Bio fuel in Pakistan

[MOSABJA]

PAKISTAN produces around two million tons molasses annually out of which during the last year 1.45 million tons were exported at a nominal rate of $35 per ton, earning only $47 million. According to industry sources, more foreign exchange can be earned if the molasses is converted to more value-added products, like ethyl alcohol (ethanol). On an average ethanol recovery from one ton of molasses is estimated at 240 to 270 litres depending on the quality of molasses. If the entire two million tons of molasses are processed in distilleries, ethanol production will be over 500 million litres (0.4 million tones), and on exporting the same at an average price of$360 per ton, the country can earn around $144 million. Thus, there is a glaring difference in earning foreign exchange between two products. At present, national output is around 0.123 million tons ethanol that fetches around $44.35 million through exports. Ethanol is mainly exported to Japan, European countries, China and Korea where it is heavily used in medicines, while Pakistan imports almost 95 per cent of the basic raw materials used for manufacturing of medicines from various countries because Pakistan does not have basic manufacturing facilities. The country can benefit from local production of ethanol by promoting use of ethanol as gasoline blending component. The industrial alcohol can be converted into fuel ethanol by using molecular sieve technology with a capital expenditure of $1.5 million and in a period of five to six months.


Petrol consumption today is around 100 million barrels of oil per year.
while only 20 million are prodced indigeneously.

Pakistan can greatly reduce its petrol consumption immediately by.

1)Converting the Power Plants run on furnace oil into Indigenous coal based power plants.Pakistan today has 4 largest coal reserves.

This alone could save at least 30 million barrels of oil.

2)Oil can be blended by 10 % ethanol immediately there by bringing down the Petrol consumption by at least 30- 40 million barrels per year by THESE TWO STEPS.

pakistan trade deficit can immediately be reduced by 4 billion dollars.



Besides it if pakistan decides to totally use ethanol as a substitute for petrol then.

pakistan tiday has a potential to porduce at least 500 million litres Ethanol.

These 500 million litres can replace 50 million barrels of oil.

So in addition fo

* 20 million barrels oil produced indigenously .
*500 million litres replacing 50 million barrels oil.
*30 million barrels oil consumption reduced by converting oil run Power plants.

PAKISTAN CAN BECOME SELF SUFFICIENT IN FUEL.

THERE BY ELIMINATING THE TRADE DEFICIT.

 

[JK!]

Good in theory however, it is probably not economically viable.

 

[Quwa]

Good in theory however, it is probably not economically viable.

Efforts are already underway to start bio-diesel production in Pakistan.

 

[JK!]

Efforts are already underway to start bio-diesel production in Pakistan.

I meant on a truly large scale for the nation as advocated bt Mosabja.

It can be done on a small scale and certainly at the university I'm at there is a scheme where my tutors visit local fish and chip restaurants on Friday nights colect there used chip oil and then convert that to biodiesel for about 19 pence per litre.

I think it would be good for Pakistan to do this but also grow crops to handle the situation with flour shortages and not just for fuel.

Plus heres something to consider they are studying methyl esters from biofuel as an alternative to jet fuel.

 

[asaad-ul-islam]

i don't know if bio-fuel is such a good idea, it would promote deforesting and that would accelerate global warming. look at brazil, huge chunks of the rainforest have been cut down.

 

[Always Neutral]

i don't know if bio-fuel is such a good idea, it would promote deforesting and that would accelerate global warming. look at brazil, huge chunks of the rainforest have been cut down.

But friend burning gas and coal is already contributing to the global warming.

Only problem about bio fuels is that they may boost food prices world wide.

Regards

 

[niaz]

PAKISTAN produces around two million tons molasses annually out of which during the last year 1.45 million tons were exported at a nominal rate of $35 per ton, earning only $47 million. According to industry sources, more foreign exchange can be earned if the molasses is converted to more value-added products, like ethyl alcohol (ethanol). On an average ethanol recovery from one ton of molasses is estimated at 240 to 270 litres depending on the quality of molasses. If the entire two million tons of molasses are processed in distilleries, ethanol production will be over 500 million litres (0.4 million tones), and on exporting the same at an average price of$360 per ton, the country can earn around $144 million. Thus, there is a glaring difference in earning foreign exchange between two products. At present, national output is around 0.123 million tons ethanol that fetches around $44.35 million through exports. Ethanol is mainly exported to Japan, European countries, China and Korea where it is heavily used in medicines, while Pakistan imports almost 95 per cent of the basic raw materials used for manufacturing of medicines from various countries because Pakistan does not have basic manufacturing facilities. The country can benefit from local production of ethanol by promoting use of ethanol as gasoline blending component. The industrial alcohol can be converted into fuel ethanol by using molecular sieve technology with a capital expenditure of $1.5 million and in a period of five to six months.


Petrol consumption today is around 100 million barrels of oil per year.
while only 20 million are prodced indigeneously.

Pakistan can greatly reduce its petrol consumption immediately by.

1)Converting the Power Plants run on furnace oil into Indigenous coal based power plants.Pakistan today has 4 largest coal reserves.

This alone could save at least 30 million barrels of oil.

2)Oil can be blended by 10 % ethanol immediately there by bringing down the Petrol consumption by at least 30- 40 million barrels per year by THESE TWO STEPS.

pakistan trade deficit can immediately be reduced by 4 billion dollars.



Besides it if pakistan decides to totally use ethanol as a substitute for petrol then.

pakistan tiday has a potential to porduce at least 500 million litres Ethanol.

These 500 million litres can replace 50 million barrels of oil.

So in addition fo

* 20 million barrels oil produced indigenously .
*500 million litres replacing 50 million barrels oil.
*30 million barrels oil consumption reduced by converting oil run Power plants.

PAKISTAN CAN BECOME SELF SUFFICIENT IN FUEL.

THERE BY ELIMINATING THE TRADE DEFICIT.

Having spent my entire working life in the petroleum industry, I can safely say that the post is based upon wrong premises. Let me analyse the arguments one by one.

1. What do you mean by Petrol. Yes Pakistan imports about 13-million tons or 100 million barrels of petroleum and petroleum products; but this is not 'Petrol".

What you burn in your cars is what is normally called 'Petrol' in Pakistan. Internationally, it is called gasoline. Very little gasoline is imported into Pakistan. Most of the gasoline consumed in Pakistan is locally produced in the refineries. We do import lot of crude ( raw petroleum) which is refined to produce consumable products. Normal blend in the gasoline is about 20% of ethanol.

2. Major imports into Pakistan are gas oil ( Diesel in Pakistan) and fuel oil ( Furnace oil in Pakistan).

My Hon. friend missed out on the fact the alcohol or ethanol that forms part of the motor gasoline blend stock ( gasohol in US) which can be manufactured from molasses is already surplus in Pakistan and exported. Thus fermenting all the molasses will simply mean exporting more ethanol and also a boon to the illicit liquor trade.

3. Bio fuel blended with diesel is called 'Bio diesel". Feedstock for this is Palm Oil or tallow. Pakistan is a major importer of cooking oils so bio diesel is non starter. Besides there are severe storage problems with bio diesel as it is a haven for the bacteria. Many new users of bio diesel found that their trucks wouldn't start after a long holiday because bacteria had turned bio diesel in the fuel tanks into a solid mass. Current production of bio diesel in the world is no more than 2%.

4. No doubt Pakistan has large coal deposits. But these are not of anthracite or of high grade coal. Why else Pakistan would be importing coal fron Australia, South Africa and India for the steel mill?

Pakistani coal is of poor quality and needs to be processed ( mainly washing to remove impurities) before it can be used as a fuel source. Lakra coal project has been going for a number of years but still incomplete.

There is a cell in the Ministry of Petroleum in Pakistan ( Think it is called Ministry of fuel, power and natural resources) assigned to "renewable fuels". I knew the DG of the Cell about ten years ago. What you are trying, the people in the oil ministry have been trying to do for years. Please dont reinvent the "Wheel"

 

[niaz]

As an addition to the above post, please be advised that use of bio fuels has an indirect effect on the price of food. Price of suger in the world has already gone up because of its widespread usage for the production of gasohol. Area under the crop in the world is finite and when you start using eatables as fuel, it causes shortage of food thus increase in prices.

Regrettably, in this world nothing is for nothing.

 

[MOSABJA]

Pakistan coal are the 4 largest in the world.

Yeah they are of low quality but that doesnt mean that they are useless.

Already from Thar coal power plants of 2500 MW are under way.


So with only bits of processing we can tap our 4 largest coal reserves of worth 60 trillion $$$$


So if we just convert our furnace oil fired power plants into coal based power plants then we can reduce our trade deficit.

 

[smt]

today brazil uses sugar cane to produce some kind of ethanol fuel. all cars there are fitted with 'flex fuel' kits, wer either normal gasoline or sugar cane ethanol blend can be used (car adjusts automatically to what you fill it up with). acording to them, theyr almost, or totally self sufficient in terms or vehicle fuel and if a major global oil shortage took place, crippling nations, they would still be totaly fine. theyve been doin this since the 80s i think, maybe pakistan could do somthin like that.

 

[salman nedian]

We need to concentrate more on alternative sources of energy such as Solar and Wind energy. I don’t know why we are not utilizing them? Since we are a sunny country and our long coastal line produces lots of wind.

 

[smt]

i dont knwo about wind, but solar energy is so expensive, the panels are expensive to manufactre, and very inefficient, research is being done across the world to improve the efficiency, but i dont think pakistan has much of a research infrastructure, we should just wait and see how solar tech comes along.

 

[maqsad]

I don't know why so many people are caught up in the production of ethanol alone. Did you guys know that vegetable oil can easily run a diesel engine and was able to do that since 1900? That's over one century ago! In fact diesel engines were originally invented in Europe to be able to use vegetable oils!

Probably the junk food dalda oil produced in Pakistan can be cleaned and dumped into a diesel tank as long as the engine can burn #2 diesel fuel. You might have to mix it with corn oil to get the right viscosity though.

Vegetable oil used as fuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The first known use of vegetable oil as fuel in a diesel engine was a demonstration of an engine built by the Otto company and designed to burn mineral oil, which was run on pure peanut oil at the 1900 World's Fair. Late in his career, Rudolf Diesel investigated using vegetable oil to fuel engines of his design, and in a 1912 presentation to the British Institute of Mechanical Engineers, he cited a number of efforts in this area and remarked, "The fact that fat oils from vegetable sources can be used may seem insignificant today, but such oils may perhaps become in course of time of the same importance as some natural mineral oils and the tar products are now."[1]

This little island in the middle of nowhere, close to New Gunea already did it:

Periodic petroleum shortages spurred research into vegetable oil as a diesel substitute during the 30s and 40s, and again in the 70s and early 80s when straight vegetable oil enjoyed its highest level of scientific interest. The 1970s also saw the formation of the first commercial enterprise to allow consumers to run straight vegetable oil in their automobiles, Elsbett of Germany. In the 1990s Bougainville conflict, islanders cut off from oil supplies due to a blockade used coconut oil to fuel their vehicles.[2]

I see no reason why pakistan can't follow the example of some of these pacific islands. I mean if a technologically backward island can do it, why can't a country like pakistan?

Some Pacific island nations are using coconut oil as fuel to reduce their expenses and their dependence on imported fuels while helping stabilize the coconut oil market. Coconut oil is only usable where temperatures do not drop below 17 degrees Celsius (62 degrees Fahrenheit), unless two-tank SVO/PPO kits or other tank-heating accessories, etc. are used. Fortunately, the same techniques developed to use, for example, canola and other oils in cold climates can be implemented to make coconut oil usable in temperatures lower than 17 degrees Celsius.

This biofuel technology is more than 100 years old, the new stuff is what everyone is using right now! No need to reinvent the wheel when it's already been invented.

I think pakistan could grow coconuts and extract the oil quite easily too.

 

[smt]

does anyone know if pakistan produces or manufactures solar panels or wind turbines?

 

[JK!]

does anyone know if pakistan produces or manufactures solar panels or wind turbines?

Pakistan will be developing its first wind farm at Gharo in Sindh province. The turbines are German ones built by Fuerhlaender though I need to read up on the details of technology transfer.