Dear MEL Topic Readers,
The powerful new use for cocoa
The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, or Ivory Coast, is a small country located on the south coast of West Africa. It is known as the world’s largest producer and exporter of cocoa beans. Most of the country’s population, a little over 26 million, is already connected to the national power grid. Currently, 70% of the nation’s energy is generated by natural gas and the rest by other fossil fuels. Ivory Coast is aggressively envisioning increasing renewable energy sources to over 40% and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 28% by the end of the decade. And they seem to have found a good solution for both the environment and the economy.
When cocoa beans are processed, a significant amount of cocoa waste is produced, such as the bean shells, pod husks, and cocoa sweating, most of which is now thrown away. Now, they’ve started working on a biomass plant that will run on cocoa waste. In the biomass plant, the cocoa waste will be burned to generate electricity with significantly less greenhouse gas emissions. This new usage of cocoa waste is expected to generate not only cleaner energy but also economic value to local cocoa producers. It will also create new businesses and job opportunities to transport and process the waste.
As reported in Vol.3359, Ghana, Ivory Coast’s eastern neighbor, is planting five million seedlings to revive the rainforest. Though neither of the neighboring countries usually don’t get so much attention from the world, both of them are doing their share of the work for sustainable development.
Enjoy reading the article and learn about the new usage of cocoa beans.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210607-a-chocolatey-sustainable-alternative-to-fossil-fuels
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