Hello Dennis, welcome
I am in the process of doing the same in Belize, Central America. I
have some land and want to grow Jatropha and encourage the local
people to grow it as a cash crop to help the local economy and ease
the high price of fuel there.
Why jatropha? Better to use crops the local people have some
experience of, more important than allegedly high yields. Please see
this recent message (in the same thread):
http://sustainablelists.org/pipermail/biofuel_sustainablelists.org/200
5-July/000989.html
[Biofuel] Biofuel as a rural community development project in Mozambique
Or:
http://snipurl.com/g2cn
Anyway, depending on climate and growing conditions, the high yields
vary, all the way down to low yields. This is from Dr Karve in India:
From: "A.D. Karve" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Harmon Seaver" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Jatropha oil as household energy (forwarding Henning)
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 21:29:28 +0530
Dear Mr. Seaver,
I have conducted field experiments on both castor and Jatropha. I had
already mentioned in a previous E-mail, that Jatropha was tested rather
widely in India and was given up because it was not found to be as high
yielding as the traditional oil crops in India. I do not know how it
behaves in other countries, but under our agroclimatic and edaphic
conditions, Jatropha produces much more vegetative matter than fruits. At
harvest, one has to search for the occasional fruit hidden behind all the
foliage that this plant produces. It is found all over India as a wild
plant. India has some 25 uncultivated species of trees that yield
non-edible oil. The seed of the wild trees is collected by villagers and
sold to merchants attending the weekly village markets, but no farmer would
ever think of growing them as a crop, because all of them are lower yielding
than the cultivated oil plants such as peanut, soybean, sunflower,
safflower, sesame, various mustards and rapes, coconut, etc. Among the
seasonal oilseeds, hybrid castor is the highest yielding (2.5 tonnes oil per
ha), but it is not an edible oil. The highest yield of edible oil, also
about 2.5 tonnes per ha, is obtained from coconut. Oil palm, which yields 6
tonnes of oil per hectare in Malaysia, was tested and given up as low
yielding under Indian conditions.
Yours A.D.Karve
http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg48290.html
[biofuels-biz] Fwd: Re: Jatropha oil as household energy
The fact that the jatropha seedcake can't be fed to livestock is a
big disadvantage.
Anyone know of where to find a good seed oil press for a third world
application? Also, is there a place where I find a plant oil cooking
stove? What is known about using palm nut/coconut oil for as veggie
oil in a diesel engine?
Do a search of the list archives.
For palm oil, no problem processing it into biodiesel, but it's a
warm-weather fuel, the gel point is quite high. If it's unrefined
palm oil, straight from the palm, it's likely to have a very high
Free Fatty Acid content, but it can still be processed (not for
novices though). Do a search for "Allen" and check the thread called
"High FFA oils - another way" and associated threads:
http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuels-biz/
If you mean using it as straight vegetable oil fuel (not biodiesel),
please see:
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_SVO-Allen.html
Straighter-than-straight vegetable oils as diesel fuels
There is a wild palm nut in Belize that might be used as a biofuel.
What's the full name of it? The African oil palm is Elaeis guineensis:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/duke_energy/Elaeis_guineensis.html
Elaeis guineensis
It's native to West Africa, where it grows wild. Maybe it grows well
in Belize, or maybe not.
The Attalea cohune palm or Orbignya cohune, the American oil palm, is
native to Central America, but information on its oil yield potential
is not so easy to find.
Best wishes
Keith
Thanks,
Dennis
From: "Armando R" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
To: <Biofuel@sustainablelists.org>
Subject: RE: [Biofuel] Biofuel as a rural community development
projectinMozambique
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 10:58:09 +0200
Alexis,
With the current oil prices I am sure many things can be done in rural
communities in Mozambique in the area of biofuels.
I would leave fuel ethanol for the sugar cane factories to produce. It can
be mixed up to 10% in gasoline as the Malawians are doing, apparently.
The rural poor buy kerosene (and sometimes gasoil) for illumination at very
high prices, above USD1000,00 per cubic metre in many remote areas, were
vegetable oil (coconut oil for instance) could be used. This would be a very
small-scale project, but the local alternative price of the raw material
should be investigated. I have done some calculations on coconut oil and
found out that the raw material (copra) is the most important single cost in
the production of oil.
The vegetable oil could also be used in diesel engines running the
small-scale mills scattered around the rural communities.
Best regards,
Armando A.C. Rodrigues
Av Francisco O. Magumbwe, 149
C.P 3279 Maputo 2
Maputo - Moçambique
Tel. Móvel: +258 82 3016040
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----Mensagem original-----
De: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] nome de Alexis Rawlinson
Enviada: segunda-feira, 27 de Junho de 2005 20:43
Para: Biofuel@sustainablelists.org
Assunto: [Biofuel] Biofuel as a rural community development project
inMozambique
I am toying with the idea of trying to set up a pilot rural community
development project involving biofuel (bioethanol or biodiesel or SVO,
whichever is most appropriate) in Mozambique. I am hoping that you can give
me your opinion and advice on the technical feasibility, commercial
viability and ultimately, long-term sustainability, in a poor isolated
African rural setting, of small-scale, community-based, locally-run biofuel
production. If anyone has had experience of a similar project, I would be
extremely interested to have information about that.
Am I right in thinking that the technical feasibility is beyond question?
Bear in mind that we are talking about very isolated and poor communities
where everything has to be low-tech and low-maintenance. On the basis of
this criterion, biodiesel appears to be the most appropriate fuel as it can
be used in diesel vehicles/machines/generators (even very old and rickety
ones?) with no engine modifications. We can discount the issue of having to
change filters initially because of accumulated petrodiesel deposits falling
off (we could include the cost of new filters in start-up subsidies). We
also don't need to worry about problems with cold starts, since Mozambique
is a tropical country.
I am more concerned about the question of commercial viability. The project
will only be replicable on a larger scale and sustainable in the long term
if, after initial start-up costs, every link in the value chain has an
incentive to participate and it is profitable for all concerned (i.e. the
anticipated gains should outweigh the expected costs, including the
opportunity cost of doing something else).
a) Inputs: Local farmers will have an incentive to supply the biofuel
production facility with feedstock only if prices paid and quantities
required by the production facility are stable and remunerative compared to
undertaking other activities, such as growing other crops for other
purposes.
b) Production: Local entrepreneurs will have an incentive to make
investments in biofuel production facilities and operate and maintain those
facilities only if they can sell their fuel at a remunerative price, i.e. if
they can compete against fossil fuels (whether locally, nationally,
regionally or globally, depending on the scale of production).
c) Demand: We know that the world market for biofuels is growing rapidly and
that the policy environment is becoming extremely favourable. However,
supposing, as is most likely to be the case, that local biofuel is most
competitive on the local market (and least competitive on the global market,
where it has to compete with industrial-scale production), there must be a
critical mass of buyers on that market, i.e. local communities must have the
desire / ability to invest in machines, vehicles or generators, and the
ability to pay for biofuel on a regular basis to run those machines.
I guess the root question is the following: is the current situation in
rural southern Africa - no biofuel production - a market failure that could
be resolved by kickstarting a virtuous cycle in the sector with start-up
outreach and support activities and subsidies, or is it simply not an
economically viable sector except with permanent subsidy and support?
It seems to me that, to answer this question, there are three crucial cost
assessments which need to be made:
a) Start-up costs: the required investments by farmers, by local biofuel
entrepreneurs, by future biofuel consumers, and to what extent can/should
"outreach and support activities" subsidize these fixed costs?
b) Price and availability of feedstock: How will local feedstock production
compare to growing other crops or not growing crops at all? Might it
potentially actually be cheaper to import the feedstock from elsewhere
(which would defeat much of the local development aspect of the project)?
P.S. A lot of sugarcane is grown in Mozambique and the country has big
potential to become a major low-cost producer of sugar (and therefore
ethanol?) (although again, we are more likely talking about large estates
than small-holders).
c) Value of market demand for biofuel: How cheaply will local biofuel
producers be able to sell their production, and how large will be their
market? To what extent can they compete with fossil fuels, and imported
industrial-scale biofuel producers on the local/national/regional/global
market?
Do you agree with this general approach? Do you think the idea is viable?
Have you undertaken this kind of cost assessment, or do you know of someone
who has? Do you have ballpark figures for the various costs involved? In
short, should I keep working on this idea and try to turn into reality or
are the chances of success too low to merit serious attention?
Many thanks for your help.
Alexis
Alexis Rawlinson
Economista, UTCOM-DRI
Ministério da Indústria e Comércio
Endereço postal: C.P. 400, Maputo, Moçambique
Tel: +258 82 8059650
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