University team aims to solve food-fuel conflict

Dec 10 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

THE future of the region’s burgeoning green energy sector could lie in refuse and sewage, if a team of North East scientists achieves its potential.

Researchers at Teesside University are aiming to tackle one of the most difficult dilemmas facing environmentalists – how to generate sustainable power without accelerating CO2 emissions or harming food production.

Biofuel has been hailed by many as a green alternative to fossil fuels and the North East is now home to an emerging industry built around the power source.

However, although the use of crops such as rapeseed and corn as power sources is good for the environment, it can cause problems in the developing world.

Biofuels can mean big business for farmers and have encouraged many of them to grow energy crops at the expense of badly-needed food, particularly in poorer countries in the world.

Finding an answer to the ‘food-fuel conflict’ is at the heart of research led by Dr Komang Ralebitso-Senior, senior lecturer in molecular biology at Teesside University.

Her team of six researchers, based within the university’s Technology Futures Institute, is looking at whether biofuel production could use waste materials, such as domestic refuse and sewage sludge, instead of energy crops to generate biogas.

The biogas could then be used directly or to produce alternative energy sources such as electricity.

She said: "We’re carrying out laboratory investigations to optimise the production of biogas through a process known as anaerobic digestion. This uses naturally-occurring micro-organisms to break down waste in closed vessels."