Vetiver & Biofuel

On the 27th of August 2009, 150 years have gone by since the beginning of the oil era. Given the great availability and low costs, oil has given to its producers an enormous power which concerns avery aspect of occidental living and more.

With it, fertilizers are produced and with those supermarkets are kept open and people fed, medicinals, mobility, lubricants and on the top shelf energy, which allows the cold chain, food conservation and tap water. In other words has detached the human being from natural competition in its environment.

Whichever opinion is reported by the media, studies in depth of the matter have shown that the peak of the oil production has been, or is about to be reached.

The world as a whole burns daily some 85 million barrels of oil, given the barrel 200L and future trends leave little doubt: the sooner we kill the dependence from the drug, the better off we may end up as a whole, point is: how much of our lifestile will be able to mantain in the transition?

One Thursday, as usual I bought the Nòva 24 paper and I found myself smiling reading an interesting article concerning the danish Novozymes company: whithin 6 monts it will start the commercial distribution of a new product, made up by a combination of enzymes which promises good savings in the production of biofuels starting from cellulose: actually starting from agricultural scrap (third generation).

This solution allows to definetely detach the production of biofuel from edible goods which (besides ethical concern) has in the past affected the price of alimetary goods, especially in the south of the world.

In past times, I pointed at this type of solution (which is not a novelty), but this biotechnological application promises huge savings on the actual industrial process.

I'll take a furter step in suggesting a combination of applications that can be put into place at any scale level: to produce biomass starting from wastewater using vetiver plants:

It is of public domain the capability of the vetiver plant to live and thrive in swampy areas; quickly absorbing great quantities of N P and K, heavy metals, Hydrocarbons, etc. in the biomass above and below the terrain; notorious are also the applications on wastewater depuration which involve the use of Reed Beds: low cost systems which allow the transit of wastewater and its depuration, or floating pontoons sat on lagooning ponds.

Allora mi domando: perchè non combinare le due cose?

dovunque esistono acque di scarto diventa automaticamente interessante la produzione di biiomasse: bacini di lagunaggio, impianti di depurazione, fognature consortili e comunali; le industrie inquinanti, tutti avranno la possibilità di riconsegnare acque pulite all'ambiente e guadagnare molti soldi laddove in bilancio erano previsti alti costi: tutto ciò è talmente ovvio che immagino sarà inevitabile.

Speriamo bene!

Then the question I ask is the following: a huge mass of wastewater needs to be recycled and can be used as growing media, a great mass of biomass is derived from this action and can be converted in biofuel.

Why not combine the two issues?

The economic result of this combination presents an interesting potential for all councils, industries, land owners: when water will be paid by the liter and the fuel will rise again at an unsustainable rate, I'm sure that this will be then considered a very interesting idea.

Vetiver and mass production, second update

As promised here goes the third update regarding the

in vitro (Tissue Culture) of vetiver plants.

For the benefit of who hasn't followed the ongoing study

so far, here is a quick resume:

One of the most formidable obstacles to the spreading of the

Vetiver System, is not so much the price of the live material

used to bring to safety the territory, which is higly competitive

with other solutions (rigid structures) but more the high cost

of the skilled and non skilled workers needed to physically

plant the hedgerows and the availability of the material itself.

Say for example the energetic application: biofuels and

thermic power generation: if we imagine an hectare of plants

we will have to think to 100m rows by 200 rows, 50 cm space

between them 30 cm between plants: that makes a single

row 20 Km long formed by almost 67000 single plants.

If a single person can plant daily 1500 common nursery plants,

the need for workers goes up to 44 days/man/Ha.

The costs of this option are NOT SUSTAINABLE.

Furthermore, the average nursery plant does not have a

standard dimension and it is very difficult to mechanize

its planting.

This are the reasons that convinced me to find a professional

partner to produce high numbers of standard plants

suitable to mechanization to cut labour costs to a tenth

and reduce considerably the cost of the live material itself.

And here are the results so far obtained:

the head researcher of the production lab has confirmed that

the in vitro growth proceeds with a surprising rithm and

in little time we will be able to transfer a first lot of live

material in the greenhouse to harden: probably within July

a first consignment of 100 - 200 plants will be transferred in

Sardinia to be devised in the field. At this point it will be easy

to follow the growing speed and to document it.

More to follow.

Vetiver Multiplication, a word of advice.

The conduction of the vetiver nursery, makes arise some necessities: the first is to obtain good quality live material free from weeds and runners, the second is to have compact plants, easy to cut and uniform all the way through.

Vetiver grows through basal buds, its growth starts from the formation of the gems around the outer ring of the planted material.

Planting vetiver material,  the main concern will have to regard the dimensions of the live material: when the number of tillers is too great, problems will arise in a second moment. Especially if the planting operation is conducted in the winter time.

The live material will pass its energy to the root system favouring the formation of a deep root system that will give indipendance to the plant in the dry season.

After that, it will die.

This energy, also, will give in the spring time a new breed of basal buds around the outer ring of the material planted in the first place.

Within a couple of years, the dead material at the center of the plant will rot and if the live material was too big in the first place, the plant will be empty at its center and runners will colonize it. In the long run other essences will shade the plant and this will die.

Therefore: it is a good rule of thumb not to transplant direcly big clumps but always divide them in 3-5 tiller propagations which will grow well even if transplanted in the winter time, avoiding then to have an empty plant like the one in the picture above.

Recycling water "Own Means"

The place where my vetiver plants grow  is virtually surrounded 

by farms and farmers that, despite any legislation on  

the disposal of nitrates, dispose of the wastewater simply discharging it in 

holes in the ground, or better in ditches. 

Given that here the irrigation water costs 150€ for 45 days 

by the single hydrant (as a result of an effective 

privatization action conducted in recent years 

in a bipartisan fashion by any government and 

by each regional authority), I have decided to proceed 

as usual with "Own Means" to dispose of some pollution 

that ends up at sea (very close to the land in question) and save 

some money which, these days, for sure, will find better use elsewere.

 

The ditch bottom  retains a good 50 cm of water 

(for a flaw of execution) until at least July, 

I therefore devised a two stages system, able to filter the suspended solids. 

The first stage consists of a gravel filter contained within a 

concrete pipe that sat abandoned for years in the nearby field;

a submerged pump draws the water through the gravel which, this way is kept free of algae and 

mucilages present in industrial quantities, 

thus denouncing the strong presence of nitrates and phosphates. 

The second stage is built with a modified pump pressure aid  with 

two check valves, a couple of fittings, and filled with quartzite to operate 

a more accurate sand filtration of water. 

The chemical quality of water of course does not change, 

the plants take advantage of the nourishment excess 

and the excess of such irrigation is released in the watertable after 

a vertical filtering operated by the plant itself.

A double goal is so achieved: intercept pollution and save money.

Not just a pretty face....

Single Tiller: More propagation methods

The practice of burning, misused in the last decades, is useful in 

small omeopatic doses to help with the preparation of new areas to cultivate

or to experiment with new techniques (this is the case). 

If done on a large scale it results in deforestation and has certainly negative 

ethical connotations, but sometimes the old Neolithic cultural wisdom is definitely practical! 

Here's the idea: I'll try out the Thai technique of multiplication in order  

to obtain strips of plants, ready for planting in unstable slopes that require 

the standard density of 10 plants per meter. 

Using a draining nursery liner,

I shall escavate a 20 cm deep and 2 meters long depression to be lined  (the length will be variable) 

This space will be filled with 60% peat, sand 39%, slow release fert 1%. 

The single tillers are generally a byproduct of plant division, they will be prepared as in the photo above 

and placed in the bed every 10 cm, each planted line will be divided by the next with wood.  

A dripping line will be  placed along each row to ensure that the cloth does not produce 

excessive dehydration due to the separation from subsoil and consequent elimination of the 

capillarity effect. 

Furthermore, with burning I've also easily gained a place to put a 1000L tank for fertirrigation. 

In the coming days we will see the progress of the work. 

More to follow

Biomasses, Shell Believes in it!

Over the past 5 years Shell has invested 1.7 billion dollars in 

renewables, and specifically not in wind power or solar, but 

in biomasses in order to find a viable alternative to oil and

continue to produce fuel for internal combustion engines. 

I drawn this information from a short article appeared on Wednesday 18 March 

on the Corriere della Sera (the major italian paper). 

I quote: 

"More specifically looks at alternative fuels to petrol, 

second generation fuels derived from biomasses, ie 

cellulose and non-cereals. It will have to mean something! " 

I do not love Shell or the world they represent, it must be 

noted that where they invest their money, probably, that will be 

the most likely future field of development.

Vetiver and mass production: Update

Today I received the periodic update about the in-vitro propagation protocol of vetiver: 

here's the news: there were no major problems with bacterial or virus contaminations 

and only in one case 

a re-sterilization was necessary, the buds extracted started to grow and 

perhaps a month  the  proliferation phase will begin, followed by the greenhouse hardening of the first plants. 

Soon a first batch of plantlets Will be produced  in order to perform a field pilot test, 

maybe at the end of spring. 

Perhaps then, at the end of summer we will have obtained some genuine data on this promising chapter.

Many thanks to Romano and all the people involved.

SEASON'S GREETINGS TO THE DECISOR!

If anyone missed out on this one, I'd like to relay it: on the news, in the past days, a watercourse happended to become suddenly a river, it seems to happen quite often lately. This time it claimed three lives.
I'd like to underline, as the video clearly shows, that this has happened for the ignorance of the minimum basic safety rules concerning hydrogeological scenario, the total ignorance of bio-ingegneristic methods that save money and lives, costing only a fraction of the cement that is also prone to be washed away by the force of the waters, all this in the complete impunity of who is called to operate decisions who affect people's lives not knowing or worse, knowing and not caring.
Merry Christmas!

MALA TEMPORA!

All it takes it's an half hour storm, that's enough to put at risk people and property, nowadays. It can all be washed away by a little drain that becomes river in a second.
This is what happened recently in Sardinia, five lives drowned by the flood caused by insufficient drainage capacity of the catchment and by foolish cementing of an area at risk.
Afterwards the usual lamenting of the survivor and the damage count.

In the photos, the destructive potential of an innocent watercourse when 100mm of rain fall in half an hour.
It happened behind my house, in Cugnana, next to Olbia: the river has destroyed the IMHOFF septic tank and stormed into the house, pushing its content throughout the floor up to 50cm. About 30,000€ damage.
Fortunately no one got hurt this time.
More shots of the same happening.

ROWBAGS

One day in September, a few years ago, I needed to move 

a few clumps of vetiver from the nursery to another location;

I couldn't finish the work in the immediate so I abandoned

the clumps in the parking area.

A couple of weeks later, when I put hands in the matter

again, to my great amazement, I wasn't able to pull the 

clumps from the ground because those had stricken roots

in the mean time and formed a solid block with the

compacted ground.

Today I review that incident with the certainty that I found

the keystone to introduce vetiver hedgerows to the public

authorities who act to safeguard the hydrogeological stability

in the interest of local inhabitants at any level.

Here is the Idea:

Let's take a common jute bag used to produce the typical 

sandbag, let's fill it with sand a little slow release nitrogen 

fertilizer, make a few holes along its long axis and place

in it a row of bare root vetiver propagations.

In no time the plants will strike roots which will escape the

jute bag from the bottom (for this it is advisable to place

them on concrete or plastic).

They can easily be produced in nurseries at any latitude.

In the production period, it would be best to keep low the

aerial part and often prune the roots in order to promote

new tillers and new root growth.

Drip irrigation in hot weather would be needed.

When ready, the bags, can simply be alligned on the ground

on contour lines, along their long axis, to form the much

debated hedgerows without moving a single stone or plough a single centimeter of land.

Total planting cost: ZERO

This rowbags can also be placed on top of other common 

sandbag walls or barriers forming in little time some strong

levee banks at very little cost and effort.

All the rest, given the instrument, is a bio-engineeristic task

for a specialistic team to design; here some examples:

- embankments set in order to favour the formation of 

sand barriers in rivers at risk,

- active defenses to slow down and direct the flow of 

floodwaters,

- immediate action (but built to stay)to spread heavy rainfall

in the catchment and prevent flashflood.

With a little fantasy anyone can imagine the huge potential

of this idea, or not?

And many thanks to Nicola for his giving graphic shape to 

my thinking.

ETHIC CODE OF CONDUCT

With this document, I intend to clarify the

intentions that move the work of Vetiver

Sardegna.

In the past 20 years, in Italy, the technology linked

to the use of vetiver hedgerows has been

used by few people that used it up for personal

gain only, not spreding the knoledge of it nor

giving out propagation material.

On the contrary, Vetiver Sardegna operates

for the capillary diffusion of the technology

through mass communication (web) with

the clear intent of making aware of the great

simplicity of application to everyone, and the

production of propagating material to the

lowest possible price with the aim to heal

the territory in a definitive way in order to 

prevent possible disasters in harm to people.

The research conducted by Vetiver Sardegna,

at the present without any funding at all, goes

in the direction of constantly improve, and 

progressively make more accessible, the use

of this technology to private citizens on their

land and public offices, through the use of local

labour to generate a further benefit to the area

of application.

This logic, goes further than simple economic gain,

though necessary, and puts back in the end user's

pocket, any saving obtaind by the research on 

production and planting methods, for the final

aim of spreding the same technology at any level

in the country.

Vetiver Sardegna's work is inspired to an "Open Source" 

model and by the consciousness of multiple benefits 

that the territory receives by it and by the quantity

of human lives that can be saved through the correct 

application of VGT technology.The implementation 

of mass scale economies, is the medium through which,

in the future, it will be impossible and non economical, 

a new kidnapping of this technology for private gain.

Marco Forti

Vetiver and mass production

In order to shoot dead all the obstacles that can arise and the difficulties to the spreading of the Vetiver technology, and in order to make more accessible to everyone and more competitive the hedgerow system, from today, vetiver Sardegna has begun a new path of studies: the in vitro production.

The final aim is to reduce as much as possible the cost of the single plant and uniform all propagation material to a standard that makes easy the use of mechanized planting.

With this method we will obtain to reduce the main economic obstacle to the spreading of the vetiver system: the cost of labour and propagation material.

Next season will be used to asses the costs and devise a method to mechanize the planting of hedgerows, plus a comparison with other methods of environmental protection.

Yesterday, 5th of November I have signed a preliminary agreement with one of the biggest nursery production sites; their work is mainly in the fruit tree production, I have found some very good allies, in love with their work and their mission, that will make possible this great project to come true.

Next spring, after a preliminary  period of  study of the material, we will asses together how beneficial this method will be to our work.

Vetiver Sardegna, new site

It's now on.line the new site for Vetiver Sardegna

Contents will start to be added within a little while.

At the moment the hoe sets the pace.

Suggestions and comments are as usual most wellcome.

Emission Impossible

The Sole 24 Ore, yesterday Thursday 25th of September 2008, in the Nòva publication with the paper, a pearl of the editorial arena, had on the front page an interesting article: Guido Romeo wrote about the state of the art in the main fields of renewables: wind generation, solar, and geothermic: even though this are not my fields of election, some deep concepts caught my attention:

"Eco compatibility is the occasion to develope an Eco Design intended in a wide way, like a new economic sector, more dinamic and competitive because less dipendent by traditional production factors(...) intelligent webs of productive systems are capable to use one another's waste to thrive, and this thanks to research."

This is the most encouraging thing I've heard by an economist in a long while...and again:

" This is the philosophy of the ZERI (Zero Emission Research and Initiative), a network launched in 1994 by the economist Gunther Pauli, that has promoted many projects especially in the south of the world.(...) At Turin's Politecnico University, are active some Design masters which share the ZERI's principles in order to have architects and engineers growing into it.

Fritjof Capra, founder of the Center for ecoliteracy at Berkeley, California: "The applications of what I call Leonardo's eco design are extremely vast because are based on the comprehension of natural phenomena "

Capra states the necessity of facing the energetic issue and the environmental problem in an integrated way looking at the earth system as a whole, just like Leonardo would have done, but applying the most advanced technologies and knoledges of our time.

Of course, if the legislator would take note of this thoughts, our work would be greatly helped...

Giulio Tramellino Prize second edition

For the second year in a row starts the "Giulio Tramellino Prize"

I wish to remember him putting up for grabs 100 vetiver plants to be won by the best project in any field of application of this green technology that sees me at work, with the hoe in my hand, since 1996.
I want to make this system known in Italy so that everyone will be able to see how beneficial it can be for the environment and the whole of society.
Please leave a comment or send a mail, submitting photos, drawings or any written description of what the project aim is.

Closing date is on the 2nd of February 2009

It also happens elsewere!

I now would like to link here the others who look to spread this green technology like me, I just found this.
Let's hope to become many more soon.

Vetiver Sardegna grows up

Today's news are that Vetiver Sardegna has acquired in a 4 year rent contract a new land around Arzachena (OT) for a total of 4 hectares and soon the work will be started in order to plant the first vetiver hedgerows.
The first aim is to double the vetiver production within next spring.

Energy from biomasses

An interesting piece has showed up on "La Repubblica" tuersday 15th of April 2008:

A research conducted by the University of Massachussets, found a method to produce 2nd generation biofuels, starting from wood chips and agricultural waste using the quick pirolysis method.
At the moment agriculture using this method could contribute in Italy, with the waste it produces, with a total of 3,6 billion liters/year of biodiesel, standing a total need for Italy of about 40 billion/year. Even if we considered half of the fuel produced as energy needed by the industrial process, we still have a theoretical potential of 1,8 billion liters/year of biofuel which accounts for just about half the goal set by the EU, and this without using a single gram of anything may ever enter the human food chain, therefore without touching the economic balances of the third world (and ours too).
This research depicts agriculture's present state, but DOES NOT consider that biomasses can be produced free by phyto depurating wastewaters: If we only considered the use of "technical plants" for the treatment of sewage in at least half of the 8000 councils present in Italy, this final data of biofuel produced would certainly be reductive

Here is the article written by Antonio Cianciullo
The technology exists, now let's find the political will to apply it....

A good chance

As often happens I relay ideas and paper articles that I happen to find about: here is a piece of the "Sole 24 ore" inserted in the Nòva section:
RENEWABLES PIVOTING THE III INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
In 2006 the investments in renewables, globally have reached 70,9 billion USD, increasing by 43% respect the previous year, and what about Italy?
With the arrival of "Industria 2015" something seems to move, but we are far away from being able to reach the goal set of 20% renewables by 2020.
Without an incentive politics open to all renewables, it will be tough; as usual we risk to sell top know how for projects to be done elsewere.

Rubia leads that path...

Energy from Vetiver

Please wait.
The data I sworn to consign at the end of the present cultivation season, will not be ready this year, the nursery was moved last year and the plants are not ready yet.
Furthermore, well over half of the production was lost.
Next year I will gather.