“Gasohol-Biodiesel” Prepare for Energy Crisis. The King thinks ahead for 40 years
The King Bhumipol has initiated the idea of using agricultural produce to convert as replacement energy so that the Thai people can be self sufficient in energy resource. It can also help in solving the problem of low price of agricultural produce. There has been research and development of gasohol and biodiesel and other replacement energy sources at Chilada palace and the gasohol and biodiesel produced have been tested with the royal cars.

The energy crisis at present which are facing us has been foreseen by the king and he has prepared to tackle the problem more than 40 years ago, as refer from the book “72 years Kaewkwan Vacharotai, the secretary of the office of the Royal palace”. Mr. Kaewkwan wrote that the king mentioned in 1961 that the bus fee and oil price will be expensive in the near future.

The development of gasohol really gets started when the king paid a visit to the royal project at Chitlada Palace in 1975. He told the researchers to produce ethanol from sugar cane because in the future there will be the problem of oil shortage and low price of sugar cane. Production of ethanol from sugar cane will help solve the problem.

There were developments both in quality and quantity of ethanol continuously by improving the purity of ethanol from 95 to 99.5%. There had been tested by mixing 10% of ethanol with benzene for car use which was successful. On 16th May 1996, the PTT has offered the gasohol station for the king’s project to be used at Chitlada palace.

The “Biodiesel” project to use plant oil to replace diesel oil has started about the same time as gasohol. In 1985 the king has asked the Prince of Songkla University to build a pilot plant for palm oil extraction at Aowluck cooperative compound Krabee province and setup a small plant for purifying of palm oil at Pikulthong Development Center Naratiwas province. In the year 2000, the king asked his private workers to test or try using the purified palm oil with the diesel engines of the royal project. The other tests were made at Klaikangwol palace, Prachuab province. In September 2000 using 100% pure palm oil with diesel engines. The tests resulted in no negative affects to the pumps and injections of the diesel engines.

This research of the king about biodiesel from palm oil is widely recognized and has been awarded with the gold medal and has been demonstrated along with the “Royal Rain Maker Project” and “the New Theory Project” at the symposium “Brussels Eureka 2001” which was the international exhibition of the new inventions of 2001 at Brussels, Belgium.

The biodiesel project also received the royal patent from the ministry of commerce in the same year.

Besides there are other royal projects about energy replacement such as production of Diesohol from mixing of ethanol with Diesel oil, it was found that the mixture could be used with diesel engine and help reduce the black smoke by 50%.

The king also requested the royal Chitlada project to test the biogas from the cow manure and could obtain 50% of methane and other gases which could be used as energy source. The royal project on energy replacement show the far sight of the king vision to encounter the problem on energy crisis which rely on import oil. We should recognized his kindness and take his advice into practice in order to be self sufficient on energy according to the king direction.

(Quote from the newspaper “Manage online”)