Salicornia is a juicy plant.
When used as a bio fuel it has a higher recovery and quality of oil than other
crops, and the plant has no direct competition with food crops.
There are experimental fields of Salicornia in Ras al-Zawr (Saudi Arabia),
Eritrea (Northeast Africa) and Sonora (Northwest Mexico) aimed at the production
of biodiesel. The company responsible for the Sonora trials (Global Seawater)
claims that between 225 and 250 gallons of BQ-9000 biodiesel can be produced per
hectare (approximately 2.5 acres) of salicornia and is promoting a $35 million
scheme to create a 12,000-acre (49 km2) salicornia farm in Bahia de Kino.
Robert Glenn, a plant biologist at University of Arizona, deserves credit for
demonstrating the use of Salicornia as bio fuels. Later, Jelte Rozema and
Timothy Flowers, scientists at NASA, have said that Glenn’s work is of high
significance. Glenn has claimed that Salicornia could be grown on 480,000 square
miles of unused land across the globe. Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and Mexico are
already running trials to examine Salicornia’s potential as bio fuels.
Salicornia is also eco- friendly plantation as it absorbs carbon dioxide. It is
for these qualities that salicornia is often referred to as 'miracle plant'. It
is indeed producing miracles in some parts of the world and being rapidly
adopted by countries with vast coastlines and saline water.
In other developing countries Salicornia are being exploited and shipped for
pulp and particleboard. The renewed Salicornia would serve as a carbon sink and
source of bio ethanol fuel to reduce carbon dioxide emission and generate good
income to alleviate poverty and mitigate climate change. More than 500,000
individuals would benefit, including many in the transport sector. They would
not only help revolutionize poverty but also serve as raw material for some
industries and exports.