Transport decarbonisation needed along journey to electrification

 

With Malaysians poised to buy a record 10,000 electric vehicles (EVs) this year, the government should now focus on how to help high-mileage and heavy commercial vehicle operators meet their decarbonisation targets.

While light commercial electric vans are successfully helping last-mile courier and postal companies to comply with decarbonisation targets, the battery-electric option is not yet a commercially viable solution for many commercial vehicle operators.

This is where biogas – already successfully employed in China, India and the US – comes in as a carbon-neutral fuel.

Fortunately, biogas is an energy source which Malaysia has in abundance as the world’s second largest producer of palm oil. The waste product known as palm oil mill effluents emits a gas which typically contains approximately 65% methane (CH4) and 35% carbon dioxide (CO2), with traces of hydrogen sulphide (H2S). This is the gas that smells of rotten eggs.

Biogas can be processed and upgraded to a composition similar to fossil natural gas that is supplied by gas companies.

This upgraded biogas is known in the US as renewable natural gas, or RNG. In Europe where cow flatulence and gases from dung are environmental issues, the gas is named biomethane and also processed and used as carbon-neutral fuel.

Natural resources, environment and climate change minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad may want to consider the California Air Resources Board’s incentives for usage of RNG.

The board has regulated a low carbon fuel standard designed to increase the number of paths towards transport decarbonisation.

Given that methane emissions can be used as a direct replacement for fossil natural gas, the minister should recommend to finance minister Anwar Ibrahim that incentives be given to the oil palm and agriculture sector to encourage investment in the production and use of biogas as a transport fuel.

Unlike fossil natural gas, which has a finite status, biogas is sustainably produced and even more powerful, and is generated continuously without the intermittency of wind and solar power.

Biogas is already tapped by the Malaysian oil palm sector to power generator sets, but most of the time it generates excess electricity. However, the mills are too far away to connect and sell power to the national grid.

For many other palm oil mills, the excess biogas is flared so that the methane does not end up as a powerful greenhouse gas puncturing holes in the ozone layer.

Two successful biogas projects from palm oil mill effluent in Peninsula Malaysia have proven the suitability of biogas for use as fuel for industries and vehicles.

The first is the FGV Biomethane Project, at Sungai Tengi in Serendah, Selangor, which in July 2016 started supplying compressed biogas known as bioCNG (compressed natural gas) via trailer to a factory located about 50km away.

A trial was also conducted with a trailer load of bioCNG sent to a Petronas NGV station in Batu Caves to refuel natural gas vehicles (NGVs). No problems were reported with any of the vehicles filled with bioCNG.

The second biogas project is a biomethane plant at Sedenak, Johor, owned by Johor Plantation Berhad. The project to inject biogas into Gas Malaysia Bhd’s network of customers commenced in June this year.

Biogas is also emerging as a carbon-neutral transport fuel in Sabah. The owner of a palm oil mill has a small biogas processor and uses the fuel for its fleet of China-made natural gas trucks to transport crude palm oil (CPO) to Kota Kinabalu.

NGV vehicles diminishing in number

The sad part is that natural gas for vehicles (NGV) was once a growing industry in Peninsula Malaysia.

At its peak in 2014, there were about 179 Petronas NGV stations supplying compressed natural fossil fuel gas to about 74,112 vehicles, made up of 50,000 taxis, 1,520 buses, 4,562 lorries and 18,030 private cars, according to Jeffrey Ng of the Malaysian Association of Natural Gas Vehicles Installers.

However, because of the contraction in the number of NGV refuelling stations, the fleet of natural gas vehicles in operation has sunk to about one-third of its former number, and continues to diminish.

Transport operators and workshops that invested in natural gas vehicles and conversion equipment are seeing their assets effectively stranded and wondering whether to continue or close their businesses.

The PGU pipelines owned by Petronas Gas Bhd has no policy to accept or to encourage the injection of RNG into its fossil gas pipelines, while Gas Malaysia Berhad has already pioneered its first RNG injection into its local natural gas distribution network from Johor Plantations Bhd’s RNG plant in Sedenak.

Additional investment for a palm oil mill to process biogas into drop-in fuel for transport or to inject it into a gas pipeline is not commercially justifiable in the current situation where fossil fuel costs are heavily subsidised.

During the parliament session on Oct 16, deputy economy minister Hanifah Hajar Taib said the government has yet to decide on the plan and direction of NGV in the country since the demand for the fuel was diminishing.

He said Petronas NGV Sdn Bhd (PNGV), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Petronas, is retailing the fuel at RM1.05 per litre, way below its market price of RM2.77 per litre. It should be noted that the fuel NGV does not receive any subsidy from the government. Thus, all losses have to be borne by PNGV.

In the case of petrol and diesel, while the retail prices of RM2.05 and RM2.15 per litre, respectively, are also below market prices, international and local oil companies continue selling them because of subsidies given by the government to cover the margin shortfall.

Perhaps the government should also subsidise NGV so that PNGV can cover the margin shortfall, continue selling NGV at RM1.05 per litre, maintain the current number of NGV refuelling stations for the benefit of current users of NGV and also ensure a just energy transition to Net Zero emissions 2050.

Decarbanisation on route to net zero emissions

Decarbonisation of niche segments of the land transport sector can then take place almost immediately while the nation progresses towards full electrification of the transport sector, which many believe is still a long way to go.

During the upgrading of biogas to RNG, the methane content of biogas is enriched to more than 95% by stripping it of CO2 content. The CO2 is released to the atmosphere after the upgrading process, making the process carbon neutral as the biogas’ CO2 is from wastes.

Thus, RNG gas is very important in the land transport industry’s path to carbon neutrality by 2030 and Net Zero Emissions by 2050, and must be included in the National Energy Transition Roadmap.

It was also heartening to hear the deputy minister tell Parliament last month that the Government is ready to evaluate the potential and future direction of NGV through discussions with bodies like the National Economic Action Council and with assessment from Petronas, the sole supplier of the fuel in the country.

Petronas comes under the Prime Minister’s Office, Thus the Prime Minister’s exertions are necessary to enable Malaysia to quickly harvest the low-hanging fruit of renewable natural gas.

Beyond creating employment opportunities for rural communities in a new economic segment of biogas and RNG, the championing of biogas will expand people’s minds beyond solar and towards the holy grail of energy, namely, green hydrogen. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.