18 August 2010

Mali To Build Bio-Fuel Power Station In 2011
The Malian government will build a power station, powered only with jatropha oil, in February 2011, in the Kebila district, southern Mali, PANA reported from here Tuesday.

The Malian Minister of Environment, Tiemoko Sangare, laid the foundation stone for the construction of the new bio-fuel power station.

The power station project, which will cost CFA F 180 million (US$ 274,408), will be financed by an NGO, Malifolcenter and its partners, and will supply electricity to 150 families.

Each family will pay an annual subscription fee of CFA F 15,000 (US$ 30).

The district of Kebila already has 84 hectares for the production of jatropha, which is still insufficient for an area where an extraction unit of jatropha oil will soon be built.

This transformation will require local populations to plant at least 1,500 hectares of this oleaginous plant. Mali has just a few jatropha, about 17,000 kilometers in a linear area.

Generally, the jatropha plant, which is used as hedges reaches its full productivity in three or four years and gets old between 30 and 40 years.

The production of seeds is estimated at two kilogrammes per linear metre, which is an annual capacity of about 700 tonnes each year and the jatropha seed can produce oil up to 30 per cent of its seed's weight.