"Farmer planning diesel tree biofuel"

September 19, 2006 - 2:54PM

So now there is no-til biobiesel, a gift from a tree. Maybe horses or oxen are better than the tractors this article imply. A tractor doesn't need to be fed every day because it's not alive, but maintenance is expensive on machines, they don't reproduce or make manure, and humans can have wonderful relationships with farm animals. That the trees are still alive and growing throughout being harvested amazes me, though. -BBJ
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They say that money doesn't grow on trees, but a Queensland farmer believes fuel does.

Mike Jubow, a nursery wholesaler from Mackay, has begun importing seed from Brazil to plant diesel trees.

The tropical trees, which have the botanic name copaifera langsdorfii, produce a biofuel that can be tapped, filtered and used to power machinery such as tractors.

It is estimated a one hectare plantation could produce 12,000 litres of fuel a year - enough to make a small farm fuel self-sufficient.

Mr Jubow, who operates the Nunyara Wholesale Forestry Nursery and has been in the industry for 14 years, said he had heard about the trees from a colleague attending a forestry conference.

"I pricked my ears and thought 'This guy is having a go at me' but when I came home I got onto the net and typed in diesel tree and there it was," Mr Jubow said.

"I thought 'I've got to get seeds for this thing' and it's taken me three years to track them down."

He sourced the seed from Brazil and says the first seedlings would be available in late January.

The recommended method of growing them is to plant 1,000 trees on a hectare of land, preferably in a tropical area, then test them for their vigour, growth and yield about three years later, which ordinarily would lead to culling about half of them.

About four to six years later they would be measured again before culling them down to between 250 and 350 of the best trees, which would be inter-bred and harvested for seed.

Mr Jubow said a large mature tree would yield about 40 litres of diesel a year, which equated to about 12,000 litres per hectare of trees.

"It becomes astonishingly viable for a farmer to have a piece of his most productive land to get the tree up and running and then he can be independent from the fuel companies for the rest of his life," he said.

They are known to produce fuel for 70 years.

While the fuel cannot be stored for more than a few months it can be tapped.

But even if it is left too long, it thickens into copaiba oil, which is used in alternative medicines and fetches around $100 a litre in the United States.

And at the end of the tree's life, it can be milled to produce a light brown timber favoured by cabinet makers.

"There's nothing wasted on the tree," Mr Jubow said.

Love, darkness and light, and truth too

It's Saturday afternoon, the sky is grey but the flowers are bright on the lawn. Especially the Sonchus arvensis pictured here, which grows in everyone's lawn and is considered a nerve tonic. Naomi and I are relaxed and hanging out together in the upstairs study. Neither of us have work today, and we're both doing little personal projects and talking about them to one another. Pampering ourselves. It's very nice, and very chill.

Having fun while being relaxed has been a rare privilege in my life, recently. I have worked really hard in this relationship to be true to both people, and it's taken me into new inner territory where being truthful is scary. Scary, because I am being shown my scary, disowned faces and having to feeling their pain. Because I deeply love Naomi, any time that I act from a non-loving place or disconnected place, we both notice and I have light shown into whatever dark place inside me that the numbness or hate came from. Also, my qi kung practice has gotten to the point where I medidate on my different organs, each of which is a generator and storehouse of emotion. Djinns of the body, that communicate more easilly than plants when I thank and extend my love to them. I voluntarilly am extending my hand and my love to the freaky Badgers inside, and finding out what they need to reemerge as viable facets of my personality. It's given me fresh perspective on life.

Before this relationship, I thought that when I found my calling and followed it I would automatically be in the clear, because self-development just happened unconsciously. So I would stop being stressed out and individuate/evolve without having to pay attention and accomplish my life's mission. That was just the idea of my life, though, and no matter how much energy I pumped it up with it couldn't be corporeally real. That was when I was really depressed and I didn't want to look inside. Now I'm learning to paddle in emotionally choppy waters without capsizing, so the fear of intimacy with self and other is not so intense. So life is more intimate, and I have attention to give to other people and projects. Yes!

Staying in my head, even scheming planetary permaculture enlightenment, eventually leaves me in the darkness of my skull- besides the fleeting brilliance that dances over my third eye, who only sticks around if conditions are right. Opening my heart, to emotionally engage in communication with Naomi and other humans, not only analyzing with my intellect, that's what brings the light of the world inside. With the heart's fire, the Third Eye's light dances and pulsates into manifesting all change I wish to see.

God, I am thankful for Naomi's existence, and thankful too that I am so intimately sharing in it. Really connecting with her unique and beautiful experience, makes me understand its independent and equally valid and precious relaity. The ah-hah moments here have been hilarious and humiliating. Heart-stretching. I'm feeling more confidant and optimistic for settling down with community.

It's so interesting, Carrie, that you are into Stephen Buhner @ the same time I am. His words have helped me bring these ideas to consciousness and articulate my experience. Also, it's good to be writing again.