Potential of hydrogen from oil palm biomass as a source of renewable energy worldwide

Various catastrophes related to extreme weather events such as floods, hurricanes, droughts and heat waves occurring on the Earth in the recent times are definitely a clear warning sign from nature questioning our ability to protect the environment and ultimately the Earth itself. Progressive release of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as CO2 and CH4 from development of various energy-intensive industries has ultimately caused human civilization to pay its debt. Realizing the urgency of reducing emissions and yet simultaneously catering to needs of industries, researches and scientists conclude that renewable energy is the perfect candidate to fulfill both parties requirement. Renewable energy provides an effective option for the provision of energy services from the technical point of view. In this context, biomass appears as one important renewable source of energy. Biomass has been a major source of energy in the world until before industrialization when fossil fuels become dominant and researches have proven from time to time its viability for large-scale production. Although there has been some successful industrial-scale production of renewable energy from biomass, generally this industry still faces a lot of challenges including the availability of economically viable technology, sophisticated and sustainable natural resources management, and proper market strategies under competitive energy markets. Amidst these challenges, the development and implementation of suitable policies by the local policy-makers is still the single and most important factor that can determine a successful utilization of renewable energy in a particular country. Ultimately, the race to the end line must begin with the proof of biomass ability to sustain in a long run as a sustainable and reliable source of renewable energy. Thus, the aim of this paper is to present the potential availability of oil palm biomass that can be converted to hydrogen (leading candidate positioned as the energy of the millennium) through gasification reaction in supercritical water, as a source of renewable energy to policy-makers. Oil palm topped the ranking as number 1 fruit crops in terms of production for the year 2007 with 36.90 million tonnes produced or 35.90% of the total edible oil in the world. Its potentiality is further enhanced by the fact that oil constitutes only about 10% of the palm production, while the rest 90% is biomass. With a world oil palm biomass production annually of about 184.6 million tons, the maximum theoretical yield of hydrogen potentially produced by oil palm biomass via this method is 2.16 x 1010 kg H2 year-1 with an energy content of 2.59 EJ year-1, meeting almost 50% of the current worldwide hydrogen demand. (author)