29/09/2007 (The Tide Online) - In Nigeria, one thing remains positive about the economy. It’s all about oil and gas exploration and its sustainability. However, researches are on going to find alternative ways of sustaining the Nigerian economy, rather than depending solely on oil and gas sector.

To Dr. Alex J. Akor, an associate professor with the University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt in this interview, he proffers solution which he said had given experts serious concern.

The senior lecturer in the Department of Agricultural Engineering noted that the best way to reduce over-dependence on petroleum products is to devise other alternatives.

In a chat shortly after delivering a lecture at an Elf Total Fina organised tree-planting campaign at Obite in the Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni local government area of the state, Dr. Akor explained that raising trees, especially economic trees has utmost importance and frowned at the spate of deforestation which had preoccupied the life style of the people.

Dr. Akor, who was the consultant and guest lecturer at the event posited that time had come for the Egi people to inculcate the habit of protecting the habitat which includes trees and other aquatic lives, and noted that the trees and environment constitute over eighty per cent of the nation’s economy.

On how the nation can avoid over-dependence on petroleum products, inspite of agricultural products, the university don said that the agricultural engineering department of the university had over the years developed a situation where upon locally produced products can form veritable alternatives.

He said, “palm oil can be substitute for petroleum fuels as in diesel engines but poses flow and atomisation problems because of high viscosity and the tendency to solidify at intermediate and low temperatures.

He declared that, “tests of oil palm, diesel mixtures and palm oil esters as diesel engine fuels indicated generally satisfactory performance, although, efficiencies were in most cases slightly less than with conventional diesel fuel.”

Explaining further to The Weekend Tide, Akor stressed that his study of economic trees centered majority on palm oil because it is produced and grown commercially in tropical zones which includes Nigeria.

The usual production, he said, is in sites which have drained soils regular and well distributed rainfall, stating that palm oils are in strong demand as a base for food, cooking oil and other derivatives such as margarines and soaps.

He explained that in some countries where palm oil is produced, petroleum fuels for engines are not easily available and interest is beginning to return to the possibility of using palm oil as a fuel for diesel engines.

The expert stated that 1980 price for palm oil was about 0.47 per cent dollar per litre ($1.80 per U.S. gallon) which was almost twice the 1980 price for diesel fuel.

Dr. Akor noted that the feasibility of palm oil as a significant fuel resource depends on increased production and concomitant price reduction which depends on expanding production beyond the current production rate and on reducing the current 300 man hour per hectre per year labour requirement for harvesting and collection.

Dr. Akor explained that before petroleum fuels were in widespread use in tropical counties, there was considerable interest in the use of both vegetable and animal oils as fuels.

“Samples of palm and palm oil kernels were subjected to the sorts of physical analysis commonly used for petroleum products. There were difficulties in executing the distillation test because by the time the high boiling points of many of the fatty acids were reached, volatilisation, decomposition and oxidation of a number of compounds had occurred.

However, he explained that oil palm and other vegetable oils were tested in single cylinder, air-cooled diesel engines by placing these tests materials in the fuel tank. The engines, he said were directly connected to a cradled induction motor and generator and tests were run at speeds between 1200 and 1220 rpm. The two engines allowed fuel performance comparisons, with and without benefits of a pre-combustion chamber. The main parameter used to rate fuel performance was that of indicated thermal efficiency, which is the ratio of the energy applied to the piston head (by expansion of the burning mixture of air and fuel) to the energy supplied by the higher heating value of the fuel.