Ancient tree from India may replace petroleum, company hopes скачать в хорошем качестве

Ancient tree from India may replace petroleum, company hopes

(6 Jul 2024) RESTRICTION SUMMARY: ASSOCIATED PRESS Fort Pierce, Florida – 6 June 2024 1. Various drone aerials of pongamia tree fields 2. SOUNDBITE (English) Ron Edwards, chairman of TerViva board of directors: “This is what used to be a grapefruit and orange grove prior to the advent of greening, which destroyed it. And these are Pongamia trees, which are on their fifth year. Just probably the first year that they're going to produce." 3. Edwards looking at tree 4. Close Pongamia beans 5. Close man opening bean with knife 6. SOUNDBITE (English) Ron Edwards, chairman of TerViva board of directors: "Uses for the Pongamia tree are primarily as a biofuel oil crop. About 30% of the weight of the bean is oil.” 7. Beans on tree 8. Close beans on tree 9. Bottles with Pongamia oil 10. SOUNDBITE (English) Ron Edwards, chairman of TerViva board of directors: “It has one of the most dense energy per pound of refined oil that you can have. That's very important when you're flying. The more power you've got, the further you can go on the same weight. So in an airplane, that's a big deal. Also, there's really no good carbon substitute for petroleum that you have to burn to power a jet. Pongamia could be that. It'd be a plant based, oil that can do that.” 11. Various bees pollinating tree 12. Beekeeping boxes 13. Bees entering box 14. SOUNDBITE (English) Ron Edwards, chairman of TerViva board of directors: “The 65 or 70% that's left over is primarily a very high quality protein that, (when) we get through the rest of the chemistry and research on it, will be used in making baking flour, cooking, makes great graham crackers. We've done a lot with those already. But a whole variety of things. Almost any protein it’s an excellent substitute (for).” 15. Workers in warehouse propagating young Pongamia trees 16. Close propagation 17. Informational sign about clonal propagation 18. Wide workers in warehouse 19. SOUNDBITE (English) Ron Edwards, chairman of TerViva board of directors: “We hope that we can transform the whole biofuel industry, that this will end up being the platform that is one of the dominant sources of oil for biofuels in the future, as well as a substitute for soybean protein or yellow pea, which are a couple of the things that are now used for protein alternatives, if you don't want your protein to come from meat." 20. Worker selecting tree in warehouse 21. Sprinklers 22. Close leaves of tree 23. Forklift STORYLINE: An ancient tree from India is now thriving in groves where citrus trees once flourished in Florida, and could help provide the nation with renewable energy. As large parts of the Sunshine State’s once-famous citrus industry have all but dried up over the past couple of decades due to two fatal diseases, greening and citrus canker, some farmers are turning to the pongamia tree, a climate-resilient tree with the potential to produce plant-based proteins and a sustainable biofuel. For years pongamia has been used for shade trees, producing legumes — little brown beans — that are so bitter wild hogs won't even eat them. But unlike the orange and grapefruit trees that long occupied these rural Florida groves northwest of West Palm Beach, pongamia trees don’t need much attention. They don’t need fertilizer, or pesticides. They flourish in drought or rainy conditions. And they don’t require teams of workers to pick the beans. A machine simply shakes the tiny beans from the branches when they’re ready to harvest. The pongamia is a wild tree native to India, Southeast Asia and Australia. AP video by Daniel Kozin. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...