PNG's prisons to help with biofuel trials
Updated
A potential option to help build the Pacific's energy security is exploring the greater use of biofuel, and Papua New Guinea's Corrective Service says it will plant the bio-fuel producing Jatropha Curcas tree at prisons around the country.
Presenter Firmin Nanol
Speakers: Papua New Guinea's Correctional Service Minister Tony Aimo, Project Manager with PNG's Bomana Maximum Prison Muli Kenkena
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NANOL: Papua New Guinea's Correctional Service Minister, Tony Aimo says inmates will be in charge of planting and managing the Jatropha plants as part of its prison rehabilitation programs. The Jatropha Curcas tree produces nuts rich in oil. That oil can be extracted to produce bio-fuel that can be used in a standard diesel car and to power electricity plants. Minister Aimo says planting the trees is part of the Government's drive towards promoting carbon trading and clean energy.
AIMO: This project is all supported by climate change office. They said they are willing to support the CS organisation to actually spearhead and it's a clean energy and it should be the project that climate change offers you were looking at in implementing its carbon credit issue. This plant when it gorws and it will produce fuel at the same time whoever the grower or the main groups that grow, they will also be getting carbon credit. And if they start now, Papua New Guinea can become a country that can be number one in biofuel and I will make sure that all the land, especially throughout the prison system, that you know people reckon that you cannot grow anything will grow Jatropha, indeed Jatropha growing your own field at your own backyard.
NANOL: Up to 80 thousand seeds have been imported from Malaysia for the program. The Project manager with PNG's Bomana Maximum Prison outside the capital Port Moresby says the program will complement its prison rehabilitation programs. Muli Kenkena says the prison's mostly low-risk inmates will be taught how to plant and manage the Jatropha plants. He says this will provide them with basic skills and knowledge they can use once they finish their jail terms.
KENKENA: The outcome from this project, our plan is to carry out a rehabilitation programs for all detainees, in the event that when they finishing their term of sentence, when they go back they have a skill or they have received a special skill in this project so that when they go back, they will probably make use of these skills or ideas to be implementing their own, because everyone of them has their lands, their customary land at home, so probably they will try to implement this in their own areas or communities. In fact, that's what is going to happen when they finish from here and they go, we will give them some seeds for them to plant in their own land.
NANOL: The nuts produced by Jatropha plants contain oil of about 28 to 35 percent by its weight, making it one of the best for bio-fuel production. The plant itself also grows well on poor quality land, which wouldn't be suitable for food production. Besides biofuel for vehicles, Jatropha can also be used in soap production, as organic fertiliser, and has also been used in trials to power passenger jets. As fossil fuels become more expensive and more scarce, the Jatropha plant may become increasingly important in meeting the world's energy needs. Firmin Nanol-Port Moresby.
