Rural Electrification in the Brazilian Amazon using Biodiesel

(Note that this project was a Finalist in the 2005 World Bank Development Marketplace, but has not yet been funded)

Isolated rural communities along the Amazon River suffer from a limited quality of life due to inadequate and unclean energy supplies. Diesel, their primary fuel, is hard for villages to acquire as it must be imported along waterways - an unreliable and hazardous endeavor. In addition, these communities often subsist outside of the market economy, and have little access to cash with which to purchase fuel. A sustainable, small-scale, clean solution is needed.

Biodiesel, a clean-burning fuel developed from the oils of certain plants, provides just such a solution. Biodiesel can be generated at the community level, as villages can cultivate native species appropriate for oil extraction, extract the oil themselves, and refine the oil into biodiesel with simple equipment. Biodiesel provides many advantages over other renewable energy technologies, including no need for cumbersome energy-storage devices such as batteries, a relatively low cost of implementation, and beneficial byproducts of refinement such as soap.

Modeled after a similar, successful program implemented in India, the Community Empowerment Network Biodiesel Project aims to increase the host community's available fuel and energy supply by 400 %, generate a surplus of biodiesel that can be sold or stored (maintaining the sustainability of the project), conduct innovative research on suitable native feedstocks, and educate local residents on a sustainable livelihood. Residents will experience an enhanced quality of life as community services are improved due to greater energy availability, and the surrounding region will benefit from a cleaner fuel supply and the educational resource of the host community.

Full Proposal
(309K PDF) 

Projects Homepage

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Biodiesel Project Proposal to the Development Marketplace (2005)
(309K PDF)

Backgrounder on Transesterification
(50K PDF)

Benefits of using Biodiesel in this Project
(21K PDF)