MANILA, Aug 11 (Bernama-DPA) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) saidWednesday it has approved a 500,000-dollar technical assistance grant tostudy the potential for using waste from Indonesia's palm oil mills as asource of commercially viable renewable energy.The grant, co-financed by the Canadian Government Fund, wouldestablish a waste management framework for Indonesia's palm oil industryand study options available for energy recovery and conversion.The Manila-based ADB noted that Indonesia is the world's secondlargest producer of palm oil, after Malaysia, with about 300 palm oilmills operating in the country.These mills produce more than four billion tons of palm oil annuallyand generate one billion dollars in export earnings.However, the industry also gives rise to significant amount of biomasswaste and wastewater which pollute the groundwater and soil and releasemethane gas."Solid and liquid biomass waste is a renewable source of energy thatcould potentially be transformed into electricity, gas, bio-diesel andfertilizer to serve remote rural areas and reduce dependence on fossilfuel," said ADB project economist Sujata Gupta.Gupta noted that one palm oil mill that processes 60 tons of freshfruit bunches per hour could produce 11,400 cubic metres of methane perday from wastewater, and provide more than 1.5 megawatts of electricity."But the mills lack the expertise and access to the information aboutthese processes as well as the appropriate technologies," Gupta said.ADB said the Indonesian government would contribute 125,000 dollarsfor the project, which would be executed by the Directorate General ofElectricity and Energy Utilization. The study would be carried out untilAugust 2005.

-- Bernama-DPA