Bioenergy for Better Future

Moving

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 00:06:00 +0000

My Blog is moving to the new address Knight

Jatropha Plantation (Seedling, Part 4)

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:01:00 +0000

Well for this part I will not talk too much. Basically this is the pictures that show the step-by-step from seed to plant. The first one is the seed itself. Here's picture of the seeds, when it is prepared to be planted, and also when it is planted into polybag.

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And finally the time has come for the seed to grow. This picture below is the time when the seed comes to the world :)

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The last two pictures below will show you the next step after the seed grow. Move it to polybag and then to nursery.

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Well I guess the nursery will close my post this time. The next step after nursery is plantation but I guess I'll keep it for the next post :)

Have a good reading...

Jatropha Plantation (Seedling, Part 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 05:52:00 +0000

OK, after we get the good seed (from previous post) its time to plant it :) If you decide to plant it on a polybag then you can use soil and manure with 1:1 ratio as media. Normally it'll take about 5-7 days to germinate/sprout. You can see the seed of Jatropha here.
How about planting it directly without using polybag? well of course you can. You can plant it on a seedbed with 10 cm x 10 cm spacing. And yes, the cost will be lower than using polybag (no polybag cost of course).
After couple of days you can see your plant grow like picture below :)

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and after couple of weeks below

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Rest

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 05:04:00 +0000

Sorry, post another OOT here...

There's no new post recently because I got fever and I must rest and stay in bed for couple days. But I'm fine now and hopefully soon I'll post the article I promised before.

Jatropha Plantation (Seedling, Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 03:12:00 +0000

Ok, in this part I will talk again about seedling but this time it is from seed. The best way to get good quality seeds is by buying it from authorized seller. The seed sold by them usually certified and tested (minimal viability is 80%). Viability means in general "capacity for survival" and is more specifically used to mean a capacity for living, developing, or germinating under favorable conditions. But if you want to get the seed from your own plant, just make sure you get the best seed. Ok, now to get the best seed you must follow the criteria described as follows:

Seed comes from ripe/mature fruit. It is of course vital point, the ripe fruit is marked with its color that turn to yellow. As comparison, young fruit have the color of green and then turn to yellow as it ripe and turn to brown and dried.
Seed's shape is oval with black/dark/dark brown in color.
Other criteria are the color of the kernel, it is white brownish and you also need to consider about the crack of the shell. It must not over 10%.

ok, for better understanding, not just theory, here's the picture of the fruit in its three stage of ripening :)

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Next on Bioenergy: seedling from seed

Jatropha Plantation (Seedling, Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:16:00 +0000

Ok, we have talked about growth requirements, population per hectare and even dimension of the hole to plant, now I will talk about the seedling. Actually there are several ways to get the seedling, the easiest is by buying it :) for anyone who want to produce it by themselves here's I got some info ;) Seedling can be produced by plants cutting, growing seed, or by tissue culture.

The first candidate, cutting. Plant cutting, also known as striking/cloning, is a technique for vegetatively (asexually) propagating plants in which a piece of the source plant containing at least one stem cell is placed in a suitable medium such as moist soil, potting mix, coir or rock wool. The cutting produces new roots, stems, or both, and thus becomes a new plant independent of the parent (wikipedia). That the general picture is described, then here's the visual part of Jatropha's cutting.

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Picture above shows the cuttings in polybag. It just been cut so there's no leaf yet but you can see clearly it's cutting. For the growing part of cutting which already have leaves is as follows:

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Jatropha Plantation (Population)

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 09:37:00 +0000

After talked about Jatropha's growth requirements, I'd like to continue about its population in an area. Jatropha uses various spacing but the common spacing is 2m x 2m and it will have 2,500 trees per hectare. Some of Jatropha's plantation spacing are:

3 m x 3 m (1,100 plants/ha)
2 m x 3 m (1,600 plants/ha)
2 m x 2 m (2,500 plants/ha)
1.5 m x 2.0 m (3,300 plants/ha)

While in tilted area, terrace or contour system the common spacing that being used is 1.5 m x 1.5 m

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After spacing is determined then its time to make holes for planting (Without holes we'll have difficulties in planting those trees :p). Common dimension for the hole is 40 cm x 40 cm x 40 cm. As usual, you can see the picture below :)

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Ok, that's it for now. I'll cover about seedlings in the next post :)

Jatropha Plantation (Growth Requirements)

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:55:00 +0000

Jatropha is a though plant. It can grow in nearly all type of land, from lowland to midland (highland) and from arid/semi arid/arid land. But of course to grow as we expect it need its own best environment. Some of Jatropha growth requirements is as follows:

Jatropha can grow from 0 up to 1,000 m above sea level. It can grow above 1,000 m but it will have less fruits and more leaves.
Jatropha can grow at 300-2,380 mm/year of rainfall but the optimum rainfall is 625 mm/year.
Jatropha can grow in almost all type of land including infertile soil but for optimum yield of course fertile soil is needed.
Required temperature for Jatropha is about 20-28 °C while the required acidity of soil is between 5-6.6
Jatropha can't grow (almost can't grow) in peat moss land

Here's I have picture that shows Jatropha grow on ex-mining area at PT. Indocement. From this picture I hope that you can imagine how though is Jatropha :)

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OOT

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:16:00 +0000

Sorry for posting an out of topic subject.

I just very glad and relief that my wife have given birth to my son and both of them are okay. In that period I'm not posting anything in this blog.
My son is quite big campared to the standard weight of baby in my country :) Average weight is about 2.8 kg but my baby's weight is 3.8 kg with 51 cm in length, my wife have to give all of her power until she is exhausted. When our baby born and I know that he and my wife are okay I just can't hold my tears anymore...

Microalgae Laboratory

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 01:48:00 +0000

Here I have picture on microalgae laboratory. I got this picture from one of research center in my country. This algae is used as biodiesel feedstock, the same as Jatropha. Here's the picture

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It is said that algae has higher potential than any other energy crops. This article is a good source for alga culture.

Carbon donation

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:28:00 +0000

I have been given 136 pounds of offset in my name. Are you want to have 136 pounds of offset in your name? if you do you can follow this link or click on this post title :) Save the environment Save the world

p.s. it is first come, first serve

Jatropha curcas tree

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 04:18:00 +0000

Ok, here I found another picture of Jatropha curcas in my country. It is in the same location with the one in my previous post. Its still young but you can see the flower on top of it. Well it is true, Jatropha start to make flower less than one year. I've seen one that has fruits and its' tree is just 4 months old. And the extreme that I saw was tree still in its seedbed, not yet planted on field already has flower. But I'm sure that this is an exception..?!

Jatropha curcas

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 06:02:00 +0000

Talking about biodiesel, I remember Jatropha curcas plant. This plant claimed to be prospective plant to produce biodiesel. After some promotion indeed this plant can be a good alternative for palm oil. Palm oil is edible but Jatropha oil is non-edible oil so it can't be eaten. Is it? well I've heard there are non toxic Jatropha. They said Jatropha can live in arid/semi arid land where there is no other plant can produce. I do not say can't grow because I know there are, like grass. If it is true then farmers will get additional income from this.
Above is Jatropha curcas field in my country. I got this picture when I went there some times ago. I'll post another picture when I found another one :p

Bioethanol

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 04:22:00 +0000

Bioethanol, what is bioethanol? is it the same with ethanol? is it an alcohol? Well from what i've read is bioethanol is ethanol obtained from fermentation of material containing starch or sugar such as cassava and molasses. This "Plant Oil" or PO is used to substitute gasoline. Ethanol that can be used as PO is pure, free of water, alcohol (anhydrous alcohol) with 99.5% rate. This fuel then called fuel grade ethanol (FGE). The mixture of FGE and gasoline is called gasohol in my country.
But I have question on that "Plant Oil" term, I think maybe it is used for biodiesel. Biodiesel is from oil so it can be called "Plant Oil" but for bioethanol??? Bioethanol is not from oil...

Reading material: Integrated utilization of Jatropha curcas: road to self sufficient energy village

Biodiesel

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:21:00 +0000

Biodiesel refers to a non-petroleum-based diesel fuel consisting of short chain alkyl (methyl or ethyl) esters, made by transesterification of vegetable oil or animal fat (tallow), which can be used (alone, or blended with conventional petrodiesel) in unmodified diesel-engine vehicles[1].
This liquid fuel, diesel like, is prospective to be developed. Biodiesel also has advantages compared to petroleum-based diesel:

Environmentally friendly because has better emission than petrodiesel (free sulphur, low smoke number)
higher cetane number (>57) thus has better burning efficiency compared to crude oil
Have lubricant effect on engine's piston
renewable energy
biodegradable[2]

[1]wikipedia
[2]Teknologi bioenergi

Bioenergy conversion

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 03:49:00 +0000

With the development of the science, biomass conversion also transformed to more modern type. Now we know two type of biomass, traditional and modern. Traditional biomass like we all know is firewood while the modern biomasses are bioethanol, biodiesel, pure plant oil (PPO), straight vegetable oil (SVO), burning oil, and biogas. It is called modern biomass because to get it we need to do processing first. To get biodiesel, we need to do esterification/transesterification to crude jatropha oil (CJO) for example

Biomass conversion to modern biomass and some bioenergy can be seen on picture below.

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ref: Teknologi bioenergi ISBN 979-006-113-7

Bioenergy

noreply@blogger.com (Saccarrep) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:35:00 +0000

Bioenergy according to the expert is renewable energy derived from biological sources while other expert said that bioenergy is stored energy from the sun contained in materials such as plant matter and animal waste, known as biomass. From description above it is clear that bioenergy and biomass is different. From wikipedia it is said that biomass is any organic material which has stored sunlight in the form of chemical energy. So you can that biomass is the fuel you used and bioenergy is the energy you get from biomass, it can be heat, light or any other form that possible like some others said.

Basically byproduct of agricultural processes are biomass, such as wood waste from plantation pruning, and the more complicated form such as biodiesel. Actually biodiesel is the form after biomass processing from biofuel feedstock such as Jatropha, palm oil, or any other "biofuel" plant.