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    Scottish and Southern Energy plc, the UK's second largest power company, has completed the acquisition of Slough Heat and Power Ltd from SEGRO plc for a total cash consideration of £49.25m. The 101MW CHP plant is the UK’s largest dedicated biomass energy facility fueled by wood chips, biomass and waste paper. Part of the plant is contracted under the Non Fossil Fuel Obligation and part of it produces over 200GWH of output qualifying for Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs), which is equivalent to around 90MW of wind generation. Scottish & Southern Energy - January 2, 2007.

    PetroChina Co Ltd, the country's largest oil and gas producer, plans to invest 800 million yuan to build an ethanol plant in Nanchong, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, its parent China National Petroleum Corp said. The ethanol plant has a designed annual capacity of 100,000 tons. ABCMoneyNews - December 21, 2007.

    Mexico passed legislation to promote biofuels last week, offering unspecified support to farmers that grow crops for the production of any renewable fuel. Agriculture Minister Alberto Cardenas said Mexico could expand biodiesel faster than ethanol. More soon. Reuters - December 20, 2007.

    Oxford Catalysts has placed an order worth approximately €700,000 (US$1 million) with the German company Amtec for the purchase of two Spider16 high throughput screening reactors. The first will be used to speed up the development of catalysts for hydrodesulphurisation (HDS). The second will be used to further the development of catalysts for use in gas to liquid (GTL) and Fischer-Tropsch processes which can be applied to next generation biofuels. AlphaGalileo - December 18, 2007.

    According to the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), Brazil's production of sugarcane will increase from 514,1 million tonnes this season, to a record 561,8 million tonnes in the 2008/09 cyclus - an increase of 9.3%. New numbers are also out for the 2007 harvest in Brazil's main sugarcane growing region, the Central-South: a record 425 million tonnes compared to 372,7 million tonnes in 2006, or a 14% increase. The estimate was provided by Unica – the União da Indústria de Cana-de-Açúcar. Jornal Cana - December 16, 2007.

    The University of East Anglia and the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre have today released preliminary global temperature figures for 2007, which show the top 11 warmest years all occurring in the last 13 years. The provisional global figure for 2007 using data from January to November, currently places the year as the seventh warmest on records dating back to 1850. The announcement comes as the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Michel Jarraud, speaks at the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Bali. Eurekalert - December 13, 2007.

    The Royal Society of Chemistry has announced it will launch a new journal in summer 2008, Energy & Environmental Science, which will distinctly address both energy and environmental issues. In recognition of the importance of research in this subject, and the need for knowledge transfer between scientists throughout the world, from launch the RSC will make issues of Energy & Environmental Science available free of charge to readers via its website, for the first 18 months of publication. This journal will highlight the important role that the chemical sciences have in solving the energy problems we are facing today. It will link all aspects of energy and the environment by publishing research relating to energy conversion and storage, alternative fuel technologies, and environmental science. AlphaGalileo - December 10, 2007.

    Dutch researcher Bas Bougie has developed a laser system to investigate soot development in diesel engines. Small soot particles are not retained by a soot filter but are, however, more harmful than larger soot particles. Therefore, soot development needs to be tackled at the source. Laser Induced Incandescence is a technique that reveals exactly where soot is generated and can be used by project partners to develop cleaner diesel engines. Terry Meyer, an Iowa State University assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is using similar laser technology to develop advanced sensors capable of screening the combustion behavior and soot characteristics specifically of biofuels. Eurekalert - December 7, 2007.

    Lithuania's first dedicated biofuel terminal has started operating in Klaipeda port. At the end of November 2007, the stevedoring company Vakaru krova (VK) started activities to manage transshipments. The infrastructure of the biodiesel complex allows for storage of up to 4000 cubic meters of products. During the first year, the terminal plans to transship about 70.000 tonnes of methyl ether, after that the capacities of the terminal would be increased. Investments to the project totaled €2.3 million. Agrimarket - December 5, 2007.

    New Holland supports the use of B100 biodiesel in all equipment with New Holland-manufactured diesel engines, including electronic injection engines with common rail technology. Overall, nearly 80 percent of the tractor and equipment manufacturer's New Holland-branded products with diesel engines are now available to operate on B100 biodiesel. Tractor and equipment maker John Deere meanwhile clarified its position for customers that want to use biodiesel blends up to B20. Grainnet - December 5, 2007.

    According to Wetlands International, an NGO, the Kyoto Protocol as it currently stands does not take into account possible emissions from palm oil grown on a particular type of land found in Indonesia and Malaysia, namely peatlands. Mongabay - December 5, 2007.

    Malaysia's oil & gas giant Petronas considers entering the biofuels sector. Zamri Jusoh, senior manager of Petronas' petroleum development management unit told reporters "of course our focus is on oil and gas, but I think as we move into the future we cannot ignore the importance of biofuels." AFP - December 5, 2007.

    In just four months, the use of biodiesel in the transport sector has substantially improved air quality in Metro Manila, data from the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) showed. A blend of one percent coco-biodiesel is mandated by the Biofuels Act of 2007 which took effect last May. By 2009, it would be increased to two percent. Philippine Star - December 4, 2007.

    Kazakhstan will next year adopt laws to regulate its fledgling biofuel industry and plans to construct at least two more plants in the next 18 months to produce environmentally friendly fuel from crops, industry officials said. According to Akylbek Kurishbayev, vice-minister for agriculture, he Central Asian country has the potential to produce 300,000 tons a year of biodiesel and export half. Kazakhstan could also produce up to 1 billion liters of bioethanol, he said. "The potential is huge. If we use this potential wisely, we can become one of the world's top five producers of biofuels," Beisen Donenov, executive director of the Kazakhstan Biofuels Association, said on the sidelines of a grains forum. Reuters - November 30, 2007.

    SRI Consulting released a report on chemicals from biomass. The analysis highlights six major contributing sources of green and renewable chemicals: increasing production of biofuels will yield increasing amounts of biofuels by-products; partial decomposition of certain biomass fractions can yield organic chemicals or feedstocks for the manufacture of various chemicals; forestry has been and will continue to be a source of pine chemicals; evolving fermentation technology and new substrates will also produce an increasing number of chemicals. Chemical Online - November 27, 2007.

    German industrial conglomerate MAN AG plans to expand into renewable energies such as biofuels and solar power. Chief Executive Hakan Samuelsson said services unit Ferrostaal would lead the expansion. Reuters - November 24, 2007.

    Analysts think Vancouver-based Ballard Power Systems, which pumped hundreds of millions and decades of research into developing hydrogen fuel cells for cars, is going to sell its automotive division. Experts describe the development as "the death of the hydrogen highway". The problems with H2 fuel cell cars are manifold: hydrogen is a mere energy carrier and its production requires a primary energy input; production is expensive, as would be storage and distribution; finally, scaling fuel cells and storage tanks down to fit in cars remains a huge challenge. Meanwhile, critics have said that the primary energy for hydrogen can better be used for electricity and electric vehicles. On a well-to-wheel basis, the cleanest and most efficient way to produce hydrogen is via biomass, so the news is a set-back for the biohydrogen community. But then again, biomass can be used more efficiently as electricity for battery cars. Canada.com - November 21, 2007.

    South Korea plans to invest 20 billion won (€14.8/$21.8 million) by 2010 on securing technologies to develop synthetic fuels from biomass, coal and natural gas, as well as biobutanol. 29 private companies, research institutes and universities will join this first stage of the "next-generation clean energy development project" led by South Korea's Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy. Korea Times - November 19, 2007.

    OPEC leaders began a summit today with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez issuing a chilling warning that crude prices could double to US$200 from their already-record level if the United States attacked Iran or Venezuela. He urged assembled leaders from the OPEC, meeting for only the third time in the cartel's 47-year history, to club together for geopolitical reasons. But the cartel is split between an 'anti-US' block including Venezuela, Iran, and soon to return ex-member Ecuador, and a 'neutral' group comprising most Gulf States. France24 - November 17, 2007.

    The article "Biofuels: What a Biopact between North and South could achieve" published in the scientific journal Energy Policy (Volume 35, Issue 7, 1 July 2007, Pages 3550-3570) ranks number 1 in the 'Top 25 hottest articles'. The article was written by professor John A. Mathews, Macquarie University (Sydney, Autralia), and presents a case for a win-win bioenergy relationship between the industrialised and the developing world. Mathews holds the Chair of Strategic Management at the university, and is a leading expert in the analysis of the evolution and emergence of disruptive technologies and their global strategic management. ScienceDirect - November 16, 2007.

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Thursday, December 21, 2006

Abrupt Climate Change and geo-engineering the planet with carbon-negative bioenergy

Quicknote bioenergy science
A few days ago, we wrote a tentative piece on how bioenergy can be taken radically carbon-negative, and could thus potentially provide a strategy to mitigate climate change effectively if it were to prove more disastrous than expected.
In the meantime, researchers in the US published an interesting paper which shows that overconfidence leads to bias in climate change estimations; that indeed, global warming could be more 'dangerous' than we assume. They provide evidence that the current practice neglects a sizeable fraction of 'low probability' events that would have a huge impact on the world's environment, its economies and societies (basically, catastrophies, such as the collapse of the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic). This neglect results in biased outcomes and scenarios. According to their study, past scenarios of carbon dioxide emissions can miss as much as 40 percent of probabilistic projection, missing a large number of low-probability, high impact events. The scientists suggest that future scenarios should therefor include them.

Yesterday, our attention was drawn to previous research which precisely combines these two insights - the underestimation of the climate change threat, and an effective remedy to fend off the potential catastrophe. In their paper entitled 'Bio-Energy with Carbon Storage (BECS): a Sequential Decision Approach to the threat of Abrupt Climate Change', Peter Read and Jonathan Lermit show that

Abrupt Climate Change (ACC - NAS, 2001) is an issue that ‘haunts the climate change problem’ (IPCC, 2001) but has been neglected by policy makers up to now, maybe for want of practicable measures for effective response, save for risky geo-engineering.

Safe geo-engineering with bioenergy
In our previous piece, we mentioned some of these out-of-this-world geo-engineering plans that circulate within the scientific community (from seeding the oceans with iron, to doping the skies with sulphur). But Read and Lermit have identified "bio-energy with carbon storage" (BECS) as a safe, feasible, clean and efficient way of mitigating abrupt and catastrophic climate change.
Negative emissions energy systems are key to responding to ACC because – taking account of rising levels on non-CO2 greenhouse gases, for which no means exists for accelerating natural removal processes – the need may be to get to CO2 levels below pre-industrial. This cannot be done by natural absorption, even with zero emissions
energy [such as wind, solar, nuclear].

A portfolio of Bio-Energy with Carbon Storage (BECS) technologies, yielding negative emissions energy, may be seen as benign, low risk, geo-engineering that is the key to being prepared for ACC. The nature of sequential decisions, taken in response to the evolution of currently unknown events, is discussed. The impact of such decisions on land use change is related to a specific bio-energy conversion technology. The effects of a precautionary strategy, possibly leading to eventual land use change on a large scale, is modeled.


The advantage of BECS is that it allows societies to function in a relatively normal manner, because this geo-engineering option does not affect energy supplies. Even more, it is the only strategy that produces energy while taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere (none of the other geo-engineering strategies yield energy during their implementation).

Read and Lermit show how effective BECS could be:
Under strong assumptions appropriate to imminent ACC, pre-industrial CO-levels can be restored by mid-century using BECS. Addressed to ACC rather than Kyoto’s implicit focus on gradual climate change, a robust strategy related to Art 3.3 of the Convention may provide the basis for rapprochement between Kyoto Parties and other Annex 1 Parties.

In short, in case of abrupt climate change, the best thing we can do is to radically implement bioenergy production on a vast and global scale, applying carbon capture and storage technologies. This carbon-negative energy system can bring us back to pre-industrial CO2 levels in a matter of decades.

Thanks for the reference, Frank!

More information:
P. Read and J. R. Lermit, "Bio-energy with carbon storage(BECS): a sequential decision approach to the threat of abrupt climate change", Energy, November 2005, vol. 30, no14, pp. 2654-2671 [*pdf - link to full article located at ACCStrategy)

Abstract at ScienceDirect.

Eurekalert: American Geophysical Union, 2006 Fall Meeting, Overconfidence leads to bias in climate change estimations - Dec. 15, 2006
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Solid biomass production for energy in EU increases markedly

The EU's strategy of using biomass for energy is beginning to pay off. According to EurObeserver's yearly Solid Biomass Barometer [*.pdf/French and English], in 2005 primary solid biomass production for energy in the EU increased markedly with 3.1 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) compared to 2004. The increase in the price of fossil fuels and the necessity for politicians to take environmentally sound decisions has had positive effects on the biomass sector in 2005. The biomass market in Europe is maturing, which means the gates are opening for developing countries to export to the EU. The Barometer also points at the reasons behind the successful national policies and technological innovation that has resulted in the strong increase in the use of solid biomass for energy (see below).

In 2004, primary solid biomass in Europe was 55.6 Mtoe, rising to 58.7 Mtoe in 2005. Using the term ‘solid biomass’, the barometer monitors the production of wood and wood waste, but also straw, crop harvest residues, vegetal and animal waste, all used for energy. Production of primary energy coming from direct combustion of renewable municipal solid waste in incineration plants is added separately to this figure. The 0.2 Mtoe increase in this production with respect to 2004 brings valorisation of this type of waste up to 5.3 Mtoe in 2005.

The leading biomass fuel is round woods, which are essentially consumed by households with a 46.1% share of the solid biomass market. Second are black liquors (a recycled by-product from the papermaking industry) with a share of 22.2%, followed by timber waste with 20.8%, other non-urban organic waste and vegetal matter with 9% and wood pellets with 1.8%.

France is the leading European producer of solid biomass with a total production of 9.7 Mtoe in 2005. But Finland, Sweden and Latvia produce the most solid biomass per inhabitant.

The fastest growing market can be found in the Netherlands where biomass use for energy showed an increase of 57.7%. The Netherland's massive growth is mainly driven by biomass imports from non-EU countries, mainly in the developing world and Canada. In Hungary growth equalled 35.5% and Germany showed an equally strong increase with 28.8% (see table).

Double-digit growth for electricity from biomass
Electricity production from solid biomass has increased markedly between 2004 and 2005 with a growth of 16.1%, according to the report mainly due to the establishment of combined heat and power (CHP) plants in Germany and the Netherlands. The development of fossil and biomass co-combustion in electrical power plants in the United Kingdom also contributed to this. Finland is the leading European producer of biomass electricity with total of 10.2 TWh produced in 2005.

The EU's total electricity production from biomass now stands at 44.1TWh:
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Municipal solid waste
Direct combustion of municipal waste remains the principal means of treating household waste. Incineration plants thus make it possible to produce heat and electricity as a thermal power plant running on more “noble” fuels would do. It is not always possible to precisely distinguish the organic share of municipal solid waste which, alone, can be qualified as renewable. According to estimates made by different countries, this renewable share generally represents one half.

Primary production of renewable municipal solid waste (that is to say other than the production of biogas) in the EU is estimated at 5.3 Mtoe for the year 2005 (table 5), i.e. a slight increase with respect to 2004 (+ 0.2 Mtoe). Just like solid biomass, this waste is valorised in the form of heat and/or electricity in incineration plants in CHP operation or not. In this way, the EU produced 10.7 TWh of electricity in 2005, recording 6.7% growth with respect to 2004. The largest share of this production comes from CHP units (6.9 TWh in 2005), where production has grown by 7% with respect to 2004. Valorisation in the form of gross heat is easier to monitor
for municipal solid waste than for solid biomass because it comes from centralised production units that actively market the heat they produce.


Sweden's green certificates system
Solid biomass represents one fifth of Sweden’s energy supply, where it meets approximately 50% of needs in heat, especially for the forest industry, heating networks and the heating of private households. It currently covers 4% of electricity production.

Primary production of solid biomass was estimated at 7.9 Mtoe in 2005, i.e. 6.3% growth with respect to 2004. Sweden is the leading EU country for marketed heat production, with 2.1 Mtoe, including 1.4 Mtoe coming from CHP units. These same combined heat and power units have also produced the totality of the electricity coming from solid biomass, i.e. 6.9 TWh in 2005, representing a 3.9% growth rate with respect to 2004. Electricity production should continue to increase thanks to the reinforcement, beginning next January, of the green certificates system that has been in place since 2003. In the new law approved by the Swedish Parliament, the objective of the certificate system is to increase renewable electricity production (all sectors) by 16 TWh between 2002 and 2016 (i.e. 12 TWh between 2007 and 2016).

Moreover, the obligation of production quotas shall be transferred from the user to the electricity supplier in a concern for simplification and cost reduction. And, in order to provide more visibility for investors, the system shall be prolonged until 2030. The Swedish government is also seeking to develop biomass heating in the domestic sector. But the great majority of Swedish housing is equipped with electric heating and is not designed to accommodate a boiler connected to a central heating system. Current growth of wood pellet burning boilers (approximately 8 000 units sold last year) is therefore organised in the direction of housing that already has central heating systems running on gas or heating oil.

Success of tax credit and Wood Energy Plan in France
France (including the French overseas departments) continues to be the leading solid biomass producing country with production in the region of 9.7 Mtoe. It should be pointed out that a very sizeable share of this total (7.4 Mtoe) is intended for domestic heating. This sector has been boosted by the introduction of a 40% income tax credit in 2005 and is currently in full upward swing with the sale of approximately 430 000 heating appliances in 2005 (i.e. an increase of 23.6% in 2004). The income tax credit, which was raised to 50% in 2006 and will be valid up until the end of 2009, should maintain very steady and buoyant growth for this market in the coming years.

The goal of this tax policy, which takes over from ADEME’s 2000-2006 Wood Energy Plan, is to accelerate the replacement of existing equipment by higher yield heating appliances (greater than or equal to 65%). The creation of a “green flame” label for heating appliances with high yields has also been a driving force in this sector’s development. Concerning the collective and industrial sectors, ADEME’s 2006 assessment shows that Wood Energy Plan objectives have been or are in the process of being reached. 1 398 boiler plants were installed between 2000 and 2005 out of the 1 000 planned on at the end of 2006. In terms of substituted energy, only 43 ktoe is still lacking to successfully reach the 300 ktoe objective set for the end of the year 2006. A new French government-ADEME plan contract, which shall very certainly result in a new biomass plan, is currently under discussion.

Germany developing biomass CHP
Germany’s primary production of solid biomass went from 5.2 Mtoe in 2003 up to 7.9 Mtoe in 2005, i.e. a 51.4% increase in two years. This spectacular growth can be explained principally by the revision of the German law on renewable energies (applicable since April 2004). Re-evaluating the conditions of electricity production from biomass, the new law has permitted this to go from 1.5 TWh in 2003 up to 5.4 TWh in 2005. The pricing re-evaluation is made by adding the subsidies linked to the types of biomass (from €25/MWh to €60/MWh) to the use of innovative techniques and procedures (20€/MWh) and to the CHP production method (€20/MWh).

This last point explains that the totality of the electricity produced from solid biomass comes from combined heat and power units. The Ministry of the Environment also finances heat production units at €60 per kW (for systems with yields greater than 88%) or through a minimum subsidy of €1700 for a system whose yield is greater than 90%. Finally, reduced interest rate loans are available for private individuals who want to equip themselves with biomass boilers. It is interesting to note that the market of wood pellet burning boilers designed for domestic heating is fast expanding in Germany. According to the DEPV (“German Pellet Energy Association”), this type represented 45% of the 39 000 biomass boilers sold last year vs. 30% of the 23 000 boilers sold in 2004.

Wood pellet market overheating in Austria
2005 was an exceptional year for heating installations operating on biomass (all sectors) with a newly installed capacity of 1 136 MWth, i.e. market growth of 59.4% with respect to 2004. All types of boilers and heating appliances benefited from this growth. Out of the 23 319 new installations sold in 2005, there were 4 530 wood-burning boilers of capacities lower than 30 kW (+ 24.2%), 1 548 wood-burning boilers with capacities greater than 30 kW (+ 70.3%), 8 874 wood pellet burning boilers (+ 46.0%), 3 780 wood pellet burning heaters (+ 66.5%) as well as 4 587 boilers that burn wood chips and bark (+ 40.4%).

Among these last types, there were 78 installations of more than 1 MW totalling an installed capacity of 336.5 MWth. The first market indications this year show that growth shall be measured, notably for appliances that burn wood pellets. The sharp interest and attraction for this type of fuel has led to a rise in the price of a ton of wood pellets, which went from €178 in December 2005 up to €265 in October 2006. The wood fuel production industry needs a little time to deal with sector growth. Production of primary energy from solid biomass only increased (if it can be put that way) by 7.9% between 2004 and 2005.


The Solid Biomass Barometer further breaks down the EU's sector into the size of the producers (household level, small and medium power generation and large, utility-scale biomass power). It also looks at the wood pellet market and how it is fuelling a renaissance of heating in stoves, at the household level.


According to the Biomass Action Plan, the EU technical potential in 2010 is about 185 Mtoe. With present policies, the European Commission estimated that the consumption in 2010 could reach approximately 150 Mtoe. EurObserver however, forecasts that biomass primary energy consumption will amount to 103.7 Mtoe in 2010, considerably below the projections contained in the Biomass Action Plan.

EurObserver's next Barometer deals with wind power.

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Indonesian banks to lend $2.8 billion for plantation, biofuels projects

Fighting rural poverty by creating 2.5 million jobs, dedicating 6.5 million hectares of land, replacing 10% of 245 million Indonesians' fossil fuel consumption by biofuels and exporting the rest. These are the key targets of OPEC member Indonesia's ambitious bioenergy plan. Earlier this month, the country indicated its intention to form a 'biofuel cartel' of sorts with neighboring Malaysia (earlier post).

A consortium of five state-owned and regional banks has now committed itself to providing the money to get the plan going. They will free up a total of 25.56 trillion rupiahs (€2.1/US$2.8 billion) in loans for the development of plantations across the country, including those producing biofuel feedstock. (Earlier, one individual bank had already taken the initiative to grant US$440 million to smallholders).

The banks signed the memorandum of understanding for the loan scheme with Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Coordinating Minister for the Economy Boediono, and Bank Indonesia governor Burhanuddin Abdullah. The loan commitment is in line with the government's program to revitalize the agricultural sector by developing the biofuel sector.

Subsidies for smallholders
Almost half of Inodesia's population works in the agricultural sector. Some 40% of all plantation outputs are carried by smallholders, that is farmers who own less than 2 hectares of land. Under the scheme, the banks will provide loans carrying an effective 10 percent fixed interest rate to these small plantation owners cultivating crops of oil palm, cocoa and rubber. The government will then provide them with a subsidy to cover any differences between the market lending rate and the fixed loan rate.

The subsidies will be provided over a period of five years for oil palm and cocoa plantations, and seven years for rubber plantations. The average lending rate is currently some 15 percent, but this is expected to fall in line with the central bank's recent rate cuts. Bank Indonesia's key rate presently stands at 9.75 percent.

In the 2007 budget, the government has set aside 1 trillion rupiah (€83.1/US$110 million) to cover the cost of subsidizing interest payments on agriculture-related loans and the cost of procuring seedlings, with another 12 trillion rupiah (€1/US$1.3 billion) being earmarked for improving agricultural infrastructure (earlier post).

Indonesia's peak oil
Even though Indonesia is still official Asia's only OPEC member, it's oil production has gone into decline steadily. The 245 million strong nation now consumes more oil than it produces. This is why the government has launched the vast biofuels program, for which it plans to designate up to 6.5 million hectares of idle land for the development of biofuel-feedstock plantations. The effort is aimed at producing enough biofuel by 2010 to replace 10 percent of the country's total oil consumption -- which reached 70 million tonnes last year (roughly 1.3 million barrels per day):
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Indonesia has had a long tradition of subsidizing fuel for its people, but the policy has cost the state a lot of money, and with increased oil prices, the scheme is becoming untenable. Hence the shift towards subsidizing farmers; they can deliver a fuel that is less costly than fossil fuels.

Choosing the right crops
The Finance Ministry further said in a statement issued to mark the occasion that it planned to extend the interest subsidy to loans for the development of sugarcane and cassava plantations. A similar loan scheme would also be worked out for jatropha plantations. Jatropha was recently identified as the plant with the most biofuel potential in Indonesia. After a chemical conversion (transesterification), palm oil and oil extracted from the jatropha plant can be mixed with ordinary diesel as biodiesel, while ethanol made from sugarcane and cassava can be mixed with gasoline.

The follow-up credit schemes are expected to be finalized by January, with other banks outside of the present consortium likely to be invited to participate. Of the total money, Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) will stump up Rp 12 trillion, Bank Mandiri Rp 11.08 trillion, Bank Bukopin Rp 1 trillion, the West Sumatra regional development bank Rp 980 billion, and the North Sumatra regional development bank Rp 500 billion.

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