Last April, a team of Business School students developed a model to use an indigenous African plant in a new approach to creating alternative fuel. The concept was originally conceived by the World Agricultural Forum and then elaborated upon in the Practicum program in the Olin School of Business.
Unlike many previous studies of alternative energy, the team made use of the Jatropha bean, originating in Africa.
The model consists of refining the Jatropha bean into a biodiesel to be used to provide electricity. The biodiesel would power a simple diesel engine and could be used, for example, to power a grain mill. For a village, this would provide a heavy source of electricity in comparison to solar or water energy.
Jacob Schnarre, the team leader, insists that the model was designed to be applied globally to different areas, not just to Africa.
“Africa is at the forefront for thought on economic development,” said Schnarre.
Schnarre explained that the Jatropha bean is a better choice than current alternative fuel choices because it has a higher yield than soybean, used in the U.S., and rapeseed, used in Britain.
The Business School model boasts that if just two percent of Africa’s landmass was planted with the Jatropha bean, its production per year would match the Alaska’s North Slope where most of Alaska’s petroleum production occurs.
Further, unlike many other sources of alternative energy, Jatropha does not conflict with pre-exisiting farming.
“At the community level, [Jatropha] can grow really easily and can be used as hedge since animals won’t eat it,” said Schnarre.
The Practicum program is designed so that corporations, both local and global, can find new solutions by employing students. The corporation pays a fee to work with the school and to also pay the students in the team.
This allows students an “opportunity to practice what they have learned and apply it to the real world,” said Mark Soczek, the director of the program.
Teams are made of four or five upper-level undergraduate or graduate students and work for 10 hours a week. Projects are typically market-research based.
For the alternative fuel project, the World Agricultural Forum (WAF), a St. Louis-based organization, approached the Business School for an idea of an alternative fuel that would be easy to grow in less developed areas of the world.
The team presented their model in April 2006 to the WFA board in Washington, D.C. They also presented to the United Nations and have been featured on CNN and in “The Business Review.” The project will soon be put before more forum groups and corporations in the U.S. to promote as a local energy source.
The team consisted of leader Jacob Schnarre, Kevin Lehnbeuter, Keith McLamb, Thomas Stehl and Steven Gabster. Their faculty advisor was Todd Zenger, professor of Organization and Strategy.
After the presentations, Schnarre continued to develop the business plan in corroboration with the WAF.
Schnarre said he continued with the program because he felt a personal connection. After growing up on a farm in Missouri, he later majored in Agricultural Systems Management at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He felt that he “didn’t get to use all the knowledge that [he] grew up with” and “wanted to explore the developmental aspect” of agriculture. The Practicum allowed him to “use the learning and skills [they] had but in a non-traditional sense.”
The Practicum is sponsoring 10 projects for the current semester. Started in 1992, the Practicum and Taylor have both sponsored over 200 projects each.