YARETANOL: Venezuela Pioneers Alternative Fuel from Cassava Root, New Tang Dynasty Television

YARETANOL Project: Venezuela may soon be able to add a new form of energy to complement its vast oil reserves.

A team of engineers has found a way to convert waste products created when producing Casabes, or flat breads from the cassava root, into ethanol, butanol, isobutanol and proponal energy compounds that can produce fuel.

Cassava root, popularly known as Yuca, is the third largest source of carbohydrates for human food in the world.

The extract of the cassava, known as Yare, inspired the name of the project -"Yaretanol" - which brought top honors at Venezuela's sixth annual IDEAS competition in 2008.

[Antonio Hernandez, Yaretanol Team Member]:
"This product, popularly known as 'Yare,' is really nothing more than a milky product with a high content of poisonous cyanide, and is made up of around 800 to 1,200 parts per million of cyanide. That means that 2 ccs of Yare could kill an animal weighing up to 500 kilograms."

Yaretanol production is expected to generate some 1,500 jobs, and produce 30 tons of fuel per day.

That equates to roughly 1% of the ethanol currently being used in Venezuela.

Project manager Ivaneth Silva Pernalette is keen to point out the myriad benefits offered by the cassava.

[Silva Pernalette, Yaretanol Project Manager]:
We are improving the environment, helping people who have this contaminant on their hands that is poisonous and then we process it. And from that process we obtain the bitter 'Yuca' that provides ecological benefits and makes positive contributions to the environment, in addition to other byproducts. We also obtain from the cob of the bitter Yuca food products for animals, and from the pulp we can extract wheat for the cassava. We also get starch and ethanol as a base for biopolymers, and plastic extract as a base for bio-combustibles."

Team members are also mindful that they are creating a new form of energy in a country that already produces the most oil in South America.

[Jose Gregorio Gimenez, Yaretanol Team Member]:
"Ironically we are in a country that has the most proven oil and gas reserves in the world. But the project is not something we are looking at for the short term. We are thinking of the long term, when these reserves run out, or when these combustibles run out, or when environmental contamination forces us to change our source of energy.

Yaretanol team members say they believe their model could thrust Venezuela to the forefront of bio-fuel technology in the new century.


http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_sa/2009-07-28/757570707165.html

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