Dr Nurleyna (left) explains the working of the plant to (from right) Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah, Abang Johari,Family and Childhood Development Minister Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah,Craun Research ceo Zaidell Hussaini and Balingian assemblyman Abdul Yakub Arbi.
MUKAH: The Sarawak government has requested that researchers at Craun Research Sdn Bhd conduct further studies on the possibility of producing cooking gas from ‘rumbia’ (palm which produces sago) biomass for the people in the state.
Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg said the state government would provide an allocation to the agency under the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Research Sarawak towards this end.
‘’We want to determine if it can be implemented in terms of volume and economics. It could probably become another source of our gases which we can distribute as enshrined in the Malaysian Agreement 1963 (MA1963),’’ he said.
He said this to reporters after launching the Sago Liquid Waste Treatment Pioneer Plant in Kampung Teh belonging to Craun here yesterday.
However, Abang Johari did not state the amount of allocation which would be provided to Craun to carry out the study.
Other than cooking gas, he said the ‘rumbia’ waste could be used to generate electricity and as animal feed.
The plant was built in 2016 and was completed and had started producing biogas based on starch last year as a result of a study by Craun since 2003 with a RM8 million allocation from the federal government and RM1.5 million from the state government.
The pioneer plant project, the first among ‘rumbia’ starch producers in the world, was developed with the aim of seeking an integrated solution to the problem of environmental pollution from ‘rumbia’ starch processing activities for producing value-added products from ‘rumbia’ wastes and subsequently boost the ‘rumbia’ value chain.
Craun Downstream Technology Division chief, Dr Nurleyna Yunus, when met, said the plant produced 3700 cubic metres of biogas a day whereby 50-60 per cent was methane which was used to generate 375 kilowatt of electricity for the ‘rumbia’ processing plant there.
‘’With this, we can reduce costs as we no longer have to use electricity which is supplied by the Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation (Sesco),’’ she said. — Bernama