Diesel and tear gas,could be made with ‘Kassippu technology’

by Chandre Dharmawardana

chandre.dharma@yahoo.ca

A common tale of woo today is that “…people… have been waiting in queues to buy petrol, diesel and cooking gas, not just for hours but for days, some of them skipping meals, sleeping on pavements, not for fun, but for survival. Some have lost their lives in the process. Others have almost lost their livelihoods, wasting hours on the streets”

Instead of wasting hours in line-ups, let these people organize, in each community, or street, and form a do-it-yourself group and make their own substitute diesel, using nothing but “Kassippu technology”, as discussed below. In effect, vegetable oils can be extracted from all types of crushed seeds, and leaves, using the simple steam-distillation techniques, used by the bootlegger! Furthermore, there are enough potential sources of inedible vegetable oil to consider this seriously.

Energy is the life blood of modern societies, and any society that fails to consistently supply itself with energy will end up in shambles.

Meanwhile, a news report (The Island) says that the police forces are “thirsting for tear gas” after their heavy use in the failed defence of public properties. There is no need to import teargas when Sri Lanka has potent forms of chillies to source the teargas.

Tear Gas

Very potent forms of teargas can be made, using Sri Lanka’s chilli peppers and “kochchi peppers”. Here again the “Kassippu technology” of steam distillation, and other techniques of oil extraction, using solvents, apply.

The effectiveness of teargas, or the “hotness” of chilli, is measured using the “Scoville Index”. Ordinary sweet peppers (maalu miris) may have an index of less than 100, while “Kochchi Miris” types may reach 50,000 to 100,000 in hotness. A form of tear gas, known as OC, is an oily extract from hot pepper plants. It is emulsified in water, and propylene glycol, or dissolved in organic solvents to make aerosol pepper spray. They may also compound it into a powder. The Army engineers, or the technical branch of the Army and Police, linked to the government analyst, can surely advise on Police needs, instead of using forex to import tear gas. Here, too, what is needed is an adaptation of the technology of the Kassippu man!

Substitute Diesel

This can be made from (i) previously used “waste” cooking oils, (ii) any nuts that can be found in the neighbourhood, be it mee aeta (Madhuka seeds), erandu aeta (Castor seeds), rubber seeds, cachew nut “leli”, tea seeds, domba seeds, kranda seeds, croton seeds, (iii) paengiri leaves, eucalyptus leaves, orange peel, lemon peel, animal fats, etc.

Edible oils, like coconut oil, palm oil, etc., are NOT to be used as they are food.

The oil in the seeds and leaves comes off using the steam distillation part of the Kassippu man’s technology. However, if it is waste rancid cooking oil, no steam distillation is needed; follow the instructions given in the article:

These vegetable oils can usually be directly used in diesel engines, especially if diluted with kerosene, alcohol, or better with ethyl acetate. How to make ethyl acetate using “Kassippu” technology is given below.

Ethyl alcohol and ethyl acetate

The government should legitimize Kassippu making, allowing them to make alcohol from old potatoes, old tubers and other perishables and starchy bio-waste. The Scottish whisky industry came into being when bootleggers were decriminalized!

The modern concept of the precautionary principle is based on control rather than banning noxious substances.

Clean Kassippu is essentially ethyl alcohol in water; it can be re-distilled to concentrate and blended with gasoline (gasohol). However, the correct path is to approve the many attempts to redevelop Sri Lanka’s sugar cane industry and use it partly as a source of industrial alcohol and substitute fuel. The main barrier to the development of the sugar industry has come from Marxist politicians who have joined hands with Buddhist and ecologist zealots who have misread the ecological impact of such industries, by failing to take account of the progress in modern agriculture that provides new green cultivation practices.

Vinegar is weak acetic acid. If acetic acid is cooked with ethyl alcohol the product is ethyl acetate and moisture. However, when it is shaken with the vegetable oil, the ethyl acetate passes into the vegetable oil and the water separates out.

Such a blend of vegetable oil and ethyl acetate can have the right viscosity needed for a substitute diesel, and can be directly used in Diesel engines without any further treatment (e.g., trans-esterification to yield what is known as biodiesel).

Is inedible vegetable oil an insignificant source of Diesel substitute?

Some observers have claimed that Sri Lanka’s non-edible vegetable-oil resources are too small to be relevant. This is incorrect. I will not give my detailed calculations here, but there is strong potential to replace all the diesel needed for Sri Lanka (about one barrel/year per head) if inedible oil outputs are increased using better agronomy. Even now there is easy potential for replacing 30-40% of the needs within one or two planting seasons, even without improved seeds, etc.

I have argued (since 2009) that all of Sri Lanka’s electricity needs, and even double that are potentially available, via the use of floating solar panels on Sri Lanka’s many aquatic bodies (now mostly covered with salvinia and other weeds). The panels cut down evaporation to increase the available water and the hydroelectricity output by 30-40%, in addition to their normal solar electricity output.

King Parakramabahu said, let not a drop of water flow to the ocean without being used. Today, we must say, let no wisp of water evaporate without being used.

Furthermore, you don’t need batteries to store this solar power, because, when the sun shines, you shut off one or two turbines corresponding to the solar energy that is being generated. This energy may be generated in solar panels on Yodha veva, Mannar (a very long shallow veva where evaporation is very high), but even though there no turbines there, it does not matter as the solar energy is fed to the national grid, and so in effect a turbine at Victoria can be shut off to correspond to the energy generated from panels on the surface of the Yodha veva. The advantage of floating solar is that we don’t need to negotiate with private individuals to rent their roofs or upgrade them to hold the weight, etc., or look for suitable land.

All this is has been said before, but to a nation who prefers the easy turn-key solutions that are in the end inappropriate for Lanka. I spoke at length to a group of Presidential advisors and administrators at the Presidential Secretariat, in 2009, and the power point I used can still be viewed, where I had outlined all this and much more.

At that time, floating solar was a new and contested idea and solar modules themselves were very expensive, unlike today. The CEB does not have a research arm to run pilot projects and be a leader in the energy industry. Instead, it has followed the most conservative of approaches to energy planning.

Readers may also find the following links to be of interest:

In effect, there is enough electricity, and potential for much higher energy outputs in Sri Lanka. It should set up its own Bosch-Harber urea plant to be run on solar energy!

The “Diyaw, Diyaw, naethnam Kaerali karaw” culture

Sri Lankans have developed a “let the government give, give, or else we rebel” attitude. The culture of innovation and improvisation is applied only for destructive ends or for achieving illegal ends. A country cannot wait for foreign handouts or IMF loans. At least when in dire need it must go for self-help, and eventual achieve a high degree of self-sufficiency in some key sectors, like energy and food.

Every economic plan for a small island nation must include at least partial self-sufficiency in food and energy production. Sri Lanka is not a city state, like Singapore,where a single highly authoritarian government has ruled for decades. Most of its workers live outside it and have no “Singaporean rights”. Singapore is not a paradigm to be followed by Sri Lanka although there are many aspects in their social organisation that can be copied.