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The business of green - Bioverda targets inedible crop for fuel
Irish biofueld company Bioverda may begin producing biodiesel in Ireland from an inedible crop called japtropha, which grows in Africa and India, in an attempt to shield itself from potential food crop price increases. Worldwide agricultural commodity prices have soared this year as food and biofuel producers compete to secure supplies of corn, rapeseed, sugar beet and other edible crops. Biofuels have already been blamed for rising tortilla prices in Mexico, where the government last week froze prices in an attempt to restrain inflation. According to Bioverda's chief executive, John Mullins, the company believes it could produce biodiesel from japtropha within five years. «The idea is that japtropha is grown in developing countries, crushed there so you get the oil and then we'd bring it to our plants in Cork or Teeside,» he said. «You then blend it with vegetable oil and convert it into biodiesel.» Mullins said that although adopting japtropha was a long-term project, Bioverda's determination to do it was evident in its recent appointment of Nick Brooks as its European chief executive. Brooks was previously chief executive of British firm Sun Biofuels, which has concentrated heavily on developing japtropha plantations and processing infrastructure in Africa. Mullins said, however, that Bioverda would not acquire its own plantations but would seek partnerships with plantation owners. «We would invest in the crushing infrastructure to produce the oil but you have to remember that we're not farmers, we're industrialists,» he said. He denied that Bioverda's decision to embrace japtropha reflected a concern that biofuels were driving up world food and crop prices. «Drought and harvest issues are what are driving prices,» said Mullins. «There's a massive shortage of feed (for livestock) at the moment because of drought in Australia and the bad European summer. Biofuels shouldn't be kicked about as a football in all this.» The Irish Farmers Association (IFA), which has expressed concern about the effects that the biofuels boom could have on feed prices, has said it welcomes Bioverda's move. The IFA's bioenergy project team leader, JJ Kavanagh, said the bioenergy field represented «a real opportunity for increased confidence and investment in agriculture and the rural economy while simultaneously addressing environmental and sustainability issues». He said the IFA shared Bioverda's assessment of the reasons for high crop prices. «While there is a lot of hype around the effect biofuel production is having on prices, this is only minor factor as weather and economics are the major contributing factors.»
Date: 19.08.2007 Comments:Leave your comment
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NQErHTMUrEy
Biofuels are a joke and a scam. Does anyone rzaliee that if you trap the CO2 in algae, but then process it some other processing plant (which requires energy) and use it to fuel trucks (which requires energy to get it to the trucks) and then you burn it, the CO2 goes into the air anyway, and you used MORE overall fuel by fueling the production process of the biofuel. And where did the energy to store it in algae come from? THE SUN. So it is the most inefficient solar panel in the world, essentially.If you wanted it to be good for the environment you'd throw the algae into the sea or something, not burn it for fuel. All biofuel in my opinion as a physicist is a scam. Companies can pretend to be green while polluting just as much. And don't get me started on the corn biofuels, and other grain biofuels. Again it's just solar energy, which grows a plant, and then the plant is processed, shipped, and burned while the grain prices sky rocket and people starve somewhere in the world because of it.
Biofuels are a joke and a scam. Does anyone rzaliee that if you trap the CO2 in algae, but then process it some other processing plant (which require, 14.04.2012 04:02:58