Making Power From Coconut Shells, Mango Pits
12 March 2012
This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
Seth DeBolt is a plant scientist at the University of Kentucky in the United States. He and other scientists wanted to find a source of fuel that poor people in rural areas of developing countries could use to make electricity.
The United Nations Development Program says a billion and a half people have no electricity. A billion others have an undependable supply.
Professor DeBolt went on a study trip to rural Indonesia. He saw that, everywhere he went, there was very little waste in the use of agricultural products. Everything that farmers grew was used for something. Even the remains of fruit that people did not eat were fed to chickens.
Little waste meant there was little that could be used for fuel. Growing a separate fuel crop would take land away from food crops. That was something Professor DeBolt did not want to do.
SETH DeBOLT: "The people at most risk with respect to energy poverty, typically they're the same people who have food insecurity issues as it is. And then any change in availability would be most detrimental to that group of people."
But he found two items that were in plentiful supply and would not create competition between food and fuel. Coconut shells and mango pits are generally thrown out. Yet Professor DeBolt says they have a lot of energy stored in them. He says they have an "excellent" heating value which he compares to coal of low to moderate grade.
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25