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We have much to be thankful for over the past year. Once again, life has brought us many changes and God has shown His faithfulness in many ways. I thought I would share a few highlights from our Thanksgiving day with a video.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Jatropha in Costa Rica
On November 13-16th I traveled to Costa Rica to visit a Jatropha plantation and a biodiesel refinery. I was somewhat surprised when they told me we would be traveling by horseback, since I have not ridden since I was a young teen. I loved it!
My goal in visiting was to meet with Ed Acosta and Daniel Yepez, who run the Costa Rica Seed Company. They currently have 200 acres and are continually planting additional Jatropha within Costa Rica. They are also supplying seed and cuttings to Central America, Africa, Europe and the US.
Our vision is to develop a partnership that would allow us to convert the Jatropha oil they produce into jet fuel. We already have a conversion process working in our lab and will run a test with their Jatropha oil in December. The next phase is to scale up to a 25-50 gallon per day process in preparation for a commercial pilot. We will use the fuel to run tests with a turbine engine to validate the concept. The next phase is a scale up to a 500-1000 gallon per day pilot that we will use to fuel a jet for demonstration and testing. Once that testing is complete, we will begin designing a commercial production facility. I expect that to take us up to 5 years.
My other motivation for traveling to Costa Rica was to learn more about Jatropha planting in preparation for my trip to Africa next summer. It is there that I will train farmers how to plant, cultivate and harvest Jatropha.
I am planning to take the whole family back to Costa Rica sometime next year, prior to my trip to Africa. While there, I will spend more time learning how to plant and cultivate Jatropha.
Peace and blessings,
John
My goal in visiting was to meet with Ed Acosta and Daniel Yepez, who run the Costa Rica Seed Company. They currently have 200 acres and are continually planting additional Jatropha within Costa Rica. They are also supplying seed and cuttings to Central America, Africa, Europe and the US.
Our vision is to develop a partnership that would allow us to convert the Jatropha oil they produce into jet fuel. We already have a conversion process working in our lab and will run a test with their Jatropha oil in December. The next phase is to scale up to a 25-50 gallon per day process in preparation for a commercial pilot. We will use the fuel to run tests with a turbine engine to validate the concept. The next phase is a scale up to a 500-1000 gallon per day pilot that we will use to fuel a jet for demonstration and testing. Once that testing is complete, we will begin designing a commercial production facility. I expect that to take us up to 5 years.
My other motivation for traveling to Costa Rica was to learn more about Jatropha planting in preparation for my trip to Africa next summer. It is there that I will train farmers how to plant, cultivate and harvest Jatropha.
I am planning to take the whole family back to Costa Rica sometime next year, prior to my trip to Africa. While there, I will spend more time learning how to plant and cultivate Jatropha.
Peace and blessings,
John
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