“alternatives to evs: biofuels in barbados”...the highest energy bills in the world because of...

1A l t e r n A t i v e s t o e v s : B i o f u e l s i n B a r B a d o s

“Alternatives to EVs: Biofuels in Barbados”

2019


Thanks to our Sponsors

The activities for the Caribbean Solutions Forum were made possible by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Association with the generous support of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of The German Federal Ministry forEconomic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). We thank GIZ for its kind support that afforded the SDSN Caribbean to participate in Global Solutions Forum 2019.

Background to the SDSN and Global Solutions Forum

The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) was founded in 2012 by former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, to support the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The main objective of the SDSN is to build a network of action-oriented Knowledge/Research Institutions to pioneer innovative and sustainable actions to fast-track addressing the World’s most pressing problems. It focuses on engaging international experts through research, education, policy analysis and international cooperation. This drive makes the SDSN the most connected world-wide organisation in terms of expertise and reach, in the implementation of the SDGs.

The inaugural Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Global Solutions Forum (GSF) took place in September 2019 in New York. It showcased practical, innovative and transformative initiatives from its Regional and National Networks that can contribute to fast-tracking the implementation of the SDGs.

The SDSN Caribbean, assisted by GIZ, organised a call for Innovative Initiatives to select a representative for the region at the Global Solutions Forum (GSF).

The GSF is part of the mandate of the SDSN to promote integrated, innovative and transformative approaches to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.


Since 2015, numerous beaches with a Caribbean coastline have been inundated by a brown seaweed called Sargassum. This weed which is normally found drifting in the north Atlantic’s Sargasso Sea can now be found in the southern Atlantic in great abundance. The impact of this weed on the tourism industry of the Caribbean islands and the beaches of Central America is immense.

It’s likely the massive abundance of the weed is caused by a combination of increased ocean temperatures and nutrients originating from southern Africa and the Amazon basin. The Sargassum problem is a textbook example of a problem caused by the actions of many people that have global consequences for people and countries thousands of miles away from the original actors. To solve complex and complicated problems like this requires innovation, a multi-disciplined approach, numerous experts in different fields and the combined efforts of diverse people, countries and institutions.

The SDSN is one mechanism that can help the people of the Caribbean to solve problems like this one; which do not have simple solutions and which will need innovation. The Global Solutions Forum is an important first step in identifying potential solutions to the barriers that affect Sustainable Development in the Caribbean. Networks such as the SDSN are important because they can bring expertise from all over the planet to address the complex problem faced by the region. The SDSN Caribbean chapter can build connections among Caribbean experts so they can solve the problems facing Sustainable Development in the Caribbean.

The SDSN Caribbean was launched in May, 2014 at the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies.

Dr. David Smith, Chair & Manager, SDSN Caribbean

Message from


Legena Henry PhDLecturer for Renewable Energy at University of the West Indies (The UWI), Cave Hill, Barbados, presented the Best Initiative in the 2019 call for Solutions Initiative by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network Caribbean (SDSN Caribbean).

Dr Henry is an MIT S.M. graduate and holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the UWI. Her research specializes in Renewable Energy, Ocean Engineering Analysis, Ocean Wave Statistics, Marine Hydrodynamics, and Applied Mechanics. She is a former Assistant Lecturer in Mechanical and Civil Engineering at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus. Her PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago represents a successful completion of “An Analytical Approach to the Statistical Moments associated with large ocean waves,” research she started in the Centre for Ocean Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she received an S.M. (Master of Science) in Mechanical Engineering.

Her present ongoing research at the University of the West Indies focuses on generating electric power from the energy of natural resources such as ocean waves of the Caribbean Sea.

These Caribbean-related energy possibilities include Wave power on Atlantic coastlines of Caribbean islands, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, Sea Water Air-Conditioning, Offshore Wind, Offshore Solar, and more recently, bio-fuel from Sargassum seaweed in the world’s largest macroalgal bloom, a stable 8850-kilometer-long belt that extends from West Africa to the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

Dr Henry’s relevant transportation-related experiences includes over 10 years of energy related research work at the United States Department of Transportation as a Safety Engineering intern for one year as well as her Capstone Project during her BSc in Mechanical Engineering at Howard University, where she produced a design of a vehicle for the General Motors Electric Vehicle concept on the Skateboard Chassis.


Thanks everyone. I’m Dr. Legena Henry from The University of the West Indies in Cave Hill, Barbados. I’m an MIT trained Mechanical Engineer and now working on renewable energy questions in the Caribbean.

Ok. So, Rum and Sargassum, is a little more fun than Rum and Coke, so let’s talk about it for the next seven minutes. Ok, Caribbean nations pay the highest energy bills in the world because of fossil fuel dependency and the high cost of shipping fossil fuels to all of these small islands. Our team, a group of students b r a i n s t o r m e d and tested a biofuel solution this summer, to the transportation and energy needs of Barbados. Our data analysis this summer ‘kinda’ showed us that the decline in sugar cane industry in Barbados would not be enough to sustain a biofuel industry as a feed stock for the national energy demand. We were trying to model Brazil and scale it down to Barbados and it didn’t seem to be promising.

So then we deliberated. This is the group of scientists and this is some of the equipment we had on campus brainstorming this biofuel solution for Barbados. So let me tell you a story. I start with the history of the Caribbean. Caribbean countries are unique in that most of the population comprises descendants of West Africans that were brought over to the Western Hemisphere as captured slaves. So I put the Triangular Trade there; so that’s a reminder from history. This triangle had three passages. The first passage took refined product from Europe

to West Africa. The second passage, which we call the middle passage, brought captured men and women from the coast of West Africa to the Caribbean Islands. And the third passage took raw agricultural product from

the Caribbean to Europe to be refined and marketed, for distribution around the world. Alright, so that’s the triangle right, for three centuries.

Dr. Legena Henry’s presentation at the Global Solutions Forum, in New York on September 25th , 2019

Title : “Alternatives to EVs: Biofuels in Barbados”

Watch her on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xBqNMVzo_A


There was a saving grace in the story and it was rum. The rum industry grew out of waste from the sugar cane industry, and because it was waste, it stayed in the islands. But the beauty of it is the rum industry grew out of the islands and now the international rum industry is dominated by Caribbean Rum. Another beauty about the rum industry is the waste water it produces. It is optimal for producing biofuels because of the high chemical/ oxygen demand of the waste water from the rum and every day thousands of litres of rum distillery waste fluid is produced in the Caribbean and can be used for biofuel. Right now it’s just ‘kinda’ tossed into the ocean.

Ok, Biomethane can cheaply and easily power electric grids and power vehicles. So, a regular internal combustion engine car, which I think most of the people in this room drive, could be readily converted to a CNG engine using a CNG conversion kit, and thus it is able to drive fully on methane, and that’s being done all around the world right now. Barbados has an extensive natural gas grid and actually, this grid can be retrofitted for biogas as Barbados transitions to 100% renewable energy by the year 2030. Anaerobic digestion of any biological feedstock can be used towards methane production.

It’s a multi-step process, but the most important step is hydrolysis, the first step, and that takes a lot of water. Barbados and a lot of the Caribbean islands are ‘water-scarce’, so the rum distillery waste idea is perfect because that’s thousands of litres of waste water produced everyday on these islands.

Ok, So, we looked at published numbers from Barbados and Brazil and made some ‘kinda’ analysis to do comparisons, and you can see on the plot

that this is the sugar cane produced in Barbados compared to Brazil, scaled by production in the year 2007, and as you can see, sugar production is in decline in Barbados. So, we needed another feed stock, based on the numbers. So Brittany, she came up with the idea.

She was driving home on a taxi and she saw a huge mound of sargassum seaweed on the beach,

Photo by Thalia Balkaran


and cranes removing these mounds of sargassum seaweed to take them off to the landfill, and she thought ‘ why don’t we look at sargassum seaweed. So she came into the lab and said ‘lets try sargassum’ and I said “sure, let’s try sargassum”.

So, interestingly enough, in the most poetic chain of events, let me tell you about sargassum. This is an image from NASA Earth Observatory. The sargassum seaweed is now traversing the same middle passage. It’s leaving the coast of West Africa. It’s coming across the Atlantic Ocean and its inundating the Caribbean Sea because of run-off from North and South America. There’s this massive bloom right at the Caribbean Sea. So, right now sargassum maps show that it is actually producing more biomass than the total of the ability of these islands’ ability to produce biomass. It’s more biomass than we can produce on these tiny islands. After weeks of thinking about sugar cane though, and on history and everything, when I saw this 2018 map produced by Brooks in Maryland, it reminded me of that other triangle, so I thought ‘what an interesting story’ and I decided to tell the story this way.

So alright, what did we do in the lab? We harvested some sargassum from the South Coast of Barbados and we put it in the lab with different rum fluids from rum distilleries from around Barbados and looked at different conditions of producing biofuels. And so, what did our results show? Well the results are in and they are good. Combined with rum distillery waste from two of the bigger distilleries in Barbados, we found that the methane output was comparable to any standard gases we saw in Barbados before and in other parts of the world.

So, this here is the natural gasses grid of Barbados right now

The yellow dots show where the rum distilleries are along the grid. Three of the four major distilleries are actually located within the LNG grid so we are proposing a project where we put down pilots on all of the four distilleries, produce biomethane and test it on CNG converted cars within the next year and a half. The estimated total of our proposed project is USD 94,000.00.

Right now it seems like this idea touches on all the sustainable development goals and I think it seems like Mother Earth’s reparation to these free people now, children of former slaves. It’s within the righting of an historic wrong and it’s the beginning of the end of an antagonistic journey from the Coast of West Africa to the islands of the Caribbean. Thank you for listening.


Meet the Research Team behind “Alternatives to EVs: Biofuels in Barbados”

(A Rum and Sargassum bio-fuel project)

LEGENA HENRY, PhD Principal Investigator

Dr Legena Henry represented the SDSN Caribbean at the inaugural Global Solutions Forum (2019) in New York. Dr Henry holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the UWI, St. Augustine campus and an S.M. graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has over ten years of energy related experience and is a Lecturer in Renewable Energy at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies. Her research specializes but are not limited to Renewable Energy, Ocean Engineering Analysis, Ocean Wave Statistics, Marine Hydrodynamics, and Applied Mechanics.

Her present ongoing research at the University of the West Indies focuses on generating electric power from the energy of natural resources such as the ocean waves of the Caribbean Sea.

MS. FELICIA Cox Collaborator

Ms Felicia Cox is the Renewable Energy Co-ordinator at the Barbados National Oil Company Ltd and a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Sciences and Engineering and a Master of Engineering Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, both from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

She is trained in the design and installation of photovoltaic power systems but assists with project development and deployment for various renewable energy technologies. Ms Cox is a Certified Energy Manager. She is among a small group of Certified Energy Managers in Barbados.

In 2018, Ms Cox was selected among the first cohort of the Barbados Renewable Energy Association (BREA) Regional Certified Energy Manager’s (CEM) Training Programme, a U.S-based International Professional organisation.

MS. SHAMIKA SPENCER Assistant to Dr Henry

Ms Shamika Spencer, an MSc student in Biosafety was selected to work with Dr Henry to move the objectives of the project forward.


DR. NIKoLAI HoLDER Collaborator

Dr Nikolai Holder has cross-cutting research interests in Renewable energy management and Environmental studies. He is a lecturer in Biological and Chemical Sciences at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies.

Dr Holder holds a M.Sc. in Renewable Energy Management and a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies from the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. His background is biochemistry with a focus in microbial biochemistry, and he has employed this is his primary area of research, which is microbial fuel production. This involves primarily biomethane production, but also encompasses biodiesel, biobutanol and other biochemically produced compounds, which can be used as fuels.

MR. JoSHUA AUSTIN Research Interns

Mr Joshua Austin is a third year student pursuing a degree in Meteorology and Environmental Science at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill campus in Barbados. He became involved in the project during his summer (2019)programme studies of Carbon Emissions reductions for transportation in a 100% Fossil Fuel Free Barbados in the Renewable Energy Research Experience for Undergraduates (REREU)program at UWI Cave Hill. He is previously attended Queens College in Barbados from where he graduated in 2015.

MS ARIA GooDRIDGE Research Interns

Ms Aria Goodridge is a first year Barbadian student at the Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronics and Alternative Energy Systems. She previously attended both Queen’s College and Christ Church Foundation Secondary School. She shared how she got invoved in the project: “At Foundation, I developed a love for Physics and an interest in alternative energy. During the Summer of 2019, I participated in the Renewable Energy Research Experience for Undergraduates in Barbados led by Dr. Legena Henry. For this project, I examined the sugar cane industry as a support to the transportation energy requirements of Barbados via biofuels. The research concluded that 6.6% of Barbados’s transportation energy requirements can be supported by the sugar cane industry. I chose the sugar cane industry specifically, due to the economic crisis and cultural importance of the sugar cane industry to Barbados.”

Ms Goodridge’s research interest includes redesigning the energy sector in Small Island Developing States based on readily available natural resources.


MS. KARYL PIVoTT Research Interns

Ms Karyl Pivott is a third year student at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, Barbados, pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science. She spoke about how she got involved in the project: “This summer (2019), I studied The Biomenthane and Biodiesel Market of Brazil for Barbados in the Renewable Energy Research Experience for Undergraduates program (REREU).”

She is a past student of the St. Joseph’s Convent St. George’s (Grenada) and Queen’s College (Barbados). Her research interests include various aspects of renewable energy as well as disaster risk management.

MS. BRITNEY MCKENZIE Research Interns

is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in Microbiology and Biochemistry at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, Barbados. In the summer (2019) she joined Dr Henry’s Class and conducted research on the biomethane production potential using Sargassum and distillery fluid waste as feedstock in anaerobic digestion. Her experience includes work in the Food and Water Microbiology departments at the Government Analytical Services (GAS) in Barbados, assisting the Scientific Officers in conducting quality assurance tests on food and water samples and as a Laboratory Assistant in Cytology and Histology at Integrated Pathology Services (IPS) in Barbados.

She reveals that she is very passionate about scientific research and has strong research interest in the area of biogas production.

MS. KRISTEN LYNCH Research Interns

Ms Kristen Lynch is a third year student at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies, Barbados, pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology with Environmental Science. She recalls how she became involved in the project: “This summer (2019) I studied the Resilience of Biomethane Technology to Tropical Islands’ Natural Hazards in Dr Henry’s Renewable Energy Research Experience for Undergraduate Students (REREU) program. She represented the Caribbean Youth Environment Network and by extension, Barbados, in the 9th Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) Youth Roundtable in The Bahamas in 2015. She is a past student of Harrison College, Barbados.


Eight solutions from students, researchers and lecturers located in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Jamaica were submitted for the Caribbean Solutions Initiative in 2019

Four of the eight entries were selected for the finals.• Change from Within by presenter Dr Therese

Ferguson - A school based programme in Jamaica, focusing on reducing violence and anti-social behavior in schools through capacity building among stakeholders. .

• Alternatives to EVs: Biofuels in Barbados by presenter Dr Legena Henry – A one hundred percent (100%) Renewable Energy project for Barbados, based on the use of biomethane from sugar and sargassum (sea weed).

• Cashable Backyard Plant Material by presenter Mrs Chenielle De La Haye - To encourage household gardening in Jamaica to build a plant/seed bank for local natural products manufacturers.

CariScience in Real Life by presenter Teressa Alexander - Using the internet as a medium to teach young students about science and scientific phenomena, through audio visual recording of real life teaching sessions and experiences.

Only two presenters participated in the finals.• Dr Therese Ferguson from Jamaica with

Change from Within

• Dr Legena Henry from Barbados with Alternatives to EVs: Biofuels in Barbados

The judges, after discussions and deliberations unanimously decided that the best solution initiative was Alternatives to EVs: Biofuels in Barbados.

Global Forum PresentationOn September 25, 2019, Henry accompanied by four of her Research Interns (all undergraduate students) travelled to New York to make her presentation at the Global Solutions Forum.

Present position of InitiativeThe outcome of the New York presentation was very good for Dr Henry and her team. In October 2019, Dr Henry and her team received a grant from Blue Chip Foundation to initiate twenty-two (22) months of research, starting in December 2019, to advance her initiative.

Caribbean Solutions Initiative Finals


ContaCt:

Dr David SmithChair & Manager SDSN Caribbean C/o The Institute for Sustainable Development The University of the West Indies13 Gibraltar Camp Way Kingston 7, Jamaica W.I.Tel:(876) 977-1659

June BarbourManager, SDSN CaribbeanC/o The Institute for Sustainable Development The University of the West Indies13 Gibraltar Camp Way Kingston 7Jamaica W.I.Tel: (876) 977-1659

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tWIttER: @CaribbeanSDSN | EMaIL: [email protected]

“alternatives to evs: biofuels in barbados”...the highest energy bills in the world because of...

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