The potential for growing our own fuel

by Patali CHAMPIKA RANAWAKA

Three years ago, after assuming duties as the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, one of my Ministry officials posed me a very interesting question, "Sir, for decades it had been your firm belief and contention that Velupillai Prahbakaran, with all his terrorist activities was aiming at establishing a Tamil Eelam encompassing 30 per cent of the landmass and 60 per cent of the coastal line with its adjacent territorial waters.

Therefore, wasn't that struggle for a so-called Tamil Eelam based solely on a land problem?" In reply, I had to ask him to read "Negenahira Sihala Urumaya" (Sinhala Heritage in the Eastern Province), authored by me, if he is anxious in gaining an insight into authentic data about the availability of land, its ownership, distribution and also as to how the non-Sinhala colonization of lands in the Eastern Province had taken place. As an extension to his previous question, he queried, "No Sir, I am not talking about any related ethnic issues. Now that your Ministry is the custodian of 30 per cent of land in the country and also the entire sea bed including its aquatic resources around the island, can you blame Velupillai Prabhakaran any more for the unabated illegal encroachment and grabbing of state land?"

Being concerned over his query, when I asked him, if he could substantiate his point, he showed me a chart which indicated the land distribution pattern in Sri Lanka. According to that chart the Department of Forest Conservation and the Department of Wildlife Conservation were responsible in managing 23 per cent (nearly 1.5 million ha.) of land as protected areas and 7 per cent (nearly 450,000 ha.) of land as other forests. Prior to these lands (other forest category) being vested in the Forest Department, by a circular, it was managed by Divisional and District Secretaries. Although, that move had prevented politically and ethnically biased land grabbing process, the land used for chena cultivation and farming activities by the rural farmers had caused many serious administrative problems to our Ministry and the District Secretaries. However, as the custodian of these lands, on behalf of the President and the state, I take pride for being able to conserve, restore and protect other sensitive areas and also for preventing it being illegally encroached. I am happy for not having given way, even an inch, for any politically or ethnically motivated land claims.

When I happened to analyze the related subject, I was somewhat shocked to realize that most of our cultivated or sparsely used crop lands were not being used properly and the extent of these lands was more than that of the industrial plantation and paddy lands in the country which amounted to 1.5 Million ha.

Having gone through the available data, I was shocked to learn that an industrial man consumes more than 230 Kilo Cal., while for our biological sustenance we need only 2 Kilo Cal. An average industrial man needs 10 Kilo Cal. for food preparation, 66 Kilo Cal. for agriculture, 91 Kilo Cal. for industries and 63 Kilo Cal. for transportation and now another 10 Kilo Cal. or more to energize our information technologies. Therefore, it is a fact that, although, our energy demands are growing daily, our options are shrinking rapidly.

As this is a fact that we should individually and collectively be concerned about, through this article, I thought, it prudent to discuss about the possible ways and means of producing our energy needs in a clean and sustainable manner. Having focused on biomass last week, I wish to elaborate my point further on the subject.

Simple arithmetic will help us if we need to ascertain our energy needs. We generally use 42 Million litres of petrol, 110 Million litres of diesel, 20 Million litres of kerosene per month which means we need 2600 Million litres of oil annually. We have launched a program called "Jeewa Jawaya" or bio-fuel, under the auspices of the research section of the Forest Department and guided by Dr. Kulasooriya. According to the research made so far, we could harvest 7200 litres of fuel oil annually if we plant one hectare of dedicated jeothropa plants. If we consider sugarcane, the figure would be somewhat more, being 7300 - 7500 litres per ha., annually. This means that with 350,000 ha. of either sugarcane, jeothropa or any other bio fuel plantation with similar harvest, we could be able to produce fuel for our entire fleet of vehicles (1.7 Million) and also obtain other fuel needs.

Moreover, our current electricity capability is nearly 2500 Mwt., 35 per cent of which is fed by hydro power. We know that 2 Kg of fuel wood (20 per cent moisture) is equal to 1 Kg of coal and also it had been calculated that if we dedicate Gliriciria plantation of one million ha. we could be able to double our present electricity capacity.

When I glanced through an article written by one of my friends, Asoka Abeygunawardana on "Gliriciria - 4th major cash crop of Sri Lanka", I was convinced that coal could not be a long term energy option for Sri Lanka and Gliriciria may replace fossil fuel as our main electricity source in future. Giniseria, Wetakeria, Wetamara, Ladappa, Makuluthala etc., could be widely categorized as sustainably grown fuel wood, (SGF) and it can be planted either as mixed intercrops or dedicated crops and its harvest could be obtained on short-term rotational coppice (SRC) basis. It is a fast growing plantation and it provides many spillover effects like shade for tea plantation and vegetable cultivation. It could also be used as a Nitrogen rich fertilizer and fodder for cattle and goats. When we analyze the data properly we could see that Giniseria as a mixed crop is able to raise the moisture content remarkably and also it improves the organic matter of the top soil. Further, it should be noted that it could dramatically improve the utilization of a solar radiation (from 0 per cent to 95 per cent), resulting in optimizing the use of freely available solar energy.

When we discussed about the Dendro power or SGF power, most of our economists argued about its economic viability such as its optimized cost involvement. With the help of available data, environmentalists were able to calculate the real cost and its projected income generation by cultivating a variety of crops.

The opportunity cost for one hectare of land for tea amounts to a profit of Rs.161,250/= whereas, for Giniseria Rs.35,000/=, rubber Rs.31,000/= and coconut Rs.10,000/= proving the fact that it is an economically viable solution. If we use it as an intercrop or as a mix-crop in coconut and tea plantations, the planters' profit could be maximized. Whether it is Giniseria or coal it is the carbon that is contained in it generates energy. The problem of coal is that it also contains other impurities like Nitrogen, Silica heavy metals and Sulphur. Although, the ash created by burning coal causes serious environmental problems and health problems, the usage of Giniseria does not pose such problems. Even the emitted carbon dioxide could be easily absorbed by these plantations and it is considered a natural cyclic way of capturing and storing carbon for the benefit of mankind.

The general principle is that coal or Dendro Giniseria is burnt in a furnace and the heat so generated is used to boil steam. The pressure of this steam could be used to drive a turbine and couple an alternator, generating electricity energy.

When we held an environmental exhibition to celebrate the World Environment Day last year, the entire exhibition area at Viharamahadevi Park was powered by a Giniseria fueled Dendro power plant. Presently in many places, specially in tea and coconut plantations, the boilers are being converted to burn Giniseria to obtain multiple benefits.

In this regard, generally, two methods are being widely used, namely gasification and wood-fired boiler. The gasification method where fuel wood generates producer gases and it could be used to run the turbine or use as burning fuel, or else we could directly combust the fuel wood and use boilers to produce heat and steam necessary to generate electricity. In Sri Lanka both methods are being practised for many decades.

Finally, based on calculations made by the Biomass Association of Sri Lanka, it clearly shows that if we were to have 1.6 million ha. of dedicated Giniseria plantation, we could save more than 3 billion US$ of foreign exchange annually. Therefore, it is evident that saving of thermal power and saving through imported chemical fertilizer and milk powder amounts to a significant amount.

Therefore, before it is too late we should make every endeavour to find new ways of generating electricity, using of course, green techniques.

The Biomass specially electricity, Dandro or Giniseria, Jethropa and Sugarcane could be the answer. As American novelist Kurt Vonnegnt once said, "We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard and too damned cheap". His suggestion is applicable here in Sri Lanka too.

The writer is the Minister of Environment and National Resources.