Japanese biz house plans clean energy from Lanka’s staple food

Tuesday, 11 December 2012 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Sri Lanka’s rice industry, which has earned an international reputation as one of the few producers of some best red rice varieties in the world, is set get a fresh boost when a top Japanese business house moves in to utilise rice husks for clean energy production on a large scale.

Rice husk briquettes, the low cost clean, bio-mass energy source used internationally is now set to enter Sri Lanka’s industrial landscape, and even domestic use, when MTI Japan begins its project in Sri Lanka.

“Husk bricks are an internationally used energy source well known for their environment friendliness and low cost, often almost freely sourced. For example, their costs savings are more than 20% in comparison to coal, and generates three to four times the energy output in comparison to firewood,” revealed Teppei Tanigawa, the President/CEO of Hyogo, Kobe based MTI Japan Co.

Tanigawa was addressing Minister of Industry and Commerce of Sri Lanka Rishad Bathiudeen at the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, Colombo when he called upon Bathiudeen with his high level three-member team from Tanigawa’s Kobe city (Hyogo sector) based MTI Japan Co., a business house involved in diverse ventures including trading, manufacturing and advanced technology in Japan and abroad.

MTI’s cutting-edge technology is known for state-of-the-art advanced sensing and sensor tech, autonomous support systems, artificial intelligence (AI), and even robot control technology, among others. Interestingly, MTI has a strong interest in technology for SMEs and clean energy.

“Just two kilos of husk bricks can give energy equivalent of one litre of kerosene when used domestically. Rice husk bricks are widely used in Japan for house heating especially in winter. As a result, we know how efficient it is for industry usage. We are studying many ways of producing the bricks in Sri Lanka, including a mobile production unit which can assist to give tech transfer to Sri Lanka’s rice industry,” Tanigawa stated.

He added: “In other words, you don’t need to bring the paddy husks to us, but we can come to the rural doorstep and on our way back from the farmers’ homes, we can create bricks and the completed bricks are ready to be fed to the burner promptly. We are also planning to set up more than 100 husk grinding mills across the country in proximity to paddy areas.

“The good news is that we have already introduced this novel mobile compressing technology to Kenya with good results. From Kenya, we are planning to expand to the rest of the huge African market where not only rice husks, but even peanut husks could be used in large quantities.”

“We welcome and thank MTI Japan for choosing Sri Lanka for its next international venture,” said Bathiudeen. “Biomass energy from such a low cost source is a welcome boost for our industrial sector productivity since it will support our energy efficiency initiatives. I have been made to understand that MTI Japan, in addition to its strengths in technology, also is strong in SME sectors, which is the backbone of Sri Lanka’s economy. As a result, I see strong synergies between MTI Corp and us.”