The Choices for Renewable Energy

Renewable energy all the while is the main topic in the energy sector. With the technology development, many have thought that we should have built an alternative other than fossil fuel.

No doubt, we are seeing many choices for energy sources unfortunately we are still far behind in practical application. In this article, we are going to analyze the pro and cons of this century’s energy topic.

Renewable Energy is always drawing everybody’s attention, however, it comes along with great challenges too! The aspect from Technical, Cost, and Management.

What is Renewable Energy

Currently, most of the energy source is coming either from petroleum or coal. Both are derived from fossil fuels which classify under non-renewable products.

Petroleum products have supported a decade of industrial development. This is the moment for us to explore cleaner energy and becomes a sustainable energy source for us to live on the planet.

Features for Renewable Energy

A renewable energy is having below characters:

Generate via renewable resources.
Cleaner in terms of less CO2 and dust emission.
Sustainable energy sources.
Replenish naturally and constantly.

As we are aware, air pollution is one of the severe environmental challenges. This is because particulate and CO2 are generated and emitted into the air. Attention and hope are placed on the greener and sustainable new energy source.

Renewable Energy Choices

Coal and petroleum products consider as non-renewable products, so renewable sources are.

Solar Energy.
Wind Power Energy.
Hydropower.
Bioenergy, such as Biomass.
Nuclear Energy.

There are several sectors besides the above. However, the emphasis is on the above 5 sectors. By quick glance, these 5 sectors are having a good prospect, unfortunately, there are many technical barriers which need to overcome.

The Challenges for New Energy Source

Adapting a new energy source requires support from every aspect. Here are a few challenges which currently the engineering is working on it.

Solar energy. This is clean and green energy. Many places with long-hour sun exposure are suitable for installing solar panels. The challenge for Solar Energy includes a) energy storage; b) High solar panel cost.
Wind Power Energy. Wind blow is the resultant of airflow. Installing an air turbine to collect the energy from the airflow. We are facing a similar restriction as solar energy as we mentioned earlier. Furthermore, the setting up of wind turbine stands will affect the local airflow pattern.
Hydropower. This is the powerful energy derives from fast-moving or falling water. The China Three Gorges Dam is the largest hydropower station in the world. Unfortunately, the capacity of hydropower is far less for our needs. Dam fabricating and maintaining is a huge cost too!
Bioenergy. Bioenergy may not consider green energy however it turns the biomass into an energy source. It still classifies as a renewable energy source.
Nuclear Energy. Nuclear power is a huge energy source, it is a zero-emission and also sustainable energy source. The challenges come from nuclear power control and operation management control. Nuclear leaks and radiation incidents are still the main concern.

The Energy Prospect

The development of renewable energy is under on-going mode for 10 years or even more. Even though fossil fuel is still the main energy source for now but the contribution of renewable energy is increasing through-out the year.

In general, there are still many challenging for renewable energy especially the cost is still higher compared to the energy generated from fossil fuel. The challenges include:

Combine the new energy into the existing power grid.
Reduce the power transmission loss.
Improve the power storage capability and capacity.

There is no quick fix for renewable energy but we have to work in this direction. Not only we need the explore new energy sources but also fulfill the CO2 emission control.

We are the main biomass supplier in Malaysia and we will stay very positive in terms of renewable energy prospects.

December 22, 2012

EFB Pellet or Shredded EFB Fibre

EFB pellet and shredded efb pellet both are classified as biomass commodity; it also belongs to renewable energy commodity. EFB pellet is the compressed pellet from efb pellet machine by using

the palm fibre which distills from oil palm empty fruit bunch. Shredded EFB consider as empty fruit bunch which only go through limited process.

For bio fuel user, which one should we select? Should we choose EFB pellet or Shredded EFB Fibre?

Study the details about EFB Pellet and Shredded EFB Fibre

Shredded EFB Fiber

The oil palm fruit bunch will go through a steam process in order to dismantle the palm fruit from the bunch. The empty fruit bunch (EFB) discarded from the crude palm oil mill is at wet and hot condition. The wet EBF will be delivered to press process in order to squeeze the water out from the empty fruit bunch. Later the pressed EFB will send for shredded process.

Shredded process is similar as a “chopping” process. The purpose for the shredded is to chop the EFB to smaller dimension that easy to transport and act as biomass. The pressed and shredded EFB turn out as fibre form but in larger scale.

Shredded EFB fibre is transferred for biomass boiler for retrieving heat via burning process. Some of the biomass boilers do not requires higher energy heat will directly burn the shredded EFB fiber.

EFB Pellet

EFB pellet resemble to wood pellet, the difference is EFB pellet is the pressed pellet from EFB fibre. The small pellet size is very much suitable for almost any input grate system. Field facility engineer could use this EFB pellet without much consideration of input system.

This dense pellet is a common biomass commodity for furnace and biomass boiler. Because of the dense structure, EFB pellet is easy to retain heat than shredded fibre. EFB pellet and palm fiber briquette are the suitable commodities for biomass power plant.

EFB pellet or Shredded EFB Fiber

For Malaysia local domestic market, because steam boiler may not require high heat energy, shredded EFB fibre is selected because of price concern. However for furnace boiler which require higher heat, EFB pellet is more suitable.

More over, the EFB pellet is dry and dense product which also favourable for packing and longer time storage purpose.

DST is one of the key biomass suppliers for Malaysia market, we also the leading pellet and palm briquette manufacturer for quality biomass product, our EFB pellet and palm fiber briquette has been widely used in many biomass industries. For interest party, please kindly write to DST and talk with us about your needs.

December 18, 2012January 21, 2013

Use EFB Pellet as Renewable Energy

EFB pellet is a clean, low cost which able to provide high heating energy for home or industrial use.

EFB pellet classified under carbon neutral product, or also classified as renewable energy.

EFB pellet it is a compressed cylindrical pellet size with 6mm or 8mm diameter in general.

Renewable energy is referring to the energy comes from nature resource. Natural resources refer to solar, wind, tide, rain and also biomass.

Why EFB Pellet Refer as Renewable Energy?

Before we answering this question, let us understand what biomass stand for. Biomass refers to the organic matter such as wood, timber and crops that burn to generate heat and energy. Empty Fruit Bunch or EFB also part of the biomass use for this purpose.

In order classifying biomass as renewable energy, user needs to replant certain tree or plants in order to trap the carbon oxide discharge in the air during the burning or combustion process. By doing so, the ecological system will reach a balance stage of carbon neutral stage.

Wood is one of the typical types of biomass people can think off. But apart from wood, there are other crops such as straw, rice husk, leaf. In Malaysia, there are Empty Fruit Bunch discards from palm oil process also consider as biomass.

Since EFB pellet is built from the source of Empty Fruit Bunch, hence it also consider as renewable energy.

The difference between Wood Pellet and EFB Pellet

Wood pellet is a compressed pellet from saw dust, sometime it also name as saw dust pellet. However EFB pellet is the pellet compressed from EFB short fibre. The EFB pellet is mainly used in commercial or industrial power plant. We are seeing the increase market share for EFB pellet because current biomass boiler design is able to adapt this EFB pellet. Interested reader could refer EFB palletizing process for the more process details.

Even though wood pellet classified as renewable energy but growing up a tree may take longer time than chopping it down. We are seeing volume constraint shows by saw dust pellet, and EFB pellet should be the good substitution for this needs.

Where to by EFB Pellet?

Malaysia definitely is one of the EFB pellet supplier or manufacturer. There are many companies in Malaysia start manufacturer EFB pellet. DST Technology is committed in supplying EFB pellet for oversea market. All interested EFB pellet buyer are welcome to contact DST for inquiry, or write us a mail at sales@biofuelresource.com.

EFB Pellet has no doubt becomes popular in current market; we foresee the demand for EFB pellet is increasing in near future.

December 14, 2012December 16, 2012

Raw Material for EFB Pellet

Pellet is defined as a small piece of material make by compressed material such as saw dust, of efb fibre. An EFB pellet is a pellet make from the EBF fiber. Many readers should have known about pellet but very new to EFB. In this article, we are going to talk more about EFB fiber and EFB Pellet.

What is EFB fiber?

EFB is the abbreviation for Empty Fruit Bunch from oil palm fruit. An oil palm fruit will be processed for crude palm oil and the remaining bunch is discarded as empty fruit bunch. The empty fruit bunch is at wet form and goes through subsequent process for biomass application.

From the nature of empty fruit bunch, the EFB will go through several more processes to distill the long EFB fibre and the remaining short EFB fibre will be putting aside for biomass purpose.

Short EFB fibre is always comes in loose fibre stage, even though short EFB fibre is a good source of renewable energy however the loose stage has make it less usable in practical stage.

Converting Loose EFB fiber to EFB Pellet

Biomass engineer has developed a chopper or crusher machine for chopping down the fibre into smaller in length. The shorter EFB fibre can directly put into the palletize machine and goes through the palletize process. EFB pellet is the outcome product. EFB pellet also use the raw material for biomass boiler.

In most cases, in order to have a better quality of pellet, short EFB fiber will go through a crushing process to shorten the fibre length, this will improve the EFB pellet quality.

Why EFB pellet but not Wood pellet?

A compressed and palletize efb pellet has been classified as renewable energy. Pellet will provide more consistent and predictable result while comes to practical use. Further more, Malaysia is a world leading in oil palm plantation and crude palm oil production. EFB is the discard by-product for crude palm oil process.

Currently shredded EFB has been used for local domestic biomass, however shredded EFB is not preferable for export market. The EFB will be further process to EFB pellet which favourable for export market.

Comparing EFB pellet to wood pellet, wood pellet is dominating the market for past few years. We are seeing EFB pellet start coming into the market, and we expected to see more in coming years especially for industrial or power plant.

For house user, we think wood pellet still be the first choice. This is because household biomass boiler is more demanding than industrial biomass boiler.

EFB pellet is manufacture from EFB fibre through series of processes. Base on the EFB raw material availability, we have no surprise Malaysia becomes one of the main EFB pellet manufacturer for world renewable energy market.