Not magic: Malang resident Didik Susanto explains how his home-made stove — fueled by jatropha oil — works.

Dozens of explosions of 3-kilogram LPG canisters have rocked Malang, East Java, causing anxiety among locals using them to fuel their gas stoves.

Those determined not to spoil the broth have reverted to using kerosene stoves despite the fairly high price of this fuel, costing Rp 8,000 per liter.

However people like Didik Susanto, a 43-year-old resident of Pakis Permata Asri, Pakis district, Malang regency, and his wife, Mutmainah, 40, decided they no longer wanted to be at the mercy of LPG canisters distributed by the government in 2008.

Put off by the price of kerosene, the Do-It-Yourself Didik opted to use the seeds or kernels of jarak pagar, a type of castor-oil plant (also called Jatropha curcas L), as an alternative biofuel.

“Jatropha seed oil as fuel only costs between Rp 5,250 and Rp 5,500 a liter,” Didik told The Jakarta Post last week.

For the last four months, Didik has been roaming cemeteries in Malang looking for jatropha seeds to make oil. The Jatropha curcas L plant is rarely grown in Malang, following the failure of a national castor-oil tree planting program five years ago.

Following the 65th National Independence anniversary celebration last week, Didik and his son managed to collect 6 kilograms of ripe jatropha fruits from the cemetery in Jugo village, Tumpang district, Malang regency.

Didik peeled the fruits and picked out their seeds. After drying in the sun for a day, the seeds were ready to be processed into vegetable fuel.

“If kept in plastic bags, the oil in the seeds can last for six months,” he explained.

To turn jatropha seeds into cleaner, cheaper and more efficient fuel than kerosene, Didik processes the seeds, which were widely used to fuel oil lamps under Japanese occupation.

Why use jatropha? According to Didik, this particular species of castor-oil plant is easy to find and grows everywhere — especially in cemeteries.

“Those who don’t want to grow them can find them in nearly all graveyards. Besides, the [Jatropha curcas L] plant bear fruits throughout the year,” he added.

The former director of an automobile bodywork firm in Malang and a fiberglass expert, has conducted several experiments to create the right mix.

In fact, jatropha seeds can be burned and used as fuel but this method leaves carbon residue in the kitchen.

“With a knowledge of chemistry, I process the seeds to produce the right mix for an efficient alternative fuel of the same quality as LPG,” assured Didik.

The plant enthusiast processes the seeds into oil through several phases of filtering, before mixing the oil with ethanol. The mixture is then treated with decomposing bacteria.

The bacteria, as Didik claims, is the key to his concoction, because the microbes serve to reduce the residue produced by the mixture, thus ensuring a virtually zero-emission fuel combustion.

Using jatropha oil made fuel, it took less than three minutes to bring the cooker to a temperature suitable for cooking.

No sharp odor emanated from the jatropha oil burning either, unlike the distinctive smell produced by kerosene stoves.

Trials have indicated that a liter of this fuel can keep a stove going for five hours.

The jatropha-oil fuel created by Didik is also cheaper than kerosene, costing Rp 5,250 a liter.

One and a half liters of water takes less than 10 minutes to boil with jatropha-oil fuel, compared to 15 minutes with a 14-wick kerosene stove. “It means we can cook a lot more food,” he pointed out.

Research has proven that jatropha seed oil does not produce toxic emissions like kerosene and coal.
With an oil content of 35 to 42 percent per seed, jatropha oil has also been found to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 50 percent.

Apart from creating jatropha-oil fuel, Didik has also designed stoves compatible with this new fuel.

Residents of Pakis Jajar village — Didik’s home — have embraced his biofuel and stoves. Susanto, the local unit chief, has urged him to introduce his jatropha-oil fuel to neighbors. Now Didik is helping his neighbors switch stoves, modifying their LPG stoves so they can use his castor-oil fuel.

In the meantime, a lecturer and castor-oil plant expert of Malang’s Brawijaya University, Bambang Susilo, said the use of jarak pagar or jatropha as vegetable fuel should indeed be recommended to reduce fossil fuel consumption in Indonesia.

In line with the biodiesel technology roadmap, Indonesia is targeting a demand for 4.7 million kiloliters of diesel oil in 2025, 5 percent of which will come from vegetable fuel sources like jatropha oil.

According to a national energy policy target set in a 2006 presidential instruction, Indonesia is hoping to have 7.5 million hectares of jarak pagar plantations by 2025, with harvests reaching 3 million tons of dry jatropha seeds, producing 10 million kiloliters of jatropha oil.

Bambang statement was supported by Rully Dyah Purwati, a jarak pagar researcher at the Tobacco and Fiber Plants Research Center (Balittas), Karangploso, Malang regency.

“If Indonesia’s fossil fuel demand is met by castor and other vegetable oils to the annual rate of 40 billion liters, we could save billions of US dollars a year,” she said.

The Malang regency administration hasn’t capitalized on this opportunity yet, having dropped the government’s national castor-oil tree planting program five years ago.

In Pasuruan regency, however, the head of the forestry and plantation office, Edy Suwanto, seized this opportunity to grow castor-oil trees on 1,300 hectares of critical land — land that has suffered severe physical, chemical or biological damage.

What’s more, Pasuruan is part of a pilot project run by PT Alegria Indonesia, a joint venture between Indonesia and Japan, which will buy all of the residents’ castor seeds. The firm hopes to process 48,000 tons of dry jarak pagar seeds daily into 1 million liters of biofuel.

“Therefore, we’ll be expanding the plantation area in phases as Pasuruan regency has over 30,000 hectares of uncultivated critical land. But the part of land ideal for jarak pagar only totals about 11,000 hectares,” said Edy.

Indonesia today records around 77 million hectares of neglected critical land, of which 50 million hectares can be developed into castor-oil tree plantations. East Java alone has 1.7 million hectares of critical land, 30,000 hectares of which are located in Pasuruan regency (two percent).

— Photos by JP/Wahyoe Boedhiwardhana

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