Remembering coconut at the beaches, the first thing that strikes is coconuts for cocktails. Yeah, it garnished with small brightly colored paper umbrellas. But, it would not be just the same for Pacific island nations. Many of these impoverished nations are also looking to coconuts as a solution to soaring world oil prices. They are planning to use coconut oil to make biofuel.
It is more than $800 million a year, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Vanuatu, the Federated States of Micronesia, Tonga, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, the Cook Islands and Palau spend on fuel imports, South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission (SOPAC) says.
To run power generators, electricity companies in Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa are testing blends of coconut oil and diesel. If Pacific island countries were to replace 50 percent of diesel imports with coconut oil, the region’s average import bill would be cut by 10 percent! A report by the 20-member SOPAC has found this statistics.
Via: Environmental News Network
