Now: Ethanol From Nipah
By SK (bumiku.blogspot.com)
Pioneer Bio Industries Corp.
The Star, 10 April, 2007Malaysian company says bio-fuel from nipah can help halt global warming
KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian government-backed company claimed Tuesday it has found a new source of energy to replace fossil fuels - ethanol from nipah palm trees that it believes can help stop global warming.
Pioneer Bio Industries Corp. said it is building the world's first refinery to commercially produce ethanol from the short palm trees, found in equatorial countries, that could fuel everything from automobiles to power plants.
Pioneer says the nipah palm sap will be used in a patented process to make ethanol, which produces virtually none of the carbon emissions blamed for the climate-changing greenhouse effect and ozone depletion.
"This is a new energy source to save the world, to tackle global warming,'' Pioneer Chairman Badrul Shah Mohamad Noor told reporters.
The company envisions a fuel of the future that would be 85 percent nipah ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, he said, thereby greatly reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
With a production capacity of 100 million imperial gallons (450 million liters), the refinery in the northern state of Perak will go on stream by the end of 2008, Badrul Shah said. Pioneer plans to build 15 such refineries across Malaysia.
Badrul Shah said nipah ethanol is an better alternative to ethanol produced from palm trees, sugarcane, corn, cassava and other plants because ethanol from those sources eats into food production and raises their prices.
Nipah palm trees are not a food source and its sap can be drained every day without the need to harvest the plants.
"The plant will live for 50 years. We just have to collect its sap,'' he said.
He said Pioneer has received an order worth more than US$66 billion (euro50 billion) from one of the biggest trading companies in the world to buy its ethanol from 2009 to 2013.
Badrul Shah refused to identify the company, saying details would be announced at a later date.
The size of the order could not be independently confirmed.
The Malaysian government has given Pioneer the right to harvest nipah palm trees on 10,000 hectares (24,710 acres) of land in Perak.
That is enough to run 15 refineries for five years, and there are millions of hectares of nipah palm trees growing in the wild in the wetlands along the coast and on Borneo island that can produce enough fuel to "replace the entire fossil fuel needs of the world,'' Badrul Shah said.
Pioneer has taken an international patent on the process of producing ethanol from nipah palm tree, which was perfected over five years by 16 Malaysian scientists commissioned by Badrul Shah, a businessman with interests in construction and services.
Currently, ethanol accounts for only 2 percent of the total global fuel consumption.
Also, the demand for food-based ethanol has been blamed for deforestation as trees are being cut down for plantations.
KUALA LUMPUR, April 10 (Bernama) -- Pioneer Bio Industries Corp Sdn Bhd (PBIC), which is applying land to set up an ethanol industrial park in Perak, claims it can produce 6.48 billion litres of ethanol yearly when its planned refineries there begin operations in 2009.
Its chairman Md Badrul Shah Mohd Noor said the Perak state government has awarded the company the rights to harvest nipah sap on 10,000 hectares of land, for which it has to pay RM324 million yearly.
PBIC, a subsidiary of Pioneer Vaccination Biotech Corp Sdn Bhd, holds the patent to produce ethanol from nipah palm sap.
Ethanol needs of the United States alone stood at 22 billion litres last year, Md Badrul Shah said at a media briefing on the "National Biofuel Project based on Ethanol from Nypa Palm - Industrial Project Investment and Solution for Solving World Global Warming."
He said ethanol is forecast to provide 30 per cent of global energy by 2020, up significantly from only two per cent last year.
The company, according to him, will sign a multi-billion dollar contract with a major international company in July to supply nipah-based ethanol over a five-year period.
However, Md Badrul Shah declined to reveal the name of the company.
http://biopact.com/2007/04/malaysian-company-thinks-it-can-produce.html
Malaysian company thinks it can produce 6.48 billion liters of ethanol from Nipah
Fresh news about that 'mysterious' energy crop called Nypa fruticans (also known as 'nipah' or 'mangrove palm'): Pioneer Bio Industries Corp Sdn Bhd (PBIC) claims it will be able to produce a startling 6.48 billion litres (1.7 billion gallons) of nipah palm ethanol per year when its planned refineries in Malaysia's North-Western Perak State begin operations in 2009. This amount is roughly equal to 780,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Earlier, the same company had announced a far lower projected output of around 1 billion liters.
At the Biopact we understand the potential of nipah, a very robust palm that thrives in most tropical mangrove systems, because we are cooperating with a small NGO in Nigeria, where the plant has invaded vast tracts of the Niger Delta. The aim of the small project is to alleviate the rampant poverty that plagues the mangrove communities, by building a 'cottage' ethanol industry around the palm and to link it up with larger production facilities.
Ethanol can be obtained from fermenting the sugar-rich sap that can be tapped continuously from the trees' inflorescence. Nipah has a very high sugar-rich sap yield. According to one study (earlier post), the palm can produce 6,480-15,600 liters of ethanol per hectare, compared to 3,350-6,700 liters/hectare from sugarcane. Others go so far as to estimate potential ethanol yields to be as high as 20,000 liters once plantation management is optimised. However, the tapping technique is labor-intensive and it remains a question whether production can be scaled up that easily.
Apparently, the malaysian company thinks it is possible. Speaking at a media briefing titled ambitiously "National Biofuel Project based on Ethanol from Nypa Palm - Industrial Project Investment and Solution for Solving Global Warming", Chairman Md Badrul Shah Mohd Noor put the venture into a larger perspective:
bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: nypa fruticans :: nipah :: mangrove :: Malaysia ::He indicated that ethanol demand of the United States alone stood at 22 billion litres last year, and that the biofuel is forecast to provide 30% of global energy by 2020, up significantly from only two per cent last year.Giving details about the nipah project, Mr Badrul Shah said the Perak state government has awarded the company the rights to harvest nipah sap on 10,000 hectares of land, for which it has to pay 324 million ringgits (€70/US$94 million) per year. (A quick calculation shows that this would only result in 200 million liters of ethanol, maximum. The question is: where will the other 6.28 billion liters come from? Earlier, the company said it would establish dedicated plantations, besides tapping sap from wild stands. This matter remains very vague.)
PBIC, a subsidiary of Pioneer Vaccination Biotech Corp Sdn Bhd, holds the patent to produce ethanol from nipah palm sap. Md Badrul Shah said the company will sign a multi-billion dollar contract with a major international company in July to supply nipah-based ethanol over a five-year period.
http://www.mida.gov.my/beta/view.php?cat=41&scat=1628
Pioneer Bio plans 15 Nipah-based ethanol refineries
Pioneer Bio Industries Corp Sdn Bhd, which holds a patent for the production of ethanol using Nipah-based agro technology, plans to invest RM15 billion to set up 15 refineries nationwide, over the next five years.
The company would be the first in the country to produce nipah or mangrove palm-based ethanol, when its first ethanol refinery in Trong near Taiping, Perak starts operation by end-2008.
Chairman Md Badrul Shah Mohd Noor said the company, which has obtained a five-year ethanol future trade order (FTO) from one of the largest trading conglomerate in the world, aims to seek potential investors as strategic partners to supply the ethanol worldwide.
On the supply of the main raw material- Nipah sap, Badrul said, the Perak Government has allocated an initial 10,000ha of its Nipah forests to Pioneer Bio, which would translate to a production of some 290 million barrels or 6.48 billion litres of ethanol, capable of generating a profit of about RM16billion a year. Some RM324mil a year would be payable to the Perak State Government for the extraction of the Nipah sap from the allocated area.
In Penisular Malaysia half of the 110,000ha of Nipah forests identified are in Perak while Sabah and Sawarak have some two million ha.
To facilitate export of the ethanol, Pioneer Bio is also planning to set up a terminal and port near to the company's proposed RM30billion Biotech City, Badrul said.
Pioneer Bio is a subsidiary of Pioneer Vaccination Biotech Corp Sdn Bhd.
http://www.bic.org.my/?action=news&do=display&go=Investment&id=110407Star-0
Pioneer Bio plans refineries worth RM15b (11/04/2007)
KUALA LUMPUR: Pioneer Bio Industries Corp Sdn Bhd (PBIC), Malaysia’s first Nipah or mangrove palm-based ethanol producer, plans to set up 15 refineries nationwide costing about RM15bil within the next five years given the increasing global demand for the commodity.The group’s maiden ethanol refinery in Trong near Taiping, Perak is slated for operation by end-2008.
Chairman Md Badrul Shah ...
Bernama.com (Malaysian National News Agency), September 06, 2006 19:44 PMMalaysia's Biotechnology Pioneer Fund Of US$200 Mln Highest In Asia
NILAI, Sept 6 (Bernama) -- The government will be allocating the highest biotechnology pioneer fund in Asia totalling US$200 million to develop the country's biotechnology industry.
Chief executive officer of Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation Sdn Bhd, Iskandar Mizal Mahmood said that with the establishment of the fund, the country would be marking a new level in the field where products from research and development efforts would be taken to the market.
He said the fund would be managed by Malaysian Technology Development Corporation Sdn Bhd together with venture capital company Burrill & Co, which has its headquarters in San Francisco, US.
All this while there have been laments from industry members and researchers that they have all the products but are not able to take them to the market, he said.
"And it is true that there was no funding infrastructure as at that point," Iskandar Mizal told reporters here Wednesday.
He said the government had been funding research and development efforts so far.
To bring the R&D products to the market, the role played by the pioneering party is of utmost importance and this can be seen in the models used in the US and Europe, he said.
"They are the ones who take the initiative to search for researched and developed products from universities to bring them into the market," he said.
He said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will be chairing the first meeting of the Malaysian Biotechnology Implementation Council Thursday.
The meeting is expected to consider various issues in terms of implementation and the launch of several initiatives including the pioneer fund.
Iskandar Mizal said the prime minister would be also launching Malaysia's first cGMP or current Good Manufacturing Practices facility for biopharmaceuticals manufacturing and Inno Biologics biomanufacturing complex here Thursday.
Incorporated in March 2002, Inno Biologics Sdn Bhd is the flagship company of Inno Bio Ventures Sdn Bhd.
Inno Bio Ventures is a Ministry of Finance Incorporated company, and partly owned by the Malaysian Industry Group of High Technology (MIGHT).
Inno Biologics is a contract manufacturer organisation, specialising in biomanufacturing of mammalian cell culture-based biopharmaceuticals.
-- BERNAMA
This is the website of Pioneer Bio Industries.
http://www.pioneerbioindustries.com/about.html
25.08.2007 (M@RHAEN - Emel: marhaen@gmail.com / reformasi@gmail.com)
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