This Mexican Company Is Making Biofuel from Cactus Plants
by Sean Fleming (World Economic Forum) … Rogelio Sosa López, is a farmer and tortilla producer from Zitácuaro. Like many farmers, he was always open to the idea of finding new ways to keep operating costs down. Working with a colleague, Antonio Rodríguez, Señor López began pulping the flesh of nopales and fermenting it to produce biofuel, thereby helping reduce his regular fuel costs.
When chopped and pureed, then mixed with manure, the nopales flesh breaks down to produce methane and water. López and Rodríguez went on to set up Nopalimex, a firm focused on the production of green sources of energy.
Its biogas has been powering agricultural machinery since 2016 and now Nopalimex is supplying fuel to the Zitácuaro city authorities to use in a fleet of its vehicles. At a cost of just $0.65 (or 12 pesos) per litre, it’s about one-third cheaper than standard gasoline or diesel. And it burns considerably cleaner.
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While they are used in food and drink production, they’re not consumed on an industrial scale. So increased demand for nopales in the creation of fuel is not going to put pressure on food prices. Similarly, they aren’t grown on traditional agricultural pasture, which means no increased competition for the resources currently being used for global food production.
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And if all that isn’t enough to make you look at the nopal in a new light, it is also being used as a potential alternative for single-use plastic. Research scientist Sandra Pascoe of the University of the Valley of Atemajac in Mexico has used nopal juice as the foundation for a new plastic-like material.
The juice contains monosaccharides and polysaccharides, which can be combined with glycerol, natural waxes and proteins to create a liquid that forms into plasticky sheets. Unlike regular plastic, the nopal juice alternative decomposes naturally when buried, which could help in the fight against plastic pollution. READ MORE
