Oil Palm Biomass Center; industry and academia join forces to benefit economy and climate
by Prof.Ramlan Aziz (UTM), Prof.Luuk vander Wielen(TUDelft), Prof. Patricia Osseweijer (TUDelft), Nasreen Nawab(AIM)
Kuala Lumpur, 22 March 2012 – Today Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak launched the Oil Palm Biomass Center (OPBC) in the Malaysian Parliament. OPBC is a Malaysian public-private partnership aiming to accelerate technology development, testing and demonstration for utilization of oil palm biomass.
In the Prime Ministers presence, the 18 CEO’s, Vice Chancellors and other senior representatives of OPBC’s industrial and academic partners signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Together they aim to bring available facilities, required capabilities and other resources efficiently in one organisation, sharing the risks and costs of developing and testing the required technologies. During the signing ceremony, UTM was represented by the Deputy Vice Chancellor(Research and Innovation), Prof. Ir.Dr. Azraai Kassim.
OPBC is launched under 1MBAS (1 Malaysia Biomass Alternative Strategy) that unifies all Malaysian biomass initiatives under one efficient coordination. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak “To coordinate the implementation of the 1MBAS initiative, Agensi Inovasi Malaysia, will liaise all activities from the government-side relating to Biomass utilization across sectors.”. The PM also says “1MBAS will report their progress and activities related to Palm Oil Biomass to the Steering Committee of the Palm Oil and Rubber NKEA, which is chaired by the Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities and Pemandu.”. NKEA are National Key Economic Area’s which have the potential to significantly drive the economic growth of Malaysia, comparable to the Dutch Topsector Policy (“Topsectorenbeleid”).
OPBC uniquely facilitates the collaboration of 3 major palm oil companies (Sime Darby,IOI,Felda) with globally leading technology developers interested in biomass utilization. These international industries include Purac (The Netherlands),Novozymes (Denmark),LG Chemical (Korea) and others are complemented by leading research groups of the Universiti Teknologi Malaysiaof Malaysia (UTM) and Delft (TU Delft),Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM),Standard and Industrial Research Institute Malaysia (SIRIM),Palm Oil Industry Cluster (POIC) Sabah and Wageningen University and Research (WUR). Dato’ Pang,CEO of POIC Sabah: “This initiative is very timely. OPBC is just what we need right now”.
The joint R&D portfolio has 5 coherent technology programs around the biomass value chain: (1) sustainable plantation & harvest, (2) logistics & biorefining, (3) conversion to biochemicals, materials, biofuels and bioenergy, (4) nutrient recycling, soil and water quality and (5) energy and carbon dioxide integration. The portfolio is complimented with a 6th program on sustainable development to understand the socio-economic embedding, accelerate sustainable implementation, and provide transparent communication and training.
Malaysia targets to a 40% reduction of greenhouse gases and reach the developed country status in 2020. In April 2011, BE-Basic, a successful public-private partnership from The Netherlands (www.be-basic.org) under coordination of TU Delft signed an agreement with the Malaysian government to help reach these objectives. The National Biomass Strategy, coordinated by Agensi Inovasi Malaysia (AIM), delivered in November last year during BioMalaysia conference and exhibition, demonstrated the economic viability of a biomass-to-wealth approach and indicated activities to reach these goals. The OPBC program –modelled after BE-Basic and other international best-practices- results from these recommendations, and plans to operate its R&D, piloting and testing programs in both West and East Malaysia.
Sustainable development.
Utilisation of biomass will only be durable with ample attention to continued soil quality and environmental effects. A series of workshops in 2010 and 2011 with current OPBC partners resulted in an integral program for OPBC aiming to maintain and improve soil quality by integrating technology for nutrient recycling and fertilizer production of waste streams. Together with attention to ground structure and harvest practices, the partnership strives to provide a durable soil quality for continued high oil production yields.
Global leadership
The OPBC consortium of 18 partners represents all capabilities and expertises to develop, adapt, test and optimize novel upstream and downstream technologies in harvesting, pretreatment, nutrient recycling, biorefinery, energy production, soil quality, logistics and sustainable biomass production and utilization in one team. OPBC has professional arrangements to protect the interests and IP positions of its partners while sharing the required capabilities, costs and results in focused projects. With its portfolio, OPBC aims at global leadership in the palm biomass value chain for Malaysia. UTM’s Institute of Bioproduct Director,Professor Ramlan who is also the core group or founding member, said that the RM200million initiative will put UTM pilot plant facilities as one of the major drivers in developing high value bioproducts that could contribute to the Gross National Income (GNI) of an additional RM30billion per year to the palm oil industry and create 66,000 new jobs starting the year 2020. And IBD has been selected to be one of the 3 offices of OPBC.