80% Emissions Reductions by Turning Waste into Fuel

Swiss and Singapore-based scientists have proposed that large-scale waste-to-fuel conversions could result in an overall 80 per cent global CO2 emissions cut.  In their new study, they focus on the technique of drawing on waste materials present in landfills to create biofuels. 

The initial generation of crop-derived biofuels have attracted controversy, since the actual process of producing crops impacts on the environment (for one thing, it uses land that could be used for food crops instead). 

Waste-Derived Fuels

So-termed ‘second-generation’ biofuels, though, draw on other materials like waste, and these waste-derived fuels could have the potential to lower emissions without causing further associated environmental damage, according to the scientists behind the report. 

“Our results suggest that fuel from processed waste biomass, such as paper and cardboard, is a promising clean energy solution”, explained the National University of Singapore’s Associate Professor Hugh Tan, one of those involved in the new study.  He added: "If developed fully this biofuel could simultaneously meet part of the world's energy needs, while also combating carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependency.”

Professor Tan and his colleagues drew on figures published by the United Nations to roughly calculate the levels of waste produced by 173 nations around the world.  They then looked at these figures in parallel with data on the same nations’ levels of fuel consumption. 

Ethanol Biofuels

What they discovered was that the combined volume of waste had the potential to produce close to 83 billion litres of ethanol from which biofuel could be derived and that, furthermore, if traditional fuels were replaced with these ethanol biofuels, CO2 emissions could reduce significantly.  The range of emissions reductions achievable could range from just under 30 per cent to over 86 per cent, the scientists said.

“If this technology continues to improve and mature these numbers are certain to increase”, Dr. Lian Pin Koh - another of the report’s authors – concluded.

"This could make cellulosic ethanol an important component of our renewable energy future.”

Last month, Enviro-News wrote of Dutch airline KLM’s plans to carry out waste-to-electricity conversions using leftover food and other waste materials.