Oman: Tapping green alternative

If a Sohar-based Omani entrepreneur has his way, then by 2010 the sultanate could become the first Arab country to produce an economically viable alternative to petrol.

Mohammad Bin Saif Al Harthy and his family are successfully using ethanol produced from biomass for the last 18 months to run their cars in Sohar.
“The bio-fuel is doing well in Brazil and in some states of the US and we want to be the first Arab countries to start using fuel produced from date palms,” said Al Harthy, adding that they would not be cutting trees to produce bio-fuel.

“Our method is different and doesn’t affect the date crop or environment,” he revealed. He said they would be extracting cellulose biomass from around 80,000 date palms.

“We do have date palms in large number in the country and our strategic plans is to grow more then 10 millions trees, within next 10 years in the area and we have a good support from the authority,” he said, adding that date palm trees don’t consume much water and easily grow in the country.

He confessed that production of ethanol from date palm tree has never been tried out. “Our experiment, however, has been successful,” he stressed.

Gulf News