By A friend of mine read the post before this one and she noted my mention of biomass conversion to fuels so she reminded me how PNG did embark on a Cassava project which was to bring in investment etc, only last year I think it was. So I wonder what happened to it, does anyone out there know?
The idea of an Ethanol producing project from Cassava is not that new I guess because even way back in 1981 an Australian company called Davy McKee Pacific was to build the first of nine proposed ethanol plants here in PNG in a bid to produce 50% of the country`s transport fuels by 1990 (shit it’s 2007 now!!). The first $4 million facility, to be located at a government station on the Baiyer River in the Highlands, was to yield 2 million liters of ethanol a year from the cassava root.
So if it’s so old, why hasn’t it taken off?? Wouldn’t this be a great carrot to have waved to voters to say hey look at me we’re gonna make businesses cheaper to operate?? Lets see if the New/Old govt. will bring it up again cos it looks like we’ve been waiting since 1981 for this.
Just so you can see what it has done for Brasil, using suger though, see the YouTube video below.
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
August 15, 2007 at 12:52 am
Rex
Manu
I have been pondering on how best we can reduce fuel prices in Manus. IT’s really costly to travel to the outter islands. Fuel prices are so high, it’ll cost you over a grand for return trips to Rambuto na Baluan.
I think, you have hit the “Jackpot” here. Ethanol mix with petrol could dramatically reduce fuel prices as 10 gallons of fuel will be bought and it will be mixed with ethanol to give the maxmum benefits similar to buying 20 gallons. I think….people should start buying into this concept.
I read once….Australia was doing that when fuel prices where rocket high. Why can’t we do something similar in PNG??
August 15, 2007 at 1:02 am
Emmanuel
Well from what I can see the technology isn’t new and our government have already had plans and policies to implement it, so it just needs the political will from Parliament to get it going again.
The cars to run on both ethonal and fuel are already being produced internationally, so again if the government can create some incentives for pushing development in this alternate fuel would be great.
I just hope the InterOil issue is not involved somehow to hinder development of alternate fuels.
August 15, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Nathan
“I read once….Australia was doing that when fuel prices where rocket high. Why can’t we do something similar in PNG??”
Australia only has 10% maximum ethanol fuel in its content, and even that can be difficult to find in many parts of the country. As with PNG, the political will to increase biofuel use just isn’t there.
I don’t know much about making ethanol from cassava, is there any information on how it compares to sugar cane or corn?
August 16, 2007 at 1:31 am
Emmanuel
Good points Nathan about a comparison in energy yields from the different types of biomass, I think another consideration too in regards to whether we use Sugar Cane, Corn or Cassava is how easily and cheaply it can be grown and what experiences we already have to capitalise on that. For example it is easy to see why Sugar was chosen by Brasil because they have had a huge sugar industry spanning over a hundred years, so it would have been easy for them to move into ethanol from sugar cane.
As for PNG well as you pointed out rightly what biomass is suitable for our situation? Hope someone out there can help, might also look into it myself.
March 1, 2008 at 5:30 am
I want to go to Brasil 01 « the Masalai blog
[...] then it’s inviting and open culture. (whateverrr?!!)…No seriously like for example my post last year with a YouTube Video about how they’ve turned their sugar canes into ethanol for [...]