The Coconut Crop

The coconut crop is ideal as a second-generation biodiesel feedstock.

The coconut crop is fast-growing, typically can be harvested within 3.5 years of planting, and can bear fruit continuously for more than 60 years. The crop can flourish even when grown in poor-quality soil and marginal land normally unfit for conventional agricultural uses.

Due to efficient land use the growth of coconuts does not compete with valuable food production, thereby making it a sustainable fuel feedstock. In addition, it is carbon-neutral as it is not derived from fossil fuels.  

Compared with other energy crops, the coconut crop has a significantly higher oil output. 4,420 litres of coconut oil can be produced per hectare per year, compared with 1,122 litres/hectare for rapeseed and 467 litres/hectare for soybean.

The coconut biodiesel product also offers better performance, ease of refining, and better fuel economy than that derived from many other types of energy crops. Coconut oil comes very close to diesel fuel in its smooth combustion behaviour, can act as an ignition improver when blending with conventional petrodiesel, and produces the least NOx emissions amongst a large group of crop-derived oils, according to an EC project.*

* "Innovative Biodiesel", conducted by the Austrian Biofuels Institute, Federal Institute for Agro-Technology, and the Institute for Mineral Oil and Environment Analytics, Vienna, March 2007. www.biodiesel.at