MALAYSIA NEEDS STRONG BIOMASS POLICY, SAYS EXPERT

By Nashir Mansor


KOTA KINABALU (Malaysia), Dec 24 (Bernama) -- Malaysia needs a strong
biomass policy to encourage investors to be involved in renewable energy by
utilising the country's oil palm industry.

In stating this, Palm Oil Industrial Cluster Sdn Bhd's chief executive
officer Dr Pang Teck Wai said the absence of such a policy discouraged many oil
palm players to consider renewable energy as part of their business plan.

"There is no doubt that we should be able to generate renewable energy from
palm oil mill effluent (POME) and empty fruit bunches (EFBs) but it needs to be
policy-driven because there are just not enough incentives for oil palm players
to consider renewable energy as part of their business plan. Neither is there
sufficient deterrent in our laws to compel players to reduce their carbon
footprints," Pang said.

He was responding to newspaper reports quoting Malaysia Palm Oil Board
(MPOB) chairman Datuk Sabri Ahmad as saying that Sabah could tap its
power-generating potential from oil palm biomass, including methane gas from
what is known in the industry as POME, which is about 65 per cent methane.

EFBs are ejected from oil palm mills after the fruits are stripped, and
simply left to rot and where viable, scattered as mulch in plantations near the
mills or used as fuel for boilers.

Mills in recent years have started to install shredders and pressers to
extract residual oil from the EFBs. The resulting EFB fibre, which contains 40
to 45 per cent moisture (compared to 60 to 65 per cent in raw EFB), is used by
some mills as feedstock (together with palm kernel shells, another oil palm mill
by-product) for their boilers.

In Peninsular Malaysia, biomass downstream industries turn these fibres into
briquettes, pellets or fibre materials for mattress-making.

Citing an example, Pang said Eco Biomass Energy Sdn Bhd (EBE), a Korean
investor in the Palm Oil Industrial Cluster Lahad Datu, has encountered
difficulties in accessing biomass for their proposed biomass power plant.

He said even though statistics showed that Sabah produced over 30 per cent
of Malaysia's palm oil but little of the oil palm biomass was being commercially
utilised.

As a result, EBE after two years was still unable to secure sufficient
long-term supply of EFB to enable the company to start building its plant, Pang
said.

"The potential suppliers (of EFBs) are wavering in their prices and terms,
waiting to take advantage of the situation," he said.

"There's no urgency because selling EFBs has never been a major part of an
oil palm mill's income, and there is no serious enforcement of laws to compel
them to dispose of their EFBs, which is a major contributor of methane gas when
they rot, and methane gas is 20 times more harmful a greenhouse gas than carbon
dioxide," he added.

Pang said a biomass policy should spell out government incentives and strict
environmental requirements were necessary not only for the production of
renewable energy but also for the country to be able to take advantage of the
huge volume of oil palm biomass.

"For example, the estimated RM6 million needed for mills to install
biogas-capture structure. Unless there are incentives or legislative requirement
or both, not many mills will bother to capture their POME gas," he said.

According to Pang, there are only four power plants in Sabah that are
powered entirely on EFB, either raw or in fibre form, with two 10-megawatt
facilities in Sandakan, one 7.5-megawatt plant at Felda Sabahat, Lahad Datu, and
one 14-megawatt plant owned by public-listed TSH Resources in Tawau.

However, he said none of these were running at full capacity, either because
of inconsistent EFB supply, or technological drawbacks, especially in the
build-up of clinker in the boilers, which apparently was a problem unique to
EFB-burning.

-- BERNAMA