COULD the Wheatbelt be dotted with small-scale power plants fuelled by crop stubble to generate energy, sequester carbon and grow algae as byproduct?
COULD the Wheatbelt be dotted with small-scale power plants fuelled by crop stubble to generate energy, sequester carbon and grow algae as byproduct?
This integrated approach to green energy production is the vision of Cliff Jones, a long-term innovator in Western Australia’s renewable energy sector.
With a decade of experience in the development of biomass energy in WA, Mr Jones said he had realised that the longer-term viability of such projects required production of more than just power.
He believes that growing algae assisted by CO2 and waste heat in ponds co-located with a biomass plant will provide the alternative products to make small remote sustainable energy projects viable.
Clearly others in the clean energy sector have embraced his vision. His company, BioTek Fuels, recently won the developer prize at the 2011 Sustainable Energy Industry Excellence and Innovation Awards.
That win has prompted him to discuss his plans more publically. Through BioTek Fuels, which is using former WA agriculture minister Kim Chance as a consultant, Mr Jones wants to build a trial biomass plant at Collie.
He hopes to use this facility as a stepping-stone to a fully integrated plant that includes algae production.
A stock market listing, be it directly or via a backdoor approach, is also seen as a medium-term goal.
Mr Jones experience in the sector is well known. Through his firm Beacons Consulting International he has been involved in some of the most high-profile biofuels proposals in the state – including efforts to start biomass power plants at Neerabup and Albany.
While Mr Jones claims those projects were affected financially by the fickle winds of renewable energy policy, the experience has led him to put the biomass energy concept on a more solid footing – by ensuring the output is more than just green power.
“Co-products need to be in the majority, that is the secret,” Mr Jones said.
“We had to look at co-products you could do to maximise the opportunity for each region.”
Mr Jones said algae would be easily grown in the sunny Wheatbelt using brackish water from underground.
It has a variety of commercial applications, from producing liquid bio-fuels for powering vehicles to being a protein ingredient in animal feed.
Furthermore, the labour intensiveness of algae production would provide employment in the towns where it is located.
He said a 10 megawatt power plant powered by agricultural residues such as crop stubble would generate 50,000 tonnes a year of CO2 which, in turn, would produce 25,000 tonnes of algae from 250 hectares of ponds requiring dozens of full-time workers.
