World First for Tanzanian Biofuel Nut Project - PART 4 of 5 | Voice of America - English
  */  /*-->*/  /*-->*/ A revolutionary new development project in Tanzania is set to make biofuel from nuts ? a first for Africa. It'll also be the first time in the world that environmentally friendly fuel is manufactured using the oil from the fruit of the Croton tree, a plant indigenous to East Africa. The goal of the initiative is to replace up to 10 percent of Tanzania's oil requirements by 2018, through the production and sale of cheaper vegetable oil as bio-diesel. It will also provide a new cash crop to smallholder farmers.
Inother parts of the world, biofuel is made using oil from coconuts and soybeans.Now, Tanzania is to manufacture it using nuts from the Croton tree - a"wonderful" and "amazing" plant, according to Christine Adamow, the woman at the helm of acompany called Africa Biofuel and Emission Reduction, based in Dar es Salaam. Hergroundbreaking project will function in Tanzania's northwestern Kagera region,where the Croton tree grows prodigiously. "Currently,the tree is not used for anything other than beauty. It has a very prettycanopy. Often, you'll see these trees planted as decorations at small farms andhomes," Adamow explains. Butbeyond the Croton's aesthetic qualities, it can also provide other benefits forthousands of Tanzanians. Adamow tells VOA, "The tree produces a nut, and thisnut has three seeds inside the husk. The seeds contain 27 percent oil byweight. We've been analyzing the tree and the nuts for the past seven years.Our analysis tells us that this oil, as a source of straight vegetable oil,provides a clean source of biofuel for diesel generators and diesel motors." Many people in Tanzania don't haveelectricity. Some rely on generators for power, and most on fire for theirheating, cooking and other requirements. Few residents can afford the dieselrequired to power engines. Currently, fossil diesel in western Tanzania costs almostUS $11 per gallon. But Adamow says her biofuel would retail at "about 60percent of prices at the pump." At the moment, this translates to about six anda half US dollars. According to research done by Adamow'sfirm, this reduction in the price of fuel would make it affordable to tens ofthousands of Tanzanian families. The entrepreneur makes a point of stressing that Croton nuts are non-edibleand that her company doesn't advocate growing food crops for biofuelproduction. "We've seen a worldwide increase in the maize price, for example, as aresult of shortages because farmers in places like the US have started to growthe crop specifically for the purposes of making ethanol. We don't want anyrepeats of this," she maintains. "We want to help, not harm, poor people." Adamowsays it took seven years of painstaking research to unlock the secret of theCroton tree. "Iwork with an astonishing group of international scientists and economists, andthese people have been resident in East Africa for almost eight years. The mainpurpose and driver among this group of people has been to somehow find a way tobring an affordable source of clean fuel to very rural parts of East Africa. Inso doing, these scientists had some requirements. Clearly it was paramount thatnone of the feedstock that they would choose to grow would compete with anyfood source." Theexperts then studied several plants indigenous to East Africa and investigatedtheir potential as biofuel sources. Adamow says, "Indoing the field studies, they found this tree first in Kenya and determinedthat because the seeds are non-edible, the nuts go unused. So it was naturalfor these scientists to evaluate the Croton nuts. And they found that they werevery oily, and that the oil was great to be used in generators." She adds that thescientists then did more research on the Croton and "where potentially we mightbe able to grow it under very regimented conditions in East Africa'sagricultural sector." They settled onTanzania's Kagera area, near Lake Victoria, after also finding the Croton treethere in great numbers. "Theexciting thing about the tree also is that it doesn't seem to have a lot ofirrigation requirements. In studying the 50-year water patterns and rainpatterns in the regions where the tree grows, there have been several years ofsignificant drought. Yet the tree has still done exceptionally well, because ithas a very deep rooting system (that enables it to draw moisture from deepunderground)," Adamow comments. Sheexplains that farmers will plant Croton trees between their traditional foodcrops. "The other greatpart about the tree is that because it has such an open canopy it allows us andregional farmers to continue growing their food stocks alongside this tree(because the crops still receive adequate sunlight). Intercropping is a very,very important part of our business model." Adamowdescribes Kagera as "extremely underdeveloped." "Thearea that we've targeted as the core plantation is an?.underutilized landmass.It's about 20,000 hectares, that had been maybe two decades ago used as acoffee plantation. That land lies unproductive at the moment," she says. "It isreasonable that since the tree grows very close to that region, and the land isnot currently been used for anything, it would be a great place to begin theplanting of millions of these trees." Adamowsays when the Croton nuts are ripe they fall to the ground. "We'llpick them up and put them through a manual crusher. It doesn't require any fuelor electricity. It's equivalent to a grinder, if you will. That separates thehusks from the seeds. Once we've done this, we take the seeds and we put themthrough a manual press ? very much like you would make any type of nut butter.You would just add a lot of pressure manually to a very large tank of theseseeds. The oil (is) pressed out of those seeds," she explains. "Theremaining portion of the seeds doesn't have any oil in it and is called the'press cake'? that we believe could be the basis for fertilizer?. and in somecases might even be converted into another material that might be used in thecogeneration of electricity." Adamowsays the oil can be used "straight, without any refining" in most dieselengines and diesel generators, but that her company might at some stage be"forced?to take the oil through a refinery process" in order for the fuel to becompatible with more advanced engines. "Wemay need to alter the composition of that straight vegetable oil to create abio-diesel fuel able to be used in highly sophisticated engines," she says. "Ifwe have to do that, then a refinery will be built in the region, and a classicbio-diesel refining processor will be developed." ButAdamow is hoping to avoid this, as such a development requires "some prettysophisticated chemistry" and she doesn't want anything to hinder the projectand its benefits for the people of Kagera. Adamowmaintains that her initiative will generate income for local inhabitants inthree ways. "First,local farmers will be working with us to grow the tree, so we'll be purchasingnuts from them. In addition, these same farmers will provide us with a seasonallabor force for harvesting our nuts on the core plantation. And third - which Ithink is most exciting and important - these same employees, who are localfarmers and residents of rural Tanzania, will be owners in this company, and(will) share in stocks and equity opportunities." She saysher enterprise will dedicate itself to bringing "cash flow," affordable fuel andfair labor practices to the Kagera region, but will also consider it a priority to start turning profits as soon as possible. "Withoutprofit, all of those people working in the company and those who have stockownership in the company would reap no value," she states. "When we generateprofit, the profit gets plied back to those people?and to the region where thecompany is located." Anotherobjective, Adamow emphasizes, is "to get the kids back into school, whichcurrently is very difficult to do, because there is no electricity in thatregion. And with the usage of affordable bio-diesel fuel, we can even spawn neweducational opportunities for children."