Mass Media

In Kyiv, a key business forum of the countries of Eastern European in the field of clean technologies took place. What are the prospects of the projects for the production of energy from various kinds of waste? The participants of the ECOSMART-2011 Forum which took place in Kyiv are confident that the prospects are the brightest, because the amount of garbage across the globe has constantly been growing, and the hydrocarbon reserves have been melting rapidly. For Ukraine, which is mired in millions of tons of waste, the technologies for their processing, including into energy, can become the main business stream for investors in the next 2-3 years.

More than 200 delegates from 20 different countries and more than 50 speakers participated in the first clean technologies forum ECOSMART-2011 which was held in April, 19-20 in Kyiv (organized by Fuel Alternative). Along with the projects in the field of waste management and improvement of the environmental friendliness of industrial enterprises, alternative types of fuel were also in the focus of attention of the audience. In particular, ECOSMART and the specialized exhibition exposition became a platform for the official presentation of the biofuel project implemented by Azov Oil Company (AOC).

The project for the production of alternative motor fuels started today at AOC has actually become an industrial embodiment of all previously unrealized ideas in the biofuel field, the main of which was the use of a formula which foresees the content of biological components in gasoline not at the rate of 5-7%, as it was prescribed in the national program approved 10 years ago, but more than 30%. The innovativeness of the fuel produced by AOC is also confirmed by its name, INNOVATIVE E-95.

At the end of March, the INNOVATIVE Е-95 fuel was certified by Masma-Sepro, and the entire production process in AOC passed the quality management in accordance with the requirements of ISO 9001-2010. Earlier, AOC received a certificate of fuel recognition as an alternative at the National Agency for Ensuring the Efficient Use of Energy Resources of Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian legislation, fuel is an alternative if it contains at least 33% of biological components.

Alternative fuels at Azov Oil Company are produced in the gasoline production shop. The processing chain does not differ from the production of mixed gasolines except for the used components. It should be noted that attempts to produce alternative types of motor fuels, undertaken earlier in Ukraine, partly ended in failure, not least because of the low technological culture of production, which resulted in the low quality of the finished product.

AOC made the right conclusions from the Ukrainian biofuel background. "The production of oil products is a complex process which requires a special production culture and safety measures. All this aspects can be found at our enterprise," Andrei Cherednikov, Director of AOC, says.

AOC puts high market hopes on the INNOVATIVE Е-95 fuel. First, it is a high-quality fuel with improved environmental properties which meets the European standards. Second, the selling price of fuel in retail is lower than the price of regular A-92 gasoline, although the octane number of biofuels exceeds 95 units.

It is notable that along with the quality control of products, AOC also protects biofuels from counterfeit. In particular, the company introduced a system of color marking of products.

The report of the specialists of Techinservice, which uses about a dozen of ethanol production plants, was also devoted to the prospects of production and sale of alternative types of motor fuels. Techinservice produces a product well-known to the fuel market players under the name of AMFC, which has gained popularity among many fuel stations, including branded ones. It is notable that in the framework of the Forum, Techinservice demonstrated two cars using the Ukrainian equivalent of the E85 fuel (European brand of biofuels with ethanol content of 85%), produced by the company.

It is expected that in the near future the concern Ukrspirt may become the center for the development of biofuel projects. Along with the projects under development, the spirits producers also intend to master the production of ethanol from non-essential raw materials (the main ones are grain, molasses). During the Forum, Nikolai Prisiazhniuk, Minister of Agrarian and Industrial Complex, told mass media that Ukrspirt is going to start production of biofuels from potatoes.

Along with ethanol, biogas can also claim to be a mass motor fuel. In particular, today this type of fuel is used by a significant part of municipal transport in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. According to Georgii Geletukha, Director of Scientific and Technical Center Biomass, taking into account the large resource potential for the production of biogas in Ukraine, these projects can become the basis for reanimation of the state programs for improving the environmental friendliness of urban transport. Such a program was adopted at the beginning of the last decade in Kyiv and envisaged the conversion of all urban transport to gas fuel (methane, propane-butane), but in a few years it was curtailed without a clear reasoning.

"Fuel is under our feet," Alexander Kalantar, Director of A.Alfa-Ukraine, mentioned in his speech at the Forum ECOSMART-2011, speaking about the prospects of energy production from old car tires. At the moment, his company, which produces special-purpose equipment, completes the construction of the tire recycling plant in one of the countries of Latin America. In Ukraine, orders for such facilities have not yet been received, although, according to Director of A.Alfa-Ukraine, the economics of such projects are very attractive: the profitability of the project is on average 40-50%, the payback period is no more than 2 years. 1 ton of tires provides up to 40% of synthetic oil as well as steel wire cord and pyrocarbon (used in construction).

In general, according to Fuel Alternative, the potential for the production of various types of alternative fuels in Ukraine is more than 10 mln tons per year. In other words, the implementation of these projects will allow Ukraine to almost completely meet the demand for motor fuels. But this is in the ideal case, when the country becomes a place of mass "pilgrimage" of serious foreign investors. In the meantime, most of them keep away from Ukraine.

Source: UA Energy