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Nigeria Uses Jatropha as a Source of Biofuels
NIGERIA - A short and hardy tree that Nigerians have used for centuries to demarcate farmland could be the way forward for biofuels, the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN) said Wednesday, as reported by IC Publications."Jatropha is a cheap and abundant alternative raw material for biofuel production that poses no risk to global food security," ECN head Abubakar Sambo told AFP in Kano on the sidelines of a two-day UN-sponsored biofuels seminar.
ECN is a government think-tank in charge of energy sector planning and the diversification of energy resources.
"The global food crisis is directly linked to maize, sugarcane, cassava and to some extent sorghum conversion to ethanol for biofuel because these are direct food items to a large number of the world population," Sambo said.
Jatropha is a short, succulent round-stemmed tree that Nigerian farmers have used for the past four centuries to demarcate their farms.
It bears peanut-sized black seeds which provide 40 percent oil that can be used as biodiesel while the sludge is used as glycerine for industrial use, Sambo said.
It can grow in areas of both low and high rainfall and on poor soils and has a life span of between 30 and 50 years.
Kabiru Yammama, a UN rural energy consultant, told the seminar jatropha can be grown on Nigeria's vast swathes of land degraded either by desert encroachment or mining and erosion.
That means it does not have to compete with food crops for arable land.
Sambo intends to import from Asia improved jatropha seeds that mature in one year against three years for the seeds currently used in Nigeria.
"We intend to set up nurseries across the country so local farmers can access the seedlings," said Sambo.
View the IC Publications story by clicking here.
TheBioenergySite News Desk
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