BRIEF ON WASTE TO LIQUID FUEL CONCEPT
Foreword
I was at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, with Senator Major General Jim Molan. He was a year ahead of me and he was a good man in every respect. Good at sports, good at his studies and he treated everyone with politeness and dignity. So it was easy to become friends with Jim and everyone else found the same. He was very popular in the military and later when he went into politics and became a Senator. I kept contact with Jim over the years and I occasionally phoned him or wrote to him to share thoughts and opinions or just to catch up socially. Jim, sadly, has now passed away, victim of an agressive cancer. Jim and I both had grave concerns for Australia's Defence vulnerability when it came to liquid fuels. Australia only holds around 24 days in reserve and should our lines of supply be cut, Australia would have no fuel either for its domestic use or for the military. The whole country would grind to a halt, vulnerable to an invading force. So I shared this idea of converting Municipal Waste to liquid fuels of various natures. I have, in the past, as a military student and an engineer, been very interested in processes such as the Fischer-Tropsch, developed by the Germans in 1926 and used extensively by them during the 2nd World War to overcome oil embargoes, and now used in South Africa to convert coal into gasoline and dieselene.
In 2002 I wrote a concept paper and that caught the eye of some folk who were active in the petroleum industry and through them I was introduced to a catalytic conversion process being developed at the University of Queensland. In 2020, then Senator Jim Molan voiced his concerns about the state of Australia's fuel reserves and Australia's indigenous capacity to produce fuels and he took the following concept paper to the then Minister for Energy Angus Taylor. Taylor was not interested in this and he "flick" passed it to Sussan Ley, the Minister for the Environment. Ley found it all too technical so she asked her assistant, Elizabeth Warner, to write to me, advising me of various grants I might apply for if I could match these grants dollar for dollar with investors money. This incident typifies the utter incompetence of those in Government. This matter is critical to Australia's Defence capability. It should be sponsored and funded by the Department of Defence. This matter of fuel security is only the tip of the iceberg concerning Australia's utterly pathetic Defence preparedness when it comes to Strategic Defence. My hope is that this significant defence vulnerability will be appreciated, particularly by the uniformed very senior officers within Defence, and that they may exercise some influence over the Government to fund a pilot plant at a suitable Council Municipal Waste dump in order that the practicality and feasibility of this idea might be thoroughly investigated.
Abstract
This concept paper suggests that it would be possible to produce significant quantities of liquid fuels in Australia from Municipal Waste for around 30 cents/litre, using a number of readily available technologies, one of which has been developed by the University of Queensland. This process makes it possible to economically convert Municipal Waste into liquid fuels of various natures. Doing this would not only deliver significant quantities of sub-one dollar per litre gasoline, dieselene and aviation turbine fuel to motorists and industry, it would also remedy a serious Strategic Defence vulnerability to which Australia is presently exposed whilst, at the same time, disposing of Municipal waste in an environmentally responsible fashion. Added to this, these fuel production facilities would be dispersed throughout Australia, thereby making them less vulnerable to wholesale destruction by an adversary in war.
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Background Landfill Primary Means of Disposal in Australia.Disposal of household garbage is usually achieved in Australia by extracting items which are suitable for recycling from the waste before sending the remainder to landfill. In recent times, China has refused to take the extracted recyclable waste and this is causing problems for Australian authorities. As it is, the disposal of waste into landfill is a bad practice because of the potential long term environmental impacts on the water table as well as the egress of potentially harmful gases, such as dioxins and PCBs into the atmosphere. Australia Heavily Reliant on Imported Fuels.Australia relies heavily on imported fuel to satisfy its industrial and domestic needs. Should the supply route ever be cut by a hostile power, Australia would soon consume whatever reserves it had and grind to a halt. In cooperation with US authorities an Australian strategic reserve has been established in the Eastern side of the USA, almost perfectly on the opposite side of the globe. Obtaining those reserves during hostilities will be difficult logistically and even politically. University of Queensland's Research. The University of Queensland is a world leader in catalytic conversion of carbonaceous material to liquid fuel, hydrogen and ultra-pure carbon. They have developed a means of printing novel catalytic substances in 3D so as to achieve a very large surface area in a small space. This has resulted in the ability to economically construct conversion systems that produce commercially-viable quantities of end product; in this case, ethanol, dieselene, hydrogen and ultra pure carbon - the latter, when pulverised, can be used as an emulsion with water to power turbines. Converting Waste into Energy. Incineration of garbage for the purposes of generating electricity is not a novel idea. For example, there is a plant on the outskirts of Bremerhaven in Germany that has been in operation for well over 50 years now. There are numerous plants in the USA. These plants remove all recyclables and then typically burn the garbage in a high temperature incinerator to produce base-load electrical power. Woolongong Pilot Plant - Waste to Energy. A pilot plant bearing many similarities to the one operating in Germany was established at Woolongong in the 1990's by Energy Developments. This plant successfully processed all of Woolongong's garbage and produced around 20 Megawatts of electrical power. The plant worked by converting the garbage into a synthetic gas "syngas" which was a mixture of hydrogen and carbon-monoxide. This gas was then fed to large engines driving electrical generators. The plant was subsequently shut down on the pretext that the engines produced dioxins. Related Developments - Waste to Cement. Recently a plant has been established in Australia that has, as one of its outputs, a solid waste suitable for burning in furnaces to create cement. A Solution to both Issues Proposed Concept. The proposed concept involves the adoption of a process similar to that which is commonly used in waste-to-energy plants but to take the syngas that is produced in that process and, using the catalytic systems such as the one now proven by the University of Queensland, convert the gas into liquid fuels and other useful products. This would avoid any chance of producing chemicals harmful to the environment. There are a number of possible chemical processes that should be investigated for this purpose; the UQ system being amongst the most promising.
Benefits Produce more than enough liquid fuel to service Australia's needs.There are over 600 local government bodies in Australia. All have a need to perform garbage disposal. By perfecting a standard plant and then replicating and scaling this plant to suit the needs of each local government authority, or aggregation of authorities, it would be possible for Australia to produce significant quantities of useful fuel and, at the same time, solve the intractable problem of environmentally responsible garbage disposal and recycling. The plants could, if desired, cleanly dispose of all plastic waste whilst keeping all ferrous and non ferrous metal for reuse. Labour Saving - No need to sort waste at the household level.In this approach to waste disposal, there is no need for households to separate their waste into recyclables and garbage. This would save the community and councils a considerable amount of time and expense. Examples of Waste to Energy Facilities Sweden.There are numerous countries where waste is presently being converted to energy; one of the most successful examples of this being Sweden. The ABC reports (14 August 2018) Sweden has banned most landfill and has invested heavily in waste-to-energy technology with 34 plants currently operating; their first plant being built in the 1940s. Each year Sweden burns around 2 million tonnes of their own waste and imports another 2 million tonnes from other countries, such as the United Kingdom; earning around $100 million a year. Official figures show about half of the waste in Sweden is recycled and 49 per cent is burnt for energy resulting in only about 1% being sent to landfill. 1 Tonne Waste = 3MWh of Power.One interesting piece of data from the Swedish experience is that one tonne of waste produces around 3 Mega Watt hours of energy. This roughly equates to the energy contained in 280 litres of dieselene. Waste Situation in Australia and Potential Quantity of Fuel Production Scoping the Potential of Municipal Waste to Produce Liquid Fuels. At present Australia produces around 67 million tonnes of waste per annum of which 54 million tonnes are "core waste" that may be suitable for waste-to-energy processing. It is anticipated, by 2050, the general waste figure will grow to around 100 million tonnes per annum. If the University of Queensland(UQ) catalytic conversion process is 30% efficient, ie, 70% of the available energy is used to effect the conversion then, based on the Swedish experience, the conversion of 54 million tonnes of waste will yield around 0.3x280x54x10^6=4,536 million litres of dieselene. Australian Petroleum Statistics Issue 284, March 2020 - Dept of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources reports Australia consumes around 2,470 million litres of dieselene per annum . In other words, this system would produce almost twice Australia's annual requirement for dieselene to satisfy its defence, industrial and domestic needs. Flexibility of UQ Catalytic Process.The UQ system is also capable of producing alkylbenzenes, alcohol and ultra-pure carbon. Australia presently consumes 1,370 million litres of automotive gasoline of all natures (the primary constituent of which is all classes of hydrocarbons in the C4 to C12 range, but is dominated by aromatic compounds, with the alkylbenzenes being the most abundant). Given that, of the ~4,500 million litres pa capability, only ~2,500 million litres pa are needed to satisfy the requirements for diesel, this leaves around 2,000 million litres of liquid fuel that could be produced as gasoline and aviation turbine fuel. It is therefore possible this waste to liquid fuel infrastructure could meet all of Australia's defence, domestic and industrial automotive and power plant needs. Strategic Defence Aspect Strategic Benefits
Industrial Concept Ensure Genuine Competition between Producers.To reduce risk, it is recommended that these plants be built and operated by as many Australian-owned private concerns as possible. Those companies presently involved in land-fill/waste recycling operations would be likely candidates. This would minimise industry disruption/unemployment and reduce the level of community resistance to the project. Doing this would also allow the project coordinator to tap into the intellect of many talented people familiar with the waste industry in order to produce the best possible standard solution for Australia. I don't see this being achieved in one swoop but instead that it will evolve organically over many years. Indeed, it will likely always be in a process of construction, testing and refinement. Proposal It is proposed that the Federal Government sponsor a thorough examination of the feasibility and commercial viability of this idea. Should a paper study indicate that there is a good probability of some or all of these requirements being satisfied, the Government should, in cooperation with private industry, develop at least one pilot plant to absolutely determine this process is both feasible and commercially viable. Should this be the case, the final pilot plant would provide a template for the construction of similar plants to service the needs of every municipality in Australia. At some later stage, these operational plants could be provided as tied foreign aid to countries that have serious problems with waste disposal in Australia's strategic area of importance. India would be a prime candidate because, for strategic reasons, it is crucial Australia develop close and friendly ties with this populous, fledgling democracy as a counterpoise to the influence of the Communist Party of China. |