Ok, I just decided to stop horn tooting and just get down to the project and what happened. The Tobias Foundation partnered with the Sumba Foundation to build a small scale biodiesel refinery at Nihiwatu resort with the goal of redirecting all the resort's diesel purchased into biodiesel from the local economy. Create revenue for Sumba Foundation with no extra cost, or maybe savings to Nihiwatu resort. Use the biodiesel by products in the nutrition and farming and other revenue generation projects for locals. Tobias Foundation donated time, expertise and money around biodiesel manufacturing and co-product refining.

Project planning was Nov '07- April '08
Equipment installation, commissioning, training April - May '08
Nihiwatu running on biodiesel in generators June 08.

Plant design size, two 750L biodiesel reactors, 4 ton a day coconut crusher.

Operating capacity of biodiesel plant June 08 when Tobias Foundation left: 750L/day biodiesel.
Nihiwatu resort diesel consumption 3-400L/day.

The biodiesel plant was designed to make 3-4x the daily demand of Nihiwatu resort to allow for sales of biodiesel to other customers and creation of back-log biodiesel. As of June 08 the limiting factor has been availability of Copra (the dried coconut shells). The local copra production has been mostly bought by Chinese investors for export for overseas processing. There has been little incentive to increase production. But now with a local processor buying every day, production is expected to increase. Sumba Foundation provides trucks to drive around the island purchasing copra.

Fixed Cost expenses:
Property plant and equipment about $100,000USD provided by Sumba Foundation and donors.
Training and start-up costs about $15,000USD provided by Tobias Foundation.

Variable economics:

in June 08, the government controlled Diesel price on Sumba was 13,000RP/L about $1.30USD/L. This price is still subsidized and under the market price you would get from $135/Brl crude. The all in cost including all operation expenses, Sumba Foundation overhead, and all raw materials to produce a litre of biodiesel from local copra was about 9,000 RP/L, about $.90USD/L, a savings of over 40%. It will be up to a negotiation between Nihiwatu and Sumba Foundation how to split the savings, but the bottom line is that it is cheaper to make your own biodiesel on Sumba than to buy diesel from the petroleum company.

That is a HUGE conclusion and economic driver. The Tobias Foundation focuses on setting up sustainable businesses that promote renewable energy. Where this works best is when the customers of the renewable energy don't have to pay more or even can have a savings. Then you are not asking a business to do something non-economic for an altrustic reason. You are just giving them a better product at a better price. That is capitalism. That is sustainable. That is what happened in Sumba with the biodiesel refinery.

The next phase of analysis will be for the Sumba Foundation to follow up on the economic impact of keeping all that oil money on the island. Measuring the economic multiplier effect of that money going local instead of to the oil company. That will be very interesting.

Some pictures:

martin and claude in front of bd refinery

the bd plant building

nihiwatu beautiful villa and pool

coconuts collected in the field

claude and drying copra in the sun

raw copra as bought from local people

the twin biodiesel mixers

copra crusher and oil expeller

coconut oil expeller

measuring the lye

manual sodium methelate mixer.

test batches

demethalation unit (recovery of excess methanol)

Sumba school supported by the Foundation

The benefactors of all this work.

How big is the problem? Multiplying production (barrels per year) times the oil price (dollars per barrel) gives a total cost in dollars per year. It's an enormous number; tens of trillions of dollars per year. To put a scale on it, the three thin curves on the graph show the oil cost in contrast to the total world domestic product; the annual value the goods and services added up for all the world's countries. The three curves show the oil cost at one percent, two and a half percent, and five percent of the total world economic output. At $136 this morning, we are over six and a half percent.

Oil production obviously cannot consume 100 percent of the world's income. My intuitive, uninformed guess is that it cannot go above 15 percent. If we see oil at $300 per barrel, we will be looking out over the smoldering ruins of the world's economy. Source

My name is Anthony Airhart and I am president of the Aberdeen Museum of History. I would like to pitch a proposal we are working on at the museum and hope you will find it worthy of support.

We have a small but growing initiative known as the Women of Grays Harbor Project. Basically it is an effort to capture and preserve stories and histories of the women that helped build Grays Harbor. In our male dominated society the contributions of women are far too often ignored or minimized. We are trying to make sure that we collect stories while there are people who remember them.

This is not just for the wealthy, prominent or well known women. We are collecting the stories of the homemakers, the teachers or the grandmothers. Women who may have inspired someone or even just those who worked in obscurity but were heroic in their own way. It is a way to capture what life was like for pioneer women...or the women that stepped into the workforce during WWII...or perhaps someone with an unusual talent.

This is also the year Washington State will be celebrating women in history and we'd like to participate in that in a meaningful way.

So, my pitch. I want to find funds to pay a stipend to local high school or college students who will research and write entries for our collection or short scripts for performances about these women. In particular, we'd like to hold an event this year where we will perform these vignettes or readings for the public.

Exact specifics for this event are, quitre honestly, waiting until we see how much funding we can access. We are a small museum and we cannot fund such a project from our own resources.

We already have some funding to go towards costumes and producing this event. Some of that is a grant from a local foundation and some from much smaller donations to our Women of Grays Harbor fund. But we need funds for the student's stipends. I would ask you to contribute $XXXXX. This would be enough to launch the project and move forward.

I will add just my own personal perspective. I am in my third year as prsident of this organization. I am an average guy but have a deep love for my community and long interest in local history. I was laid off at Cosmopolis Pulp Mill after 31 years and am back in school retraining for a new career as I am too young to retire. My love for the Aberdeen Museum is hereditary. My folks have been involved since the first organizational meeting more than 30 years ago. Now in their 80's, they still work 20-40 hours a week, keeping the museum open and active in the community. So I have a deep rooted personal stake in making this place a success.

I am hoping you will be able to help us.

Sincerely,

Anthony Airhart