Bioenergy, the Ugly Duckling of Mexico

• by Emilio Godoy (oaxaca, mexico)
• Friday, April 10, 2020
• Inter Press Service

“Our forest additionally produces oak, which prior to now was solely bought as firewood and had little worth. However with forest administration and the work of girls who’ve organised, we started this venture,” Manzano instructed IPS, as she stacked the items of wooden neatly and with out leaving empty areas inside the massive igloo-shaped ovens.

Manzano belongs to the “Ka Niulas Yanni” – “lively girls” within the Zapotec language – Group of Women Charcoal Producers. The organisation was based in 2017 by 10 girls and two males in San Juan Evangelista Analco, a Zapotec indigenous municipality of fewer than 500 individuals, positioned within the northern highlands of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca.

With financing from the federal government’s National Forestry Commission, the ladies constructed seven eight-cubic-meter igloo-shaped ovens and arrange a warehouse for his or her neighborhood logging venture. Below a 10-year plan that started in 2013, the neighborhood can extract 1,500 cubic meters of oak wooden yearly to make furnishings and promote wooden.

The charcoal makers mild the ovens by way of a gap referred to as a “rozadera”, and thru the same gap they examine the progress of the hearth after which block up the doorway with mud bricks. As the hearth descends by way of the construction, smoke spews from the igloo’s “ears”.

“We work arduous, as a result of there’s a marketplace for charcoal, however being pioneers includes an effort,” says Manzano, a married mom of 1, whose workday begins very early and ends mid-afternoon. She additionally works within the restaurant at a community-owned ecotourism website.

The ladies hearth up the ovens twice a month, to provide 23-kg baggage of black charcoal, which they promote for about 5 dollars a sack.

Wasted bioenergy

Regardless of these native initiatives, Mexico is losing the potential of bioenergy, particularly strong biofuels, together with all types of power from totally different sorts of biomass.

This various supply represents 10 % of ultimate power consumption, with 23 million customers of bioenergy for cooking (particularly in rural areas), 10 million for heating (primarily in city areas), 100,000 small factories and 100 medium and enormous ones, in keeping with the Thematic Network on Bioenergy (RTB), an affiliation of bioenergy researchers and entrepreneurs.

In Mexico, Latin America’s second-largest economic system, nearly 19 million tons of dry waste are produced and consumed yearly within the residential sector for cooking, heating and water heating.

The put in capability totals about 400 megawatts, based mostly on uncooked supplies akin to firewood for home and industrial use, bagasse, charcoal and biogas.

The nation additionally generates some 70 million tons of natural waste per yr, which can be utilized on this space.

When it comes to electrical energy technology, the sector’s contribution is modest – 894 gigawatt-hours (Gwh) – in comparison with different various sources of power. Within the first quarter of 2019, gross technology totaled 80,225 Gwh, up from 78,167 in the identical interval final yr. Gasoline-fired mixed cycle crops produced 40,094, standard thermal energy crops 9,306 and coal-fired crops 6,265.

Hydroelectric crops accounted for five,137 Gwh, wind farms four,285, nuclear crops 2,382 and photo voltaic stations 1,037.

One expertise that’s increasing is the biodigester, for the remedy of manure and agricultural waste to acquire biogas and electrical energy. Some 900 of those function in rural areas. Of this complete, round 300 generate electrical energy, in keeping with the state-run Shared Risk Trust.

On this nation of 130 million individuals, round 19 million use strong fuels for cooking, in keeping with the Nationwide Institute of Statistics and Geography. The primary materials consumed by 79 % of those households is LPG, adopted by firewood or coal (11 %) and pure gasoline (seven %).

Within the southwestern state of Oaxaca, gasoline and firewood every symbolize 49 % of family consumption.

“It’s a renewable power that’s largely untapped within the areas of agriculture, city waste and business,” mentioned Abel Reyes, president of the non-governmental Mexican Association of Biomass and Biogas.

The knowledgeable burdened to IPS that if the nation have been to develop the sector’s worth chain, it might be equal to 5 or 6 factors of GDP, with power, financial, labour, well being and local weather advantages.

Whereas bioethanol and biodiesel have boomed over the previous decade, their development now appears to be slowing down resulting from excessive prices in comparison with various sources and to competitors with meals crops.

Teresa Arias, president of the non-governmental organisation Nature and Development, famous that the commercial sector is desirous about utilizing waste to fireside boilers, whereas households, hospitals, eating places and motels can use pellets of agglomerated sawdust.

“Probably the most viable variables are decided by the market. It has lots to do with competitiveness in opposition to fossil fuels. Strong biomass doesn’t compete with pure gasoline, and in lodge heating it may compete with liquefied petroleum gasoline,” she instructed IPS.

The environmentalist mentioned that “there may be sufficient biomass for electrical energy, its prices simply must be decrease or equal to these of the gasoline they at the moment use. Nevertheless it could not compete with photo voltaic, though blended programs could possibly be put in.”

Forest and jungle administration, agro-industrial residues, forest plantations, sugar cane and agricultural waste provide the best biomass potential. Changing fossil fuels with bioenergy and strong biofuels would imply financial savings of some 6.7 billion dollars a yr, along with social and environmental advantages, in keeping with the RTB.

Though Mexico has adopted bold objectives for bioenergy, the pro-fossil gasoline insurance policies of leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in workplace since December 2018, have clouded the image, in keeping with analysts.

The 2017 “Biogas Technology Roadmap” predicts manufacturing of between 32 million and 120 million cubic meters of biomethane per yr from animal waste by 2024, and 57 million to 100 million by 2030, within the face of obstacles akin to low manufacturing attractiveness and lack of venture financing.

With respect to strong biofuels in 2030, the map initiatives 160 petajoules of power, 130 of which might correspond to households, 20 to the business sector and 10 to authorities establishments. The joule is the power measurement unit that’s equal to 1 watt per second and estimates the quantity of warmth required to hold out an exercise. Every petajoule represents one quadrillion joules.

Arias, the environmentalist, who’s getting ready diagnoses of biomass within the north of the nation, mentioned the outlook is discouraging, as a result of “there is no such thing as a outlined and decided coverage for pushing various energies.

“They’re taking a place that appears to the previous as an alternative of the longer term; they’re taking steps backwards after many efforts to have a various power combine that might make us much less weak, and to transition to local weather advantages,” she mentioned.

On this context, she proposed incentives for his or her use in households and companies; adapting business applied sciences to the circumstances in Mexico; growing the effectivity of provide chains; disseminating the advantages of bioenergy; implementing beneficial insurance policies for this sources; and designing programmes for rural areas.

For his half, Reyes, from the Biomass Affiliation, referred to as for the design of regional and native insurance policies, geared toward boosting the usage of bioenergy with sufficient monetary assist.

In the meantime, the charcoal makers of San Juan Evangelista know what they need: to care for the forest, foment self-employment and consolidate their organisation and thus their neighborhood.

“We are attempting to earn an revenue, however we’re working exactly as a result of we all know it has a future. We have tried to organise ourselves as girls, as a result of within the social sphere it is troublesome to get out,” Manzano mentioned in the course of the day that IPS accompanied their actions on this city, 48 km from Oaxaca, the state capital, and 540 km from Mexico Metropolis.

Together with different Oaxacan community-owned corporations, the group gives its merchandise on new digital platforms.

Some say the federal government doesn’t assist initiatives like these of her group, however Manzano and her colleagues are assured that wooden and charcoal will proceed to be obtainable in Mexican kitchens because of sustainable efforts like theirs.

© Inter Press Service (2020) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

The place subsequent?

<p><a href="https://www.globalissues.org/information/2020/04/10/26297">Bioenergy, the Ugly Duckling of Mexico's Power Transition</a>, <cite>Inter Press Service</cite>, Friday, April 10, 2020 (posted by International Points)</p>