So, what is important is to stop the field burning, and all it takes is one brave soul (our friend, Leonardo) who has a vision and will, for sure, actualize it. Sure, others that I have spoken with have “thought” about it but…no action taken. Besides the obvious benefit of eliminating the smoke, there is a very real benefit of collecting the field trash. Are you ready for the icing on the cake?

There exists, after over 30 years of investigation, experimentation and proof of concept, a radical technology that can convert nearly all organic waste into a super diesel fuel. This process is called “KDV” which is German for low pressure and low temperature depolymerization. For us non-techies, it means that the complex carbon molecules contained in organic materials is broken down through this process into simple molecules (CH16 and CH32 become CH4 and CH8 and so on). All this organic waste is pulverized and with the addition of a little proprietary zeolite (kind of like turkey bone powder), it’s then heated to around 350°C (660°F) in an oil bath and what is produced through distillation is a very high grade of diesel fuel oil. More on this technology later!

Our visionary, Leonardo, wants to collect all his (and others) sugar cane field trash and, using the KDV, convert it into diesel fuel. Currently (2 June 2009) diesel sells for a whopping $3.75 per gallon in Belize and it is, again, inching upward with the rest of the world’s pricing on petroleum products. But, in this economically depressed country, it’s very tough, indeed, to make ends meet – especially in the agricultural sector.

So, what does this mean to the Belizean sugar cane grower/farmer? Here’s the deal: If Leonardo’s laborers collect the sugar cane trash from the fields and take it to the KDV instead of burning, the trash is turned into diesel and the growers/farmers will get the diesel fuel oil at substantially reduced prices – much less than if they were to purchase it at the pump.

How this works, next…