Hello Seph Friday the 13th July 2007 Salamat for your question re kasla (Jatropha). Pleasure to hear from you again after two years. Let me first tackle source of seedling, then to whom you can sell. You have also stimulated my thoughts to include seperate topics which I have written at the latter portion below. Seedlings are available (very cheap) from Negros Occidental's provincial gov't who is encouraging rural folks to plant kasla together with coffee. Nestle who has coffee buying stations all over the country is also encouraging coffee planters to include kasla as their crop. Nestle has been preaching that kasla can grow side by side with coffee. What I do not know is if Nestle will buy kasla too. You might wanna inquire from PNOC (see seperate photo of newspaper article re PNOC & kasla which I will post next week.) I am assuming that you will not want to plant kasla for your personal consumption. Therefore, like any wise business venture, you must first ascertain market price & your channel(s) for sales. As of this date, I do not yet know of anyone commercially processing kasla into biofuel. Other than PNOC, Phinma Energy did express intention to do so last June 2007 but did not mention contract growing of kasla. Phinma Energy does not seem keen on having nor managing its own kasla plantation. For clarity, you might want to contact Sonny Viray who now heads Phinma Energy. He was once (over a decade ago) the Dean of our College of Engineering before he became Secretary of Energy during the term of Fidel Ramos. Wanna invite him as guest speaker for GPs? I can help arrange, though Ji Reyes is in a better position. Allow me now to deviate from your question. I hope you'll still find the succeeding relevant. The last few portions below should be intriguing... Whatever research goes into agri based renewables (ethanol included), carbon will still be the major oxidizeable (combustible) element. The main benefit of agri based renewables is lesser dependence on imported fossil fuels (hence lesser strain on dollar reserves). Still, the earth's atmosphere will continue to warm. On the other hand, energy from hydrogen does not warm the globe. But the energy for the separation of hydrogen from water on an industrial scale will still come from fossil fuels unless renewables are used, ie wind, hydro, geothermal, or solar.. Example: Iceland's hydrogen economy is powered by geothermal. Excess power from their geothermal capacity is used to produce hydrogen for use on vehicles running with fuel cells. What if the natural geography of a territory cannot have enough wind, water, nor underground steam? Solar energy is highly dependent on land surface area and is therefore difficult to concentrate even onto a two-wheel motorcycle. Silent vehicles running on batterys already exist like the ones roaming golf courses. But how many batterys can you solar-charge (or wind-charge) with a finite area of land? Must we destroy more virgin forests to avail of more land area for solar, kasla plantations, corn for fuel ethanol... etc? And deprive the earth of breathers by lessening the forests that convert lots of CO2 to O2? Perhaps we don't have a choice.. for now... Though not renewable, nuclear energy is dense & compact. Incumbent Secretary of Energy Popo Lotilla (our UP batchmate who pursued law) recently expressed the govt's renewed interest in nuclear. So will Bataan Nuclear Plant finally operate? As nuclear? The main concern re nuclear energy is not safety which has long been solved by American technology (not Russian hehe..). Rather, like greenhouse gases & pollution, the problem is how to process nuclear wastes which are solids and until today are just buried deep underground (or under sea water) somewhere remote. ______________________________________________________________ IS THERE ANOTHER WAY FOR CARBON IN NATURE TO PROVIDE DENSE YET CLEAN ENERGY WITHOUT FURTHER WARMING THE GLOBE? IS THERE A WAY TO PROCESS CARBON-MOLECULES TO RELEASE LIGHT & ELECTRICITY WITHOUT POLLUTION NOR THE EMISSION OF GREENHOUSE CO2? --------------------------------------------------------------- Apart from renewables, I've also been exploring fisheries. Amongst the various species, I began looking at abalones as well two years ago. Guess where this led me? (I thank Tim-A for pointing this out to me.) I strongly encourage you now to google these three keywords: Belcher, abalone, & energy. I hated dissecting frogs during high school & college biology classes but now fireflys & electric eels fascinate me!! I am too grown-up now & financially uninterested to return to low level basic research. You are young & capable. I haven't forgotten your video presentation in 2005. (You sure you don't wanna enter television? hehe.. Loren Legarda was our batch too & GPs almost had a party with MassComm's BroadAss when Loren was their president. She entered television after graduation. Look where it got her. Whichever path you take, I think you'll do well and attain high grounds someday. Most of my batchmates have.) By all means, take profit from kasla & other crops. Should you develop an interest, then apportion a small fraction of profits for the biochem study of fireflys & electric eels (before they become classified as endangered hehe.. or before you find less time for hands-on research as you rise up in management.) I foresee that the far future of energy will include biochemistry & biological processes esp photosynthesis which despite advances in science still cannot be simulated in the lab. (Aren't you somehow already in/directly involved in biology & the human skeletal anatomy?) The native word in almost every Philippine dialect for firefly is "alitaptap". Fireflys are an awesome sight -- 'round&about the same treetop they fly thru the night in constant random motion amidst a backdrop of darkness like twinkling tiny stars just meters away from your eyes. Can be quite hypnotic an experience as you stare. Don't know if alitaptaps still habitate places with electricity and streetlights. Tried to photograph'em but could not get any image. I no longer have a mechanical camera whose shutter speed & lens opening are manually adjustable. Or maybe there is some- thing in digital cameras I'm ignorant of using. Teach me? (Luminous bacteria also glows in the dark. It is one of several mutant diseases which plunged all of Asia's prawn industry into collapse. Dead prawns in culture ponds become visible at night. Dead prawns float and the luminous bacteria on them, glow.) Another crop investment you might want to consider are rubber trees in Mindanao. Unlike gemelina & mahogany from which you can earn solely by chopping them down after years of growth, rubber trees allow you regular income by periodical extraction of rubber sap for decades before they're fully grown & chopable into lumber. The mountains of Surigao Sur should provide opportunities. Still no flights to Surigao Norte & Sur as of todate. Have to land in Cagayan de Oro first then to Surigao Norte by sea then uphill to Surigao Sur by land. Was I of any help? Ciao for now fellow mightor... Rgds to Karen.. I miss chatting & comparing notes with her.. ____________ ps: May I post our correspondence on my website? That was the idea behind writing a reply this long, hehe.. Tis been a while since I wrote for my site..