{"id":90453,"date":"2019-06-16T15:42:09","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T22:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=90453"},"modified":"2019-06-16T15:42:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-16T22:42:09","slug":"the-rubber-industry-and-clean-practical-solutions-to-sri-lankas-energy-crisis-iii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/06\/16\/the-rubber-industry-and-clean-practical-solutions-to-sri-lankas-energy-crisis-iii\/","title":{"rendered":"The rubber industry and clean practical solutions to Sri Lanka’s energy crisis \u2013 III"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Chandre Dharmawardana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

While the country remains mesmerized and\u00a0 paralysed by revelations of incredible security lapses, the failure to implement long-term plans for energy production, updating of agriculture and industry\u00a0 to keep pace with climate change, population growth etc.,will cause irrevocable systemic collapse causing more prolonged misery than any sudden Jihadist shocks. Many of us\u00a0 have written articles pointing the way forward, since many decades, but wonder\u00a0 if it is all futile, or if there is still room for optimism.

Surely, the biggest single expenditure faced by\u00a0 most nations\u00a0 is in meeting energy costs.\u00a0 The availability of cheap energy is the\u00a0 determining factor essential to all types of development.\u00a0 So the strongest effort of the government and the entrepreneur should focus on energy.\u00a0 When clean energies like solar\u00a0 and wind power were not competitive, it made sense\u00a0 for Sri Lanka to include coal power in its energy-mix. So the plans of the 1990s, if executed would have ensured that Sri Lanka today would not be facing a power crisis. Today Lanka would have been ready to mothball the old technologies and move to new sustainable technologies.

Instead, the government has again commissioned new coal plants.\u00a0 This is a\u00a0 keen-jerk\u00a0 long-term commitment to highly polluting fossil energy already undercut by cheaper, cleaner alternatives. To compound the folly, the government continues\u00a0 in expensive oil and gas explorations in the Palk Straits. It should note how weak but oil-rich countries have become enslaved by powerful nations who rob\u00a0 their oil using compliant puppet regimes to keep the people under the jack boot. Off-shore oil sources are environmentally far more damaging than land-based oil exploitation.

Apparently,\u00a0 Sri Lanka’s\u00a0 \u2018Surya Bala Sangraamaya\u2019 program, launched in 2016 is set to collapse. This is despite its great success with some 17,000 installations and a combined output of nearly 200-250 MW added to the grid. This solar energy saves emissions of noxious nitric oxides, acid rain, toxic metal residues, and some 200,000 metric tonnes of CO2 per Annum. And yet, new legislation terminates the purchase of solar power from\u00a0 small rooftop producers, claiming that the CEB will end up subsidizing\u201d\u00a0 consumers of 60 units\/month\u00a0 or less at\u00a0 Rs. 4.68 a unit. Surely, these consumers will necessarily consume more than 60 units before long. While failing to encourage solar\u00a0 energy, coal power and thermal stations that burn oil at great cost to the consumer and the environment are embraced.

Sri Lanka does NOT\u00a0 NEED fossil fuels of ANY SORT. In a previous article (Island, 6th May)\u00a0 I explained how, since 2009, I had advocated the installation of floating solar panel arrays on hydro-electric reservoirs;\u00a0 the power generated is fed to the grid or used to pump up water back to the reservoir. That is, solar power is stored as reservoir water, and no batteries are needed.\u00a0 Even pumping up the water can be avoided, by simply RETAINING the equivalent quantity of water instead of sending it into\u00a0 the hydro-turbines. The solar panels on the water saves some 30% of the\u00a0 evaporation by wind and sun. That is, merely floating solar arrays on ten\u00a0 hydro-power reservoirs\u00a0 adds\u00a0 three new hydro-power reservoirs at\u00a0 negligible comparative cost!

Wind power, installed around reservoirs can also be stored as water power using the same concepts.

The average life-cycle cost of solar in Sri Lanka is some 15-20 rupees\/unit. Bio-energy is cheaper, and provide more employment. While hydro-energy is cleaner,\u00a0 biomass offsets climate change, safeguards biodiversity,\u00a0 pollinating insect species etc., by maintaining habitat. As Dr. Weeraratne, an agricultural scientist,\u00a0 had documented\u00a0 (Island, June 15th ) the agriculture sector and the economy are down. Tea, Rubber, coconut or even a staple like paddy are not prospering.

In my second article on the energy crisis (Island, May 23)\u00a0 I showed how the coconut plantation sector can be revived into an energy giant\u00a0 using the husk biomass for energy production. There is enough energy in the currently produced coconut husks\u00a0 to supply Sri Lanka’s energy needs inexpensively and healthily. At present, these husks feed a\u00a0 polluting\u00a0 fibre industry with little or no future. Its future is in the energy sector.

However, it is not just the coconut plantation sector that can re-vamped. Sri Lanka’s Rubber Industry Master Plan needs to include its bio-energy potential to further improve its prospects. It is imperative that the rubber plantations move towards greater profitability. If not, these prime lands, often with\u00a0 road-and-bungalow infrastructure will be rapidly converted to housing or tourist chalets,\u00a0 asphalt roads, concrete buildings, night clubs, casinos and bars. The enormous loss of green habitat is catastrophic to the biosphere.\u00a0 Although having plantations is not as good as having virgin forests, they are the next best defense against continued habitat encroachment by humans. Making rubber plantations more profitable\u00a0 by moving them towards bio-energy production, we are resolving the energy crisis, and also safeguarding the environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Seeds produced by rubber trees go waste in most plantations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we convert the rubber plantations to energy-producing power-plants?\u00a0 Rubber\u00a0 does not constitute a\u00a0 rapid-growth biomass, but we exploit the currently wasted rubber seeds.\u00a0 New hybrids or bio-engineered plants with a\u00a0 high SEED YIELD should be planted.\u00a0 Existing trees will\u00a0 be tapped as usual for the latex since the annual world consumption of natural rubber is increasing at about 3-4% . Seeds of any kind of tree are packets of energy stored for the seed to grow. In all cases, seeds make better fuel than other biomass. That is, if the seeds are burnt, shell and all, the heat produced can be very profitably converted to electricity\u00a0 using high-efficiency burners which are now a standard part of\u00a0 bio-electricity technology.

Malaysian researchers Satyanarayana et. al.\u00a0 [Int. J Green Energy, vol. 7\u00a0\u00a0 pp. 84-90, (2010) ] found that rubber seed is a viable option for bio-diesel, and\u00a0 has\u00a0 low CO2 and\u00a0 nitrogen oxide outputs among\u00a0 potential biofuels. Here we do not examine bio-diesel production, but simply the burning of seeds in high-efficiency generators to produce electricity.

\u00a0Elementary calculations show that using rubber seed\u00a0 to make energy is\u00a0 profitable and sustainable.\u00a0 A yield of 100-400 kg of nuts per hectare\u00a0 per year is typical for the south-Asian region including Sri Lanka, while China has clones which produce 1500-2000 kg\/ha\/year [Wei-Wei et al. China Oils Fats, vol.30, pp. 63-66, (2005)]. According to Selle et al (1983), Rubber seed\u00a0 has a total energy value of\u00a0 about 7000 kcal\/kg.

Sri Lanka has some 130,000 hectares of rubber plantations. Hence assuming a yield of 300 kg of nuts\/ha and a collection efficiency of 66%, the annual rubbernut output can produce some 200-250 GWh of electricity by burning the seeds, using a Carnot-Rankin efficiency of 25-30%. The use of Chinese clones with high seed yields\u00a0 boosts\u00a0 outputs to 400 GWh. In addition,\u00a0 rubber other biomass from the plantation can be used. Effective, safe herbicides like glypohsate have\u00a0 been restored to the rubber industry. Hence crops like castor\u00a0 can be economically inter-cropped in plantations to provide additional high-energy biomass, and hence a target of 400-500 GWh of electricity is realistic.


Since the infra-structure,\u00a0 raw materials, etc.,\u00a0 are already in place, the main cost is the installation of the burner-generators which can be amortized over 10-15 years, making it cheap compared to the cheapest coal.\u00a0 The additional profits from a hitherto wasted resource, namely, rubber seeds should be considered in Lanka’s Master plan of the rubber industry.

The expression of\u00a0 oil-synthesis genes in\u00a0 seeds is controlled by known transcription factors like LEC1, LEC2, and WRI-1. Genetically\u00a0 modifying\u00a0 plants by including\u00a0 a mutation in the cgi58 gene results in the accumulation of lipid droplets even in the leaves. Converting the energy in the rubber nuts using fuel-cell technology instead of directly burning them is a method of beating\u00a0 the Carnot-Rankin energy loss. Then near 95% efficiency can be achieved. But such\u00a0 technologies are still a matter for the research labs.

What has been said here about rubber or coconut industries can also be adapted for cinnamon and other
Industries. So there is no excuse for our planners\u00a0 to opt for fossil-fuel\u00a0 energies.\u00a0 Solar-\u00a0 Wind and bio-energy are unequivocally available as cheap, non-polluting,\u00a0 firm power\u00a0 implementable within a shorter time scale compared to the commissioning of coal power stations.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Chandre Dharmawardana While the country remains mesmerized and\u00a0 paralysed by revelations of incredible security lapses, the failure to implement long-term plans for energy production, updating of agriculture and industry\u00a0 to keep pace with climate change, population growth etc.,will cause irrevocable systemic collapse causing more prolonged misery than any sudden Jihadist shocks. Many of us\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chandre-dharmawardana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}