The Masdar Institute, in the United Arab Emirates, plans to make fuel from crops that tolerate salt water, cultivated in the desert.
For the moment, has already begun to build a demonstration farm of two square kilometers which will combine the breeding of fish and shrimp farming and mangrove trees salicornia, a plant with seeds rich in oil that can be converted into fuel.
The aim will be to produce biofuels without using land used for growing food crops or without using large amounts of fresh water, which are two of the main shortcomings of conventional biofuels.
The technique used is the integrated farming of saltwater. In it, water is distributed from an open channel from the sea. With this water, which in some phases contain large amounts of faeces from the fish and prawn hatchery, fertilized the salicornia which will create the biofuel.
