Jatropha proven good as alternative fuel–MBCCI
Jatropha Curcas or kasla in the local dialect is one of the best alternative fuel, Vice President for External affairs Metro Bacolod Chamber of Commerce and Industry, MBCCI, Jose Ma. Zayco said.
In an interview, he said kasla is low in maintenance, wildly grown for the past 100 years and its seeds are available everywhere.
Zayco told PIA that according to their three-year study in a 14 hectare Jatropha laboratory from 2006 to 2009, they found that engaging in such project is profitable but is best implemented through LGU and private sector partnership.
“The Local Government Units have the land,” he said.
With a 550 hectare plantation, a small refinery is needed where one can get as much as 1500 liters a day fetching around P23.00 per liter pump rice.
A refining factory module, however, costs about P28 Million, that is why the government and private entities are needed to realize the project, Zayco said. Profit will come in the next five years of operation, he added.
He said Cadiz City in collaboration with the Philippine National Oil Company, PNOC, has embarked on this venture starting with a 300 hectare Jatropha nursery applying, partly, what the MBCCI has studied.
“If Cadiz could prove it, then it becomes a model which neighboring town and cities could replicate, he told PIA.
He said the chamber has done its part of developing the technology and showed its profitability.
“The chamber supports other alternative fuel which somehow will help Negros Occidental.” (PIA-LOL)
