Hi Isabel, > 2. We have ordered seeds from India and we intend planting these seeds > and > once the trees are old enough we take cuttings from them, we will supply > the > local people with these cuttings so that they will be able to establish > small plantations. Apparently Jatropha grows easily from cuttings and the > cuttings produce fruits earlier than Jatropha planted from seeds.
Mafikeng Biodiesel, together with Invest North West and the Barolong Boora Tshidi Development Company, has established a nursery to grow Jatropha near Mafikeng, I haven't seen it but by all accounts it's impressive. Have a look at http://www.biodiesel.co.za. I'm told that 45000 ha has been made available, oil from this is enough for a 26000tpa plant. Not quite home brewing but lots of jobs in the growing and processing. > 3. Once again we will assist the local people to establish simple hand > presses that would be able to press the fruit and the oil once filtered can > be used directly in there tractors and stationery engines. We will teach > them to start up on normal diesel and then switch over to the Jatropha oil > once the engines are warm and to switch back to diesel again before > shutting Why not convert it to Biodiesel? It's better in the long run. While all you need to know is at http://www.journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html I'd be happy to share what I've learnt about finding raw materials etc. > People who do not have tractors > or engines can sell the oil or the fruit on the open market. Jatropha is hardy and has a highish yield (http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html) but it's also toxic. The seedcake (whats left after pressing) cannot be fed to animals South Africa imports a large quantity of seedcake annually. I found this http://www.jatropha.de/ and this http://www.ecoworld.org/Home/Articles2.cfm? TID=367 interesting. > 5. Oh! I nearly forgot we are up in the north eastern section of South > Africa (Limpopo province) the area were we are is supposed to be sub > tropical but the last 4 years has been very dry and we have not received > any > where near our normal rainfall and this year so far is the worse. Limpopo > is > the poorest province in South Africa. One advantage we have is that there > is > large tracts of land that can be used for planting and the quality of the > soil generally is not bad, now all we need is for our normal rainfall to > return. The Agricultural Research Council (ARC) is looking at setting up a biodiesel training spot near Marble Hall - using sunflowers as the raw material. > 6.One of the reason we are thinking of using Jatropha is because we > understand it grows in all conditions and will even grow in semi arid > regions, it never goes below 8 degrees Celsius here. I understand the jury is still out, from a Department of Agriculture and Dept of Water Affairs point of view. There is concern about encouraging the growth of alien plants without doing research on the impact it will have on water resources. I do have an article on this somewhere I'll try and find it and post the link. > 7. Locally there are no sources of used vegetable oils etc. to enable us > to try and make bio diesel so we will wait until we are able to produce our > own oil and them learn how to convert it to bio diesel. I'd encourage you to try and set up you own processor it was a little more expensive but I made my first few batches with virgin oil I bought - off the shelf. > There are many other reasons that we are thinking of going exclusively > with jatropha but you must understand that we are only going on what we > have > read and have no practical experience and would appreciate any input and > advice from anyone as we do not want to disappoint the local people, to > them > it would be a tremendous boast if this plan can work. As you will see if you lurk around this list good biodiesel can be made by anyone. I think it's a great, empowering concept for people to become self reliant in a commodity that has always been representative of 'first' world domination. Good luck and if there is anyway I can help, let me know. Regards, Duncan Mills ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IDWS Webmail www.idws.com IDWS - South Africa's leader in personal & corporate internet services. _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
