THE DANISH OIL SHEIK

BIO-DIESEL: Bjarne Simonsen is Denmark’s largest manufacturer of environmentally friendly bio-diesel. Seeds from around 100,000 hectares of rapeseed fields will this year end up in giant piles at his oil refinery in Emmelev, Funen, where the seeds are pressed and converted into bio-diesel. This year he will produce 100 million litres, all for export. Next year, Bjarne Simonsen expects to double production, thereby saving the environment half a million tons of CO .

A radical change is taking place in Danish – and European – agriculture: From growing corn for food to growing rapeseed for fuel. The fields of yellow are spreading ever further as the small seeds become big business, with more and more farmers aspiring to join the exclusive club of oil sheiks.

It’s all about bio-diesel. Green CO₂- friendly oil is pressed out of the seeds, and after a simple chemical treatment -known as transesterification - the oil’s glycerol is replaced by alcohol and can be poured directly into the tank of a diesel-powered car.

“Many cars run on 100% bio-diesel while others run on various mixture ratios with traditional fossil-derived diesel,” says director Bjarne Simonsen of Emmelev A/S. The Danish company is among Europe’s largest manufacturers of bio-diesel with an annual production of approximately 100 million litres.

Bio-diesel – a winner
“Diesel engines like rapeseed oil,” says Simonsen. “When the French car manufacturer Peugeot recently carried out the first large-scale test of some of its small diesel powered cars, using a 30% mixture ratio of bio-diesel and conventional diesel, the results were startling. All the test drivers reported more engine power, smoother running of the engine and lower fuel consumption. But most importantly of all, CO₂ emissions fell by as much as 50%.”

Not surprisingly, Bjarne Simonsen believes that in the longterm bio-diesel will win the battle against bioethanol, hydrogen and electricity to become the transport sector’s preferred source of power.

Diesel overtakes petrol
“Diesel technology has become highly sophisticated,” says Simonsen. “Its success can be measured by a constantly decreasing consumption of petrol and a corresponding increase in consumption of diesel. For the first time in history, less petrol than diesel was sold in Denmark in 2006 – 2.3 billion litres of petrol compared to 2.5 billion litres of diesel. And that trend will continue as far into the future as I can see.”

With new targets set by the European Union for increased use of bio-fuel, the industry is growing rapidly. Bjarne Simonsen forecasts global growth of 30% annually, and he plans to double production at Emmelev by 2008.

The domestic market waits
“Up to now, our entire production of bio-diesel has been exported, first and foremost to Germany which takes half of it, and to Norway, Sweden and Iceland,” says Simonsen. “The reason why we have not had a domestic market so far is due to the duty policy. In Denmark the duty on bio-diesel and fossil-derived diesel is still the same. But with the Danish government’s recent decision to reach a bio-fuel consumption figure of almost 6% by 2012, there will be a domestic market in the future.”

The strong growth in the production of bio-fuel requires more and larger land areas growing mainly rapeseed. A development not all, especially environmentalists, agree with. But to Bjarne Simonsen, that is an unavoidable consequence of agricultural developments in Europe.

Saving CO₂ emissions
“As agricultural subsidies in the EU are gradually reduced, food production will be increasingly taken over by the developing countries. But the land still needs to be cultivated, and in Denmark rapeseed is an excellent crop. By using rapeseed as a rotation crop every fourth year, it has made yields of wheat and barley 25% higher because of rapeseed’s ability to bind CO₂ in the soil. So it is clearly a benefit, both for the agricultural sector and for bio-diesel production.” Rapeseed is currently grown on about 200,000 hectares of land in Denmark, and Emmelev takes just under half of the crop for its production of bio-diesel. The rapeseed growing area is expected to increase to 300,000 hectares by 2008. But that is still too low in Bjarne Simonsen’s view.

“It would be both desirable and realistic if 500,000 hectares were exploited for rapeseed,” he says. “That area could produce 625 million litres of bio-diesel per year and at the same time save more than three million tons of CO₂ emission, to the benefit of the global climate.” Approximately 125 million litres of bio-diesel can be produced from rapeseed grown on 100,000 hectares of land. When the rapeseed is harvested, the seeds are separated. 350,000 tons of straw is combusted in combined heat/ power stations, while the seeds go for pressing. The residual product after pressing is 220,000 tons rapeseed cake, which is used as animal feed. The squeezed oil goes through a process of transesterification to produce bio-fuel that can be used in diesel-powered cars.

http://www.emmelev.dk