Hello Hakan,
I have read your article "biofuel business in developing countries" with
great interest. Thank you for considering developing countries. I am an
organic chemistry professor from Turkey. (Although Turkey is now considered
as an industrialised country but I am not so sure) I have been interested
in biodiesel for some time and I beleive, as you suggested, this will be
extremely important for every country in the future, especially for the
developing countries. However, astonishingly, developed nations are far more
interested in alternative fuels than the developing ones. As commented by
Mauro Knudsen for Argentine, my country also has no planing and politics on
biofuels as yet. We are producing important amount of olive oil, sun flower
oil, cotton seed oil and some poppy seed oil.However all these are used
primarily for food purposes. Never the less, the production can be increased
if economics gets right. Although we have great agricultural lands to be
caltivated we are importing soybeans and soybean oil from south america. I
beleive this is due to the wrong agricultural policies. I was told that some
soybean production has started in south Turkey. Rape seed oil production was
prohibited to prevent any accidental uses of it in food oil. But Kanola
oil (nontoxic version of rape seed) is produced. So, we have sufficient
sources for veg. oils however, I think the prices are not right for the
production of biodiesel at the moment. Bulk crude veg.oil prices (excluding
olive oil which is too expensive) are about 0,7-0.8 dollars /kg at the
moment. The petroleum diesel sells at the pump for 0.9 dollars/L (about 3.5
dollars per gallon). I don't know the availability and price of the waste
veg oil at the moment but I am trying to find out. There is one more problem
in this country. There is so much government tax ( I was told 200%, plus
VAT) on the petroleum fuels that the government is getting a good income
from the sales. Therefore I am sure they will not permit the sale of biofuel
at the moment without any tax. In some EU countries there are tax reductions
to promote the production of biofuels. But , it seems this promotion is not
possible in this country for the near future. One possibility is to find an
alternative cheap oil source. I know that some willage people press oils
using mixed seeds (mainly poppy seed and sunflower seed) and these mixed
oils sells cheaper. So at the moment I keep an eye on the developments. I am
not just an academic. I am also a small shareholder and consultant of a
small local company and we have produced some experimental FAME. It works
easily as you all know but we did not use it as a fuel instead we converted
it to soft soap and sold it.
I hope that these are any interest to you. By the way, I also read your
comments on the iraq war. No one is defending Saddam here in this country
but they beleive that, USA action was not necessary at this stage. As you
also pointed out USA is loosing its friends and restoration of this will
take a long time. I beleive USA as a leader country, should do everything
possible to keep the peace in the world and should not promote war at all.
Saying this, I would also like to point out that my own government also
deserves critisizm.
With my best wishes
Levent Yuceer
- Original Message -
From: "Hakan Falk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To:
Cc:
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2003 12:29 AM
Subject: [biofuels-biz] Biofuel business in developing countries.
>
> Hi All,
>
> Some time ago I started to write on "Biofuel business in developing
> countries". I now reach a stage where it could be beneficial to ask for
> comments and suggestions from the list members. The most important
> suggestions on how to create and organize a biofuel business are not
ready,
> I estimate that it is 20% more needed but you can look at it,
>
> http://energy.saving.nu/biofuels/biofueldev.shtml
>
> It should be of special interest if I can get comments from members
working
> in developing countries. If you do not want to post your comments, please
> send them to mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Hakan
>
>
>
> **
> If you want to take a look on a project
> that is very close to my heart, go to:
> http://energysavingnow.com/
> http://hakan.vitools.net/ My .Net Card
> http://hakan.vitools.org/ About me
> http://vitools.com/ My webmaster site
> http://playa.nu/ Our small rental activities
> **
> "A truth's initial commotion is directly proportional to
> how deeply the lie was believed. It wasn't the world
> being round that agitated people, but that the world
> wasn't flat. When a well-packaged web of lies has
> been sold to the masses over generations, the truth
> will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving
