With the increasing pressures on the production of biofuels from foods (ethanol from maize and biodiesel from edible oil) there is an increasing call for the production of biofuels from waste.

This above article in the New York Times notes that there are almost thirty plants in the implementation phase. However, it notes that none have succeeded and that most are looking for significant subsidies and grant funding to become viable, even with the vastly increased oil price.

It quotes Nobel Physics Lauriate, Steven Chu, as saying

We desperately need it, and I personally think it’s not there yet

You have to look at starts with a grain of salt, especially starts where they say, ‘It’s around the corner, and by the way, can you pay half the bill?’

This post is a periodic one, that simply lists interesting Biofuel stories that I feel are relevant to Africa. The link will take you to an original article which will acknowledge my source of the story.

Nigerian company produces biofuel from sorghum – some details of a project in Nigeria that uses sweet sorghum as a feedstock for ethanol production.

The Mocambican National Government approves an EthanolProject- a bioenergy park will produce almost a billion litres of ethanol a year and create 2,600 jobs.

Cassava Ethanol Project in Nigeria – Kwara Casplex will produce 30.6 million tons of cassava ethanol at new production facilities planned for Oyo and Ekiti states. They appear to be looking at integrating many technologies to increase the overall system efficiency.

Oil Palm in the Congo – an Italian biodiesel producer has signed a 30 year agreement with the Congo national government to cultivate oil palm on 98,000 acres.

Yes they do really enrich dark chocolate with Omega 2 oil.

I received many an amused smile at French and Italian breakfast tables, taking numerous close up photos of juice cartons. I was interested by the trends and approaches that were indicated by these products, present images of a selection of juices and elaborate on some of the obvious approaches.

Ethnic / Exotic – there seems to be a move away from a juice prepared from a simple well know juice to those from distant lands or even simple widely available fruits “spun” into something different.

Healthy / Nutritious – there is a strong implication that juices are healthy so long as they are natural, but there is also enrichment.

Variety – there is also an attempt to offer variety for example organic juices

and novel combinations such as manderine and raspberry.

One of the non pure juices was a nectar containing 15 fruits and 9 vitamins!

Also interesting was that many of the juices specified technological issues such as quality systems, UHT processing and not from concentrate.

I wrote this some weeks ago but failed to post it because of my travels!

Two announcements – the closure of processing in the UK by D2 oil and the opening of a “micro biodiesel facility” that will use waste oil and jatropha oil by De-Ord Fuel indicate the over optimism around Jatropha and the uncertainty in the market.

De-Ord’s micro plant, which will produce only 4.5 million litres a year will distribute biodiesel directly to bus and truck fleets. This, along with careful raw material sourcing will apparently allow it to be sustainable and possibly become a model for other European installations.

On the other hand D1 Oils has had to close and sell off plant as they are unable to compete with US imports using rapeseed as a feedstock. They will therefore be concentrating on their Jatropha operations, which have been part of their business approach since their establishment. The fact that inputs are required to optimise Jatropha production and that full scale production, which seemed to be pretty much in control 2 years ago,

is only due in 2011 are the realities compared to the hype that abounds in many projects.

This blog records unsatisfactory service from CANON – the email below now results in a computer response allthough their incident number is in the subject line – the question I ask is why do I only now get computer responses, am I being “put on hold”?

I have had no response to this email after 4 days – can you please assist?

Regards

Dave

Begin forwarded message:

From: dave SAFPP
Date: 14 July 2008 23:02:13
To: canon_support@techteam.com
Subject: Re: Canon Helpdesk #5544630

I don’t understand your email of 14 July 2008 which I reply to here – seems to be a delaying strategy.

I made my first request online and got the automated response below:

You clearly had my problem which is highlighted in green.

Before any further feed back I received your attached email which was the one I responded to online via the link therein and you now seem unable to link back to the original call although you have the code.

Please respond to my original question – its now a week since my first request and I have no response to my original question, and now another request “..to confirm that your request has been handled satisfactorily before it is closed…” today.

Not acceptable.

Dave

D A Harcourt
South Africa

dave@digivu.co.za
+27 82 451 0148
www.digivu.co.za

On 14 Jul 2008, at 17:07, canon_support@techteam.com wrote:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your recent enquiry regarding your Canon product.

In response to your query please be advised that we received your customer comment:

“this is first response after the automated one!”.

Unfortunately we did not receive any other response from you. Please be advised that we would be grateful if you could write us back (i.e. in a new customer comment) providing details about the problem (what happened with the camera) in order to assess your query correctly.

Thank you in advance.

Yours sincerely,
Canon Support Centre
Should our answer not fully resolve your problem, please feel free to either re-submit a new query by clicking here, or alternatively call our support helpdesk at 08705 143 723 Monday to Friday from 9:00AM to 5:30PM stating the 7 digit reference number in the subject of this email.

We aim to answer queries as soon as possible. Responses on average take 2 to 3 business days (or the next working day if submitting on a weekend or public holiday).

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This article in Food Production Daily reports on a double can able to hold two different drinks and a resealable can.

The former is merely a patent while the latter is a design which has been developed with Coca Cola and should be in the market soon if not already launched.

These developments add to the popularity of the can which relies on its light weight, stackability, ease of cooling, ease of opening, robustmess and tamper evident design.

This post is a periodic one, that simply lists interesting Food Processing stories that I feel are relevant to Africa. The link will take you to an original article which will acknowledge my source of the story.

Solutions abound for polyphenol-fortified milk: study – while adding sufficient polyphenol to milk to give it anti oxidant benefits equivalent to an apple gives it an unacceptable taste. Research has found that adding fruit flavours and cyclodextrins can mask these flavours. What about just eating the apple?

Healthy and fun drive ice cream innovation at new Unilever centre – Unilever are looking for innovation to increase their market share, focussing on natural ingredients, shape, packaging, freezing and the value chain.

High pressure processing kit wins IFT science award – Seems like high pressure processing is suceeding – possibly too equipment intensive for small processors.

Ingredients round up: refreshing sweets and cost cutting alternatives – some new ingredient news including a fresh flavour that works in a different way to the normal ones which are citric acid, peppermint and menthol.