Indonesian agro-industrial firm to invest in three bioenergy plants
As we transit towards the bioeconomy, land becomes a valuable resource. Asian plantation companies have singled out Indonesia as one of the countries with a lot of spare land capacity. They are massively investing in the island state (earlier post).
But on the home-front, domestic companies are equally active within the context of the country's ambitious €9.5/US$12 billion bioenergy plan (earlier post). Indonesia's state-owned agroindustry firm PT Rajawali Nusantara Indonesia (RNI) is now planning to develop three bioenergy plants worth €45/US$58 million to produce bioethanol and renewable electricity by 2009, while expanding its rubber plantations.
RNI's director for business development, Son Ramadir, describes the capacity, investment and location of the bioenergy plants:
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: renewable electricity :: biomass :: sugarcane :: bagasse :: molasses :: rubber :: Indonesia ::
The two sugar factories' processing capacity will be increased from 8,000 tons of sugar per day to 11,500 tons, and the project will entail an investment of 205 billion rupiah (€17.5/US$22.5 million)
The expansion of the South Sumatra rubber plantations from 1,000 hectares to 16,000 hectares will require an investment of 400 billion rupiah (€34/US$44 million), while the new sugar factory and its associated sugarcane fields in Garut will be developed on a 12,000-hectare site, and will cost some 1.2 trillion rupiah (€102.5/US$132.5 million).
RNI has 54,600 hectares under sugarcane and 11 sugar factories with a total production capacity of 235,000 tons of sugar and 140,000 tons of molasses per annum.
In 2006, the company made 149 billion rupiah (€12.7/US$16.5 million) in net profit, a figure that is forecast to increase by 40 percent this year. (05)
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But on the home-front, domestic companies are equally active within the context of the country's ambitious €9.5/US$12 billion bioenergy plan (earlier post). Indonesia's state-owned agroindustry firm PT Rajawali Nusantara Indonesia (RNI) is now planning to develop three bioenergy plants worth €45/US$58 million to produce bioethanol and renewable electricity by 2009, while expanding its rubber plantations.
RNI's director for business development, Son Ramadir, describes the capacity, investment and location of the bioenergy plants:
- the first plant would be constructed at the company's Jatitujuh sugar factory in Cirebon, West Java, and would produce 100,000 liters of ethanol per day. The cost of the development would be €15.5/US$20 million, and it would be undertaken in cooperation with private-sector firm PT Indo Acidatama. The project is at the feasibility-study stage and will be completed by December 2008.
- another bioethanol plant, with a capacity of 100,000 liters per day, will also see a €15.5/US$20 million investment and would be built at the company's Kebon Grati Agung sugar factory in East Java in cooperation with PT Choi Biofuel Indonesia, which is owned by a South Korean firm. The plant is slated to start operations in April 2009.
- the third plant would be constructed at a cost of €14/US$18 million at the Jatitujuh sugar factory, and process the factory's sugarcane waste for the generation of electricity. It would have a capacity of 20 megawatts. RNI is collaborating with PT PSA Automatika of Russia on the pre-feasibility, with the feasibility study expected to be completed in June 2008.
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: renewable electricity :: biomass :: sugarcane :: bagasse :: molasses :: rubber :: Indonesia ::
The two sugar factories' processing capacity will be increased from 8,000 tons of sugar per day to 11,500 tons, and the project will entail an investment of 205 billion rupiah (€17.5/US$22.5 million)
The expansion of the South Sumatra rubber plantations from 1,000 hectares to 16,000 hectares will require an investment of 400 billion rupiah (€34/US$44 million), while the new sugar factory and its associated sugarcane fields in Garut will be developed on a 12,000-hectare site, and will cost some 1.2 trillion rupiah (€102.5/US$132.5 million).
RNI has 54,600 hectares under sugarcane and 11 sugar factories with a total production capacity of 235,000 tons of sugar and 140,000 tons of molasses per annum.
In 2006, the company made 149 billion rupiah (€12.7/US$16.5 million) in net profit, a figure that is forecast to increase by 40 percent this year. (05)
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Monday, February 05, 2007
Exxon Valdez oil persists after 16 years
The oil era was fantastic for many people: it allowed unprecedented mobility of goods and persons on a planetary scale, and it made globalisation and the development of modern industrialized societies possible.
That said, petroleum is also a very nasty product: its use is responsible for an era of really dirty politics (energy imperialism, war, terrorism, mass poverty, underdevelopment, oppression and mass corruption - earlier post) and for a great deal of environmental destruction. Oil exploration and production is not a clean affair, the use of petroleum-based fuels is largely to blame for potentially catastrophic climate change, and products derived from crude oil (such as plastics) pollute our oceans and environment, and everything that lives in it for hundreds of years (earlier post).
The Exxon Valdez disaster has become the symbol capturing these darker sides of oil: the dirtiness of petroleum and the pristineness of a unique ecosystem never clashed so tragically as on March 24, 1989. Researers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) now show that, long after the disaster, the dirt still has the upper-hand over nature's capacity to restore itself...
Oil from the spill persists in an only slightly weathered form below the surface at some beaches along the Gulf of Alaska after 16 years and may persist for decades, the researchers conclude in a new report [*.html version or *.pdf version]. The study is scheduled for publication in the Feb. 15 issue of Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.
Jeffrey W. Short and colleagues analyzed subsurface oil from the spill at 10 beaches, selected at random from among oil-contaminated areas included in their 2001 and 2005 studies. Earlier research demonstrated that buried oil could retain toxic components for years if buried in anoxic (oxygen-depleted) sediments where little decomposition from weathering occurs. The new study identified a different mechanism in which oil can be preserved in sediments that do contain oxygen. The oil persists because it exists in a thick, emulsified form sometimes termed "oil mousse" that resists weathering.
"Such persistence can pose a contact hazard to inter-tidally foraging sea otters, sea ducks, and shorebirds, create a chronic source of low-level contamination, discourage subsistence in a region where use is heavy and degrade the wilderness character of protected lands," the researchers conclude.
The advent of the bioeconomy might present environmental dilemma's of its own, but it is fundamentally based on far more elegant principles, in tune with nature: renewability and biodegradability. In the green economy, an Exxon Valdez disaster is unthinkable [entry ends here].
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: renewable :: biodegradable :: petroleum :: oil :: environmental destruction :: disaster :: pollution :: Exxon Valdez :: Alaska ::
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