts, freshly expelled coconut oil provides much scope as a sustainable biofuel energy source. The Direct Micro Expelling (DME) technology for extraction of coconut oil was introduced in the mid-¬nineties. Adaptive combustion technologies provide a sound basis for biofuel energy substitution. The export of copra, the traditional coconut product, was justified on the grounds of the lack of suitable alternative technologies, skills and capital for domestic value adding. The proposed coconut based biofuel has wide economic development implications through rural income distribution, energy security and foreign exchange savings.
The social profitability of both the production as well as the combustion side are discussed within a village context. The least cost-technological solutions are sought through adaptation rather than requiring new capital. Social cost-benefit analyses of the substitution of DME oil for diesel are carried out for selected country scenarios.
Paper presented at the New and Alternative Energy Technologies Symposium
XIX Pacific Science Congress, Sydney 5 - 9 July 1999.
* Kokonut Pacific Pty Ltd, Canberra, Australia
** The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
*** University of Wollongong, Australia
1. INTRODUCTION
The South Pacific islands could possibly be the worst effected by future global warming, especially through sea level rises, so warned the Barbados Declaration in 1994 which followed the Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. In late 1997, the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework convention was signed. This Protocol required reductions in carbon emissions through reductions in fossil fuel use, enhancement in carbon sequestration and North-South collaboration through Joint Implementation (JI) of appropriate technologies and Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM).
The exact means by which developed countries are to assist developing countries through JI and CDM are still evolving. In the current context, Australia and New Zealand have been the major contributors and partners for many decades in the economic development of the South Pacific nations. The development path, regrettably, has evolved to be dependant on fossil fuel energy. This paper argues that coconut palms, the most abundant resource in the islands, could prove to be the key to achieving environmentally sustainable development in the region while contributing to the mitigation of global warming and providing a sound basis for effective collaboration between these islands and Australia and New Zealand. The key is a grass-root level technology for the extraction of coconut oil (CNO), and adaptive technology to replace fossil fuel in rural electrification and motorised transport (both road and sea).
While photovoltaic cells, micro-hydro and wind power as New and Renewable Sources of Energy (NRSE) may provide partial solutions for static power demands (Bygrave 1998), coconut oil is unique in providing a liquid-fuel. As such, it must be considered as the prime candidate for replacement of fossil fuel in diesel engines. The macro significance of such a development is not trivial. Using the Environmental Manual for Power Systems software package developed by the Global Environment Facility, Roberts (1996) examined some coconut oil use scenarios. One Scenario tested a 10% penetration of coconut oil into the Fiji kerosene and diesel markets and found that this avoids 78 K tonnes of CO2 and 79 K tonnes of CO2 equivalents and about 400 tonnes of SO2. A South Pacific wide penetration of 30% would offset over 1 million tonnes of CO2, 5.3 K tonnes of SO2 and sizeable reductions in other emissions. This translates into an environmental saving of $52 million annually, and import substitution of nearly $100 million currently spent on fossil fuel.
Our central thesis is that the coconut palm provides the most likely and most suitable substitute liquid fuel for the island nations of the South Pacific. We first set the scene by briefly reviewing the coconut resource, conventional oil extraction technology and the issue of imported fuel dependency. We then examine the economics of, and technologies for, producing coconut oil at a local level. The final major section presents recent engineering research that emphatically confirms the suitability of using coconut oil for combustion in diesel engines and pressure kerosene lamps.
2. THE RESOURCE
Coconuts are the most widespread and abundant naturally sustainable agricultural resource of tropical islands. Coconut palms are ideally suited to island environments. They are one of few plants that tolerate poor sandy soils with saline water, and which survive frequent cyclones. Coconut palms bear a bunch of fruit each month for about 65 of their 70 to 80 year life span. They require minimum maintenance. They are one of the few tree crops for which there are no economies of scale. They allow regular intercropping to create biologically diverse, multi-storey, “forest gardens”. About 90% of the 45 billion coconuts produced per year in the world is grown by about 10 million smallholder farmers. For island people, coconuts are a way of life. They call the coconut palm the "Tree of Life". It is the traditional crop of the indigenous people, so traditional that they have rich vocabularies to express the multiple phases in the growth of the palm, its flowers, its products, the maturity of nuts, its importance in their farming systems and in their diet.
The importance of the coconut in the islands has long been recognised by international institutions. Substantial investments have been made in yield enhancing breeding programs and the collection and preservation of the genetic resource. However, the commercial product which enters world trade is not the actual nut but the dried flesh (the white endosperm) of the nut which is called copra. Copra has an oil content of between 65% and 72% (d.w.b). Both the oil and high fibre, high protein residual meal have value. Copra oil is typically the highest priced vegetable oil on world markets. However, making copra as the means of gaining access to the oil has many disadvantages:- the drying process is generally undertaken in technically inefficient wood-fuelled kilns; making copra is seen as an unpopular, inferior occupation ; the resultant product is susceptible to attack by moulds, bacteria, microbes and insects ; the oil is most economically extracted in very large industrial mills to take advantage of economies of scale; and, finally, because of the contamination of the copra in the journey from farm to mill, the resultant oil has to be extensively refined for most end uses. Depending on the quality of the copra, the acceptable Free Fatty Acid (FFA) level (the prime measure of rancidity) in the Philippines ranges from 1% to 5% (PCARRD 1993). The conventional “Copra Route” is shown in Column A of Figure 2.1.
Partly because of its relatively high price, over the last 50 years competition from other oilseeds has unsteadily eroded copra prices at about 2% per year ("unsteadily" because copra prices are extremely volatile - see World Bank [1990]). As prices fluctuate, farmers respond by increasing nut collection during high prices and abandoning coconuts where they fall when prices are low. In the latter circumstances farmers lose their prime source of cash income. This is one of the factors encouraging landowner groups to sell off logging concessions to their rainforests to make ends meet.
3. FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENCY
For the South Pacific islands, petroleum products are the most important and in some sectors the only sources of energy. The exceptions are subsistence agriculture and traditional fishing. Likely structural changes associated with population growth and economic development will exacerbate the reliance on petroleum, unless there is a calculated shift of energy source.
Many different modes of transport are essential for the development of the islands. Because of the thousands of dispersed small islands, inter-island shipping is the key to communication, transport and linkage of economic activities. Inter-island transport of people and goods, including copra, are by ferries and boats all running on diesel. Within islands, tractors running on diesel are used for cultivation and short-distance land transportation of produce such as copra, sugarcane, yams and people in rural areas. Longer distance road transportation of goods on main islands of Samoa, and Viti Levu and Vanua Levu in Fiji is by trucks. Private motor car hire is a common mode of transport on such islands, in addition to buses running on diesel. It is not surprising then to find that large and relatively more dynamic Pacific economies have an expanding transport sector. The transport sector is almost totally dependent on oil. In Fiji, more than 75% of imported fossil fuel is used up by the transportation sector and the weighted share for the South Pacific region was 48.3% in 1990 (World Bank, 1995). Power generation through diesel generators is also a significant factor. Kerosene and benzene are also used in domestic lighting and in some areas in cookers. Recent figures show that household use of kerosene in Fiji has grown at a phenomenal rate in the nineties to 20 litres/head. The domestic use of fossil fuel is heavily subsidised by the governments to make transport affordable.
A successful domestic biofuel energy program involves an efficient grass-root level production technology of the fuel and appropriate combustion or use technologies. On both counts, freshly expelled coconut oil provides much scope as a sustainable biofuel energy source. The Direct Micro Expelling (DME) technology for extraction of coconut oil was introduced in the mid-¬nineties. Adaptive combustion technologies provide a sound basis for biofuel energy substitution. The export of copra, the traditional coconut product, was justified on the grounds of the lack of suitable alternative technologies, skills and capital for domestic value adding. The proposed coconut based biofuel has wide economic development implications through rural income distribution, energy security and foreign exchange savings.
The social profitability of both the production as well as the combustion side are discussed within a village context. The least cost-technological solutions are sought through adaptation rather than requiring new capital. Social cost-benefit analyses of the substitution of DME oil for diesel are carried out for selected country scenarios.
Paper presented at the New and Alternative Energy Technologies Symposium
XIX Pacific Science Congress, Sydney 5 - 9 July 1999.
* Kokonut Pacific Pty Ltd, Canberra, Australia
** The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
*** University of Wollongong, Australia
1. INTRODUCTION
The South Pacific islands could possibly be the worst effected by future global warming, especially through sea level rises, so warned the Barbados Declaration in 1994 which followed the Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. In late 1997, the Kyoto Protocol to the Framework convention was signed. This Protocol required reductions in carbon emissions through reductions in fossil fuel use, enhancement in carbon sequestration and North-South collaboration through Joint Implementation (JI) of appropriate technologies and Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM).
The exact means by which developed countries are to assist developing countries through JI and CDM are still evolving. In the current context, Australia and New Zealand have been the major contributors and partners for many decades in the economic development of the South Pacific nations. The development path, regrettably, has evolved to be dependant on fossil fuel energy. This paper argues that coconut palms, the most abundant resource in the islands, could prove to be the key to achieving environmentally sustainable development in the region while contributing to the mitigation of global warming and providing a sound basis for effective collaboration between these islands and Australia and New Zealand. The key is a grass-root level technology for the extraction of coconut oil (CNO), and adaptive technology to replace fossil fuel in rural electrification and motorised transport (both road and sea).
While photovoltaic cells, micro-hydro and wind power as New and Renewable Sources of Energy (NRSE) may provide partial solutions for static power demands (Bygrave 1998), coconut oil is unique in providing a liquid-fuel. As such, it must be considered as the prime candidate for replacement of fossil fuel in diesel engines. The macro significance of such a development is not trivial. Using the Environmental Manual for Power Systems software package developed by the Global Environment Facility, Roberts (1996) examined some coconut oil use scenarios. One Scenario tested a 10% penetration of coconut oil into the Fiji kerosene and diesel markets and found that this avoids 78 K tonnes of CO2 and 79 K tonnes of CO2 equivalents and about 400 tonnes of SO2. A South Pacific wide penetration of 30% would offset over 1 million tonnes of CO2, 5.3 K tonnes of SO2 and sizeable reductions in other emissions. This translates into an environmental saving of $52 million annually, and import substitution of nearly $100 million currently spent on fossil fuel.
Our central thesis is that the coconut palm provides the most likely and most suitable substitute liquid fuel for the island nations of the South Pacific. We first set the scene by briefly reviewing the coconut resource, conventional oil extraction technology and the issue of imported fuel dependency. We then examine the economics of, and technologies for, producing coconut oil at a local level. The final major section presents recent engineering research that emphatically confirms the suitability of using coconut oil for combustion in diesel engines and pressure kerosene lamps.
2. THE RESOURCE
Coconuts are the most widespread and abundant naturally sustainable agricultural resource of tropical islands. Coconut palms are ideally suited to island environments. They are one of few plants that tolerate poor sandy soils with saline water, and which survive frequent cyclones. Coconut palms bear a bunch of fruit each month for about 65 of their 70 to 80 year life span. They require minimum maintenance. They are one of the few tree crops for which there are no economies of scale. They allow regular intercropping to create biologically diverse, multi-storey, “forest gardens”. About 90% of the 45 billion coconuts produced per year in the world is grown by about 10 million smallholder farmers. For island people, coconuts are a way of life. They call the coconut palm the "Tree of Life". It is the traditional crop of the indigenous people, so traditional that they have rich vocabularies to express the multiple phases in the growth of the palm, its flowers, its products, the maturity of nuts, its importance in their farming systems and in their diet.
The importance of the coconut in the islands has long been recognised by international institutions. Substantial investments have been made in yield enhancing breeding programs and the collection and preservation of the genetic resource. However, the commercial product which enters world trade is not the actual nut but the dried flesh (the white endosperm) of the nut which is called copra. Copra has an oil content of between 65% and 72% (d.w.b). Both the oil and high fibre, high protein residual meal have value. Copra oil is typically the highest priced vegetable oil on world markets. However, making copra as the means of gaining access to the oil has many disadvantages:- the drying process is generally undertaken in technically inefficient wood-fuelled kilns; making copra is seen as an unpopular, inferior occupation ; the resultant product is susceptible to attack by moulds, bacteria, microbes and insects ; the oil is most economically extracted in very large industrial mills to take advantage of economies of scale; and, finally, because of the contamination of the copra in the journey from farm to mill, the resultant oil has to be extensively refined for most end uses. Depending on the quality of the copra, the acceptable Free Fatty Acid (FFA) level (the prime measure of rancidity) in the Philippines ranges from 1% to 5% (PCARRD 1993). The conventional “Copra Route” is shown in Column A of Figure 2.1.
Partly because of its relatively high price, over the last 50 years competition from other oilseeds has unsteadily eroded copra prices at about 2% per year ("unsteadily" because copra prices are extremely volatile - see World Bank [1990]). As prices fluctuate, farmers respond by increasing nut collection during high prices and abandoning coconuts where they fall when prices are low. In the latter circumstances farmers lose their prime source of cash income. This is one of the factors encouraging landowner groups to sell off logging concessions to their rainforests to make ends meet.
3. FOSSIL FUEL DEPENDENCY
For the South Pacific islands, petroleum products are the most important and in some sectors the only sources of energy. The exceptions are subsistence agriculture and traditional fishing. Likely structural changes associated with population growth and economic development will exacerbate the reliance on petroleum, unless there is a calculated shift of energy source.
Many different modes of transport are essential for the development of the islands. Because of the thousands of dispersed small islands, inter-island shipping is the key to communication, transport and linkage of economic activities. Inter-island transport of people and goods, including copra, are by ferries and boats all running on diesel. Within islands, tractors running on diesel are used for cultivation and short-distance land transportation of produce such as copra, sugarcane, yams and people in rural areas. Longer distance road transportation of goods on main islands of Samoa, and Viti Levu and Vanua Levu in Fiji is by trucks. Private motor car hire is a common mode of transport on such islands, in addition to buses running on diesel. It is not surprising then to find that large and relatively more dynamic Pacific economies have an expanding transport sector. The transport sector is almost totally dependent on oil. In Fiji, more than 75% of imported fossil fuel is used up by the transportation sector and the weighted share for the South Pacific region was 48.3% in 1990 (World Bank, 1995). Power generation through diesel generators is also a significant factor. Kerosene and benzene are also used in domestic lighting and in some areas in cookers. Recent figures show that household use of kerosene in Fiji has grown at a phenomenal rate in the nineties to 20 litres/head. The domestic use of fossil fuel is heavily subsidised by the governments to make transport affordable.
