Thailand resumes ethanol exports

[Dr. V. Vatjanapukka]

A fresh wave of Thailand's ethanol exports are expected this month as more domestic plants come on stream in the fourth quarter and spot supplies become available.

There are three new tapioca-based ethanol production plants that started production last quater, which bodes well for buyers that have been struggling to find spot cargoes. Thai ethanol producers were ordered by the Thai energy ministry to temporarily halt exports last month to ensure domestic demand was met during the peak consumption season.
Thailand currently has one 130,000 l/d (800 b/d) tapioca-based ethanol plant, while others mostly use cassava or molasses as their main feedstock.
Thailand's domestic ethanol price last month eased to 20.21 baht/l (60¢/l, down from 21.29 baht/l in August. Thai ethanol-blend gasoline or gasohol prices typically remain 10-15pc below regular gasoline prices because of ethanol's excise tax exemption.
Ref: Augus Media

 

> From: nor...@googlegroups.com
> To: thaibi...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: thaibioenergy - 2 ข้อความใหม่ใน 2 หัวข้อ - ไดเจสต์
> Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:09:57 +0000
>
>
> เชื้อเพลิงชีวภาพ
> http://groups.google.com/group/thaibioenergy?hl=th
>
> thaibi...@googlegroups.com
>
> เรื่องเด่นวันนี้:
>
> * Palm Oil : Op-ed by the Nation - จำนวน 1 ข้อความ ผู้เขียน 1 คน
> http://groups.google.com/group/thaibioenergy/t/d9dbc44fa53d0e65?hl=th
> * BKKPOST : Immersed in innovation - จำนวน 1 ข้อความ ผู้เขียน 1 คน
> http://groups.google.com/group/thaibioenergy/t/46afb6fa2c0a22d7?hl=th
>
> ==============================================================================
> หัวข้อ: Palm Oil : Op-ed by the Nation
> http://groups.google.com/group/thaibioenergy/t/d9dbc44fa53d0e65?hl=th
> ==============================================================================
>
> == 1 of 1 ==
> วันที่: อา 11 ต.ค. 2009 02:38
> จาก: "Dr.Samai Jai-Indr"
>
>
> A good counter arguments about oil palm and its role in deforestration :-
>
> http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/30114182/FOLLY-VS-FACT:-a-reality-check-on-palm-oil
> FOLLY VS FACT: a reality check on palm oil
> By ALAN OXLEY
> SPECIAL TO THE NATION
> Published on October 10, 2009
>
>
>
> With the UN's deadline looming, diplomats have made almost no progress
> towards a new global emissions agreement. With deep divisions between the EU
> and the Americans, experts in negotiations, now predict no new treaty will
> be inked at Copenhagen.
>
>
> Even if governments were willing to hike energy costs to reduce greenhouse
> gases in the midst of an economic crisis, they could not do so between now
> and November with the current 200-page, incredibly caveated, draft treaty
> text. Most of the positions are just opening gambits and seriously
> impractical.
>
> Yet instead of focusing efforts to advance agreement, environmental NGOs are
> fashioning strategies to curb activities to which they object. Palm Oil has
> become a prime target.
>
> The result is that a handful of Western companies, environmental groups, and
> policy-makers are spreading the message there's something wrong with palm
> oil. Lush cosmetics in the UK and Cadbury chocolate in New Zealand have made
> a show of pulling it from their products. The European Union has now erected
> a trade barrier against its imports. And activist organisations like
> Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have blamed the crop for everything from
> deforestation to greenhouse gases.
>
> While all these campaigns offer salacious headlines, they provide little in
> the way of facts.
>
> Palm oil, for instance, does not cause deforestation. In fact just last
> week, CNN personality Becky Anderson asked Wangan Maathai - the world's
> first female African Nobel Prize winner and originator of the Green Belt
> movement in Kenya - for the best way to stop deforestation. Her answer?
> "Reduce poverty".
>
> Maathai's insight offers the public a refreshing, alternative view to the
> anti-palm oil propaganda pushed by some in the environmental movement.
> Moreover, unlike Greenpeace's unfounded campaign, her proposal is based in
> fact. She was not only reflecting her own experience in Kenya, but offering
> the assessment of the world's leading forestry analysts at the Food and
> Agricultural Organisation in Rome.
>
> The FAO have reported year after year that the leading cause of
> deforestation is the pressure for land from the poor, homeless, and the
> hungry in developing countries. Forest land is cleared in Africa to get
> fuelwood, in Asia to farm crops, and in both to create space for shelter and
> homes.
>
> Dig deeper and the facts about palm oil tell quite a different story. First
> of all, it's a major food staple. The vegetable oil it produces is a vital,
> basic ingredient for people in the developing world. The key market is not
> Western producers of luxury goods like cosmetics and chocolate, it's for
> cooking by hundreds of millions in Asia and Africa.
>
> Moreover, it's a wondrously sustainable product. One hectare of palm oil
> produces more oil than a hectare of soybean or rapeseed, and it uses less
> inputs, such as fertilizer. It is also significantly cheaper and healthier
> than most alternatives. (There are no trans fats in palm oil.)
>
> And the crop's "green" credentials are impressive too. Properly run, palm
> oil plantations are more effective absorbers of carbon dioxide than natural
> forest. Many land owners in Brazil and Malaysia are planting it on degraded
> forest land and making a significant, positive reduction in emissions.
>
> But the public hasn't heard these accolades. Instead, the coverage of palm
> oil has been monopolised by hyped PR campaigns from Greenpeace and Friends
> of the Earth alleging that that this sustainable crop is endangering the
> Orang-utan. That too is simply not the truth.
>
> The hunger for land in Sumatra - where the population is growing faster than
> in the rest of Indonesia - is what is reducing the forest habitat for Organg
> utan there. Yes, action needs to taken to ensure the survival of the
> species. But the solution is not to stop conversion of forest lands to other
> uses; it is to develop conservation strategies, of which there are several
> in both Sumatra and Borneo.
>
> Despite these facts, Green NGOs continue to push their zero-sum "no more
> deforestation" strategy for the new global climate change treaty. And that
> means no more expansion of economically and environmentally beneficial palm
> oil plantations in the developing world.
>
> Their campaign glosses over a simple truth: the most effective thing
> developing countries can do to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases is to
> mitigate poverty by expanding sustainable industries including commercial
> forestry and plantation crops like palm oil. Even the UN's own
> Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in 2007 that expanding
> carbon sinks by expanding sustainable forestry was the cheapest and most
> effective way to reduce greenhouse gases.
>
> Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have yet to accept these realities. And
> since these groups are largely responsible for lack of recognition in the
> Kyoto Protocol of the role plantations and commercial forestry can play in
> reducing emissions, their refusal potentially comes at a high cost for
> millions living in poverty.
>
> The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have at various times observed
> that palm oil has been a very effective industry for reducing poverty, in
> part because small holders are able to produce it. In the largest producers,
> Indonesia and Malaysia, around 40 per cent of all production is by small
> holders. The Malaysian government has used palm oil to provide land to
> landless people and made a very poor sector of society prosperous.
>
> Demand for this sustainable oil is rising in the developing world and the
> opportunity to expand production in Africa and Latin America is also an
> opportunity to reduce the poverty identified by Wangan Maathai as the
> leading cause of deforestation. Some forest land may need to be converted
> for this purpose. There is plenty available. Most countries have already set
> aside more than the 10 per cent specified under the Convention of
> Biodiversity as required to protect forest biodiversity.
>
> So what is this impact of these side-plays on prospects for Copenhagen? They
> are diminished. Environmental NGOs groups have wholly disregarded the
> working principle which underpins the climate change negotiations in the UN.
> Actions to tackle climate change should not impede actions to raise living
> standards. Until that is respected, little progress will be made.
>
> The environmental NGOs deserve censure for seeking to overturn the UN
> consensus. But the larger question they need to answer is "how is their
> approach morally defensible?"
>
> *ALAN OXLEY is chairman of World Growth which has released a report, "Palm
> Oil - The Sustainable Oil", at the Bangkok Climate Change negotiations as
> part of an effort to restore balance to discussions over land management.*
>
> --
> Dr.Samai Jai-Indr
> Energy Standing Committee
> House of Representatives
>
>
>
>
>
> ==============================================================================
> หัวข้อ: BKKPOST : Immersed in innovation
> http://groups.google.com/group/thaibioenergy/t/46afb6fa2c0a22d7?hl=th
> ==============================================================================
>
> == 1 of 1 ==
> วันที่: จ 26 ต.ค. 2009 03:52
> จาก: "Dr.Samai Jai-Indr"
>
>
> http://www.bangkokpost.com/leisure/leisurescoop/25921/immersed-in-innovation
> Immersed in innovation Personal happiness is another by-product of the
> process of developing practical solutions to advance fuel conservation
>
> - Published: 19/10/2009 at 12:00 AM
> - Newspaper section:
> Outlook<http://www.bangkokpost.com/advance-search/?papers_sec_id=6>
>
> Nuwong Chollacoop, an engineering scientist who has just received a
> Green Talent Award from the German federal government, may strike you as
> resembling more of a corporate hotshot than a man of the laboratory.
>
> In a crisply-ironed white shirt, pointy shoes and a student's crew cut, the
> 33-year-old engineering scientist is likely to remind you of a young finance
> analyst or computer wizard rather than a scientist who spends years in a
> laboratory improving the quality of biodiesel.
>
> But he is proof that judging people from their appearance is scientifically
> incorrect. Nuwong is a man of science through and through. This year, this
> senior researcher on bioenergy at Mtec, a national research arm that
> conducts research on alternative energy, is one of the 15 scientists who won
> an award for environmental technology given by Germany's Ministry of
> Education and Research. Awards are presented to promising scientists in five
> fields: cleaner production, contaminated-land management, resource
> efficiency, water and renewable energy.
>
> Perhaps it is the clear economic data he cites to describe Thailand's energy
> sector that gives rise to the perception that he is a corporate-world
> personality.
>
> "We are having a glaring diesel and benzene consumption mismatch. Our
> country consumes a lot more diesel than benzene. Most of our imported crude
> oil is to satisfy the local demand for diesel. So, if we want to reduce oil
> imports, we must try to reduce diesel consumption," Nuwong said as he took
> 'Outlook' on a tour of the offices of the National Metal and Materials
> Technology Centre (Mtec) in Pathum Thani province.
>
> Following Nuwong around in the laboratories, anyone will be convinced that
> he is a man of science. Nuwong is fascinated with rationality and how things
> work. He never gets tired of explaining how laboratory equipment and
> machines work and the reasons why problems occur and how to solve them.
>
> "We are trying to improve the quality of palm oil by controlling its pH
> level [the acidity/alkalinity scale] to an appropriate figure because a
> higher pH level may be more harmful to diesel engines," Nuwong said,
> explaining why Mtec has to use chemical processes to adjust the basic
> chemical components of palm oil.
>
> "If we promote biodiesel while its quality is not up to standard, consumers
> will have negative sentiments towards biodiesel and may then reject biofuel
> as a whole," said Nuwong.
>
> At Mtec, Nuwong - an expert on material science - was appointed to
> co-supervise two laboratories: A biofuel testing lab and an automotive and
> alternative-fuel lab. The first lab focuses on researching palm oil at
> molecule level and tries to find new refinery technology that can save
> energy and reduce waste.
>
> The second lab works on testing truck engines and other machines, to make
> sure they can run on biodiesel without technical problems.
>
> Both projects are geared towards widening the usage of biodiesel in rural
> areas in equipment including transportation trucks, farm tractors and simple
> machines such as water pumps and simple industrial engines, all of which are
> major consumers of conventional diesel oil.
>
> "Biodiesel is not a new thing in Thailand," said Nuwong.
>
> Alerted by the oil shortage in 1984, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej
> initiated a small research project at Chitralada Palace, where gasohol and
> diesohol - made up of 14 percent ethanol (alcohol derived from fermented
> sugar-containing plants) and 86 percent diesel - were used to fuel the
> palace's fleet.
>
> The monarch has long been a proponent of the use of fuels blended with
> alcohol from agricultural waste by-products, in an effort to reduce the
> country's dependence on petroleum imports.
>
> In 1992, HM the King received an official patent for palm oil diesel - after
> years of experimentation.
>
> State researchers and local farmers also developed their own biofuel to save
> on costs.
>
> For instance, for over 10 years Captain Samai Jai-in, an alternative-energy
> specialist at the Royal Thai Navy, has been producing biofuel to power the
> navy's fleets. In 2001, Yuthachai Wiwatkulthorn, a farmer, opened a
> biodiesel service station in Thap Sakae district in Prachuap Khiri Khan
> province. He had been trying since 1983 to convert coconut oil to power his
> farming machines.
>
> The government's policy has been conducive to, and consistent with, the
> birth of green fuel.
>
> In 2001, the government introduced E10 gasohol - a blend of 10 percent
> ethanol and 90 percent octane 95 gasoline - on a commercial scale. The
> percentage of ethanol in currently-available gasohol is as high as 85.
>
> The production of B2 - two percent extracted palm oil blended with diesel -
> became mandatory in February last year.
>
> Last year, government agencies opened a biodiesel hub in a former tangerine
> orchard in Rangsit. With its palm oil extraction machinery, a refinery and a
> palm oil plantation, the hub operates with technical assistance from Mtec.
>
> Currently, Mtec, with Nuwong as one of key researchers, is working with
> state agencies and universities to help in the development of simple
> refinery kits and test kits to help locals produce better biodiesel. The
> latest project is an Mtec palm oil pressing machine. Mtec's model will
> reduce water consumption and produce less wastewater, according to Nuwong.
>
> At Mtec, Nuwong and other researchers work mostly in the laboratory. Some
> projects take years to achieve results. His work seems humdrum, but Nuwong
> said he finds peace and happiness in conducting scientific experimentations:
> "I am comfortable with laboratory life. Controlling all laboratory kits and
> chemical substances comes easily and naturally to me. Everything that
> happens in the laboratory is relatively straightforward and rational.
> Everything happens according to theory," he said.
>
> Born in Phuket and educated there until middle school, Nuwong was a maths
> whizz-kid, excelling in physics during his high school studies at the
> academically-outstanding Triam Udom Suksa School. Sponsored by a government
> scholarship to pursue a degree in the US, he holds a bachelor's degree in
> engineering from Brown University and a doctoral degree in materials
> engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
>
> During his bachelor's degree studies at Brown University, Nuwong also
> studied economics as a minor. While many of his mathematically-proficient
> friends have switched to the finance world, Nuwong prefers lab surroundings
> to business activities. "Perhaps business and other professions are not in
> my blood. I'm happy with science. I love that my work is recognised and is
> being put in to use."
> About the author Writer: ANCHALEE KONGRUT
> --
> Dr.Samai Jai-Indr
> Energy Standing Committee
> House of Representatives
>
>
>
>
> ==============================================================================
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