Feature- The vision 2048 for Sri Lanka

By Upali Wickramasingha

It is a welcome sign that at least one politician in the hotchpotch of our politics has spoken of the vision for economic advancement of this country. A welcome change from the riff raff that had been the politics of our country and the control of the economy.

The governments of the past may have had ideas about advancing our economy, but regret to say that those projects did not mesh with the country’s net requirement.

Let us look at what the Central Bank had reported in 2021.

Let us start the discussion with a study of the country’s balance sheet – The Annual Report of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka 2021 - The imports – Table 81

(a ) Total imports in US $ Mn.  Total 69,862 US$ Mn.

(b)  Imports of petroleum in US $ Mn   Total 12,267 US $Mn.

(c)  Imports of Sugar in US $ Mn

(d)  Imports of Diary products in US $ Mn

(e)  Import of fertilizer in US $ Mn.

The bulk of the funds are spent on the import of petroleum fuels. Column (a) - compare those figures with the total imports of US $ 12,267 Mn or Rs 4,477,455,000,000. (US$ = Rs 365) through the period 2018-2021.

Any solution to our economy has to be based on reducing or circumventing the imports attached to the energy sector.

The same report indicate the breakdown of the sources of power generation.

If the country is to attain the high degree of development, either with local investment or with foreign investment, one of the crucial factors would be the availability and the cost of power. If the generation of power from natural sources is 36.57% ( 41.51+30.1+31.6+43.1) /4,  and that from imported fossil fuels is 63.43% ie the proposal to achieve the status of a highly developed nation by 2048, will end as a glorious wish.

The world is not getting fossil petroleum oil at US $ 4.00 per barrel as in 1948 or so, it rose to US $ 150.00 sometime back and the projections are that the supply of fossil oils and gasses will cease soon due to the wells running dry or the sources being found deep in the earth’s body.

It is high time that the country plans for alternate sources of power. Expectations that Solar and Wind will come to our assistance is praying to a false God. They can contribute to a minor degree only.

To my knowledge there are two fuels that can replace petrol and diesel. They are Ethyl alcohol and Butyl alcohol. Ethyl alcohol is presently used in many countries in the world except three countries, Sri Lanka being one of them, as a fuel. It is used in place of diesel. In a mix with petrol. Brazil is reputed to run cars with pure ethyl alcohol. In the use of ethyl alcohol there are many problems to overcome.

Butyl alcohol has no such problems. It can be used in petrol as well as diesel vehicles. In the production of butyl alcohol there are other advantages, production of Hydrogen, which is used in Fuel Cells to generate electricity. There are vehicles running on fuel cells and in one country fuel cells supply electricity to the national grid.

Fuel cell technology was considered expensive as the unit requires Platinum unit, which is an expensive metal. Recently a university in the UK developed a technology to replace Platinum with Iron.

China is said to be the leader in the Fuel cell technology for generating electricity for household use. The system is inexpensive and easy to use.

The question that arise next is the basis of the production- raw materials for the alcohol.

The world over the raw materials used are (i) Sugar Cane (ii) Corn (iii) Cereals All these sources have to be planted and nurtured annually. This is an expensive operation involving manpower, use of fossil fuels (diesel) machinery etc,

Pre- fermentation cost of biomass

Pre- fermentation cost of biomass

In place of the annuals I would suggest resort to plants common to our country lasting over 10 years after planting eg Jack (40-80 years) Banana (20-30 years). Another source is water from coconut fruits. Coconut plants are known to exist over 90 years.

What about the loss due to not extending sugar cane plantations? The production of sugar locally is not an exercise which can be justified.- see table below 

There are other reasons why the said fruits are preferred to the traditional sugar cane.

Sugar cane has to be crushed to extract the juice (about 12% of the weight of cane). The crushing is handled by five sets of three massive rollers about 2.5ft in diameter. That itself consumes a lot of energy, which is obtained by burning fossil fuels (Furnace fuel).

With the fruits, the fruits can be softened and the product liquidized at a very low cost system. The softened fruit in a bath of dilute acid or an enzyme will yield the material for processing. Material available near 98% of the weight of the fruit

Alcohol distillation consumes a high incidence of fuel, according to the traditional system. It can be brought down by over 90%, according to my studies at the distillery at Kantale in the 1960s. I found that bulk of the heat generated by burning the oil (Furnace fuel) is lost in the waste water. (Email of writer - spupalisw@yahoo.com).