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Chris Somerville, director of the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, says he's not that surprised by the study's findings. "Jatropha is a wild species and probably has a terrible harvest index [ratio of yield to the total harvest] because no breeding has been done yet," he says.
Somerville says that interest in jatropha was driven largely by European Union (EU) mandates for biodiesel production that were reduced in December 2008 due to environmental concerns that biofuels--in particular, biodiesel from palm oil--were causing the destruction of rain forests and wetlands. "I don't know if we'll see the death of jatropha, but we certainly see a lot less demand for it in Europe now than a couple of years ago, when there was a real scramble for it," Somerville says.
Another recent study, carried out by Friends of the Earth, found that jatropha plantations in Swaziland run by BP and D1 Oils were taking land and water away from food crops in a country already suffering from chronic food shortages.
Somerville says that jatropha and other biodiesel crops will likely be pushed out by much higher yields of cellulosic ethanol in developed countries in the coming decade, but that the plants may continue to fill a niche. "The developing world may continue to see a big demand for jatropha and other vegetable oils because capital investment is much less than for ethanol and especially the highly technical processes of cellulosic fuels," he says.
Henk Joos, who is the plant science director at D1 Oils, contends that the EU mandates still call for large quantities of biodiesel and says that newer, higher-yield strains of jatropha could solve many of the plant's water-use issues. Joos and his team are crossbreeding different strains of jatropha to increase seed production and to maximize the seeds' oil content, and they're developing processes that allow the remaining seed biomass to be used for animal feed.
In 2006, the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), an Indian research group, began a 10-year, $9.4 million effort to develop jatropha that included genetically engineering seeds to have higher oil content. Nibhi Chanana of TERI says that the group is still three to four years away from isolating the genes that control for oil production.
Ethanol from corn consumes three times more water than previously thought.
Making ethanol from corn is expensive. Better biofuels are years away from the gas tank. Farmers are reluctant to change their practices. But do we really have any alternative to biofuels?
Yes Jatropha requires much water
sir
As a Jatropha researcher in Tamilnadu since 2003 i came to the conclusion that Jatropha requires constant care and water and all nutrients to grow without pestsand yield dream fuel. TERI in India is not yet claim as 100% success in Jatropha since i worked for 200 acre plantation project promoted by them .The Investor from Newdelhi was in much trouble since seeds and technology support from TERI was not as expected. TNAU and many firms were after Jatropha and met failures .
and still Tamilnadu govt is on it..
let us wait and see the results
S.a.Alagarsamy
www.mgrbiodiesel.com
India.
Guest (hogtown)
Re: Yes Jatropha requires much water
To really quantify the amount of water used to produce energy one cannot exclude the water used in the processing post harvest. I don't know what the water requirements are for Jatropha oil processing, but it has to be less than that of corn/sugar cane/biomass which requires fermentation of some type. Just witness the ethanol plant proposals that are now winding up on the trash heap once communities realize the amount of water that must be provided for the process of creating energy from corn. It is such a water hog of a process...
Re: Yes Jatropha requires much water
Ethanol from sugar cane does no require additional water. When crushed, sugar cane syrup has an abundance of water which is evaporated during the process. The fermentation can use no water even when done with molasses at 54% concentration and uses less energy than required to produce sugar from this molasses.
Surely the type of vegetation which can produce the most biomass , and requires the least inputs of water , fertilizer and energy are natural ecosystems which have evolved over millions of years to be ideally suited to any location . If we produce biofuel like this , it would give a financial value to biodiversity . All sorts of ecosystems can be sustainably managed without causing the loss of any species .
We have to accept that the health and productivity of agriculture , and indeed the world as a whole , is dependent on biodiversity . Biofuel production does not need to be based on the expensive cultivation of a small group of specialized biofuel crops .
As far as Jatropha goes , when you see people harvesting the fruits by hand and picking the oil seeds out by hand you realize that this is not the best way to produce biofuel . Ask yourself , do you really want some poor guy living in poverty to be producing biofuel by hand just so that you can fly by jet around the world on a happy holiday ? No thanks.
I wonder why we're not all over algae as a biofuel. Algae blooms in the Gulf of Mexico are a problem and use of same as a bio fuel might provide a rationale for harvesting and reducing the adverse ecological impact of the algae in oceanic "dead zones".
Just a thought. More research needed,,,
Gary 7
Finding the right energy-rich feedstock is hard. Petroleum is CO2-rich but energy-rich; sugar and corn-based ethanol is in theory carbon poor but really requires lots of energy to make and now hardy jatropha turns out is always thirsty. As for algae despite the hipe we're still decades away from an industrial application. Will we ever find the perfect biofuel?
One would expect that the highest yielding per acre non-algal plant would also have the highest water demand to achieve that high yield. What surprises me is why someone would write such an article about the high water demand and suggest this will or should stop the use of jatropha as a biofuel source.
With genetics, the water requirements will likely be reduced somewhat over time and within the coming years the world will migrate to micro algae. We need to move forward with the tools we have and that is not EV's or hybrids - better to cycle water as biofuel than to exhaust minerals.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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asogan
10 Comments
At the risk of spamming...
I'm pasting my comment from the article on Jatropha 'Weed powered flight'.
____________________________________________
Good day,
I don't normally post but I feel compelled to do so now. I'm from Africa and Jatropha is being punted as the 'next big thing'. Fortunately, the cultivation of this crop is banned in South Africa. My observation is that the plant, while it can grow on marginal land, requires water and fertilizer like any other crop. Plans are in motion to use a fair amount of 'good' arable land for Jatropha cultivation. Land that can be used for other more profitable crops. Jatropha is a toxic plant and the toxic press cake left behind can only be used for boiler fuel. The oil is also toxic. What happens if the US or the EU retracts biodiesel subsidies? Germany is already scaling down their support. The poor farmer is left with the costly exercise of having to remove this plantation as there's no other intrinsic value to the plant except for biodiesel production.
My preference is for the Moringa Oleifera tree that has similar yields of oil to Jatropha per hectare, but the oil has similar properties to olive oil and is already being used in the cosmetic industry (Body Shop) for creams and the like. It can also be made into biodiesel although the cold flow plugging point (CFPP) is too high to conform to ASTM or EN specs with first generation biodiesel technology, much like palm oil. Like palm oil, it can also be blended to make on spec biodiesel. However, the UOP 2nd generation technology described above can process 100% of this oil into on-spec fuel. The press cake left below has coagulation properties and can be used for water purification, fertilizer or animal feed. The leaves on a dried basis have +20g per 100g high biological availability protein and can be used for human food or animal fodder.
Bottom line is that moringa is a crop that has greater economic potential to the farmer due to more saleable products (and hence less economic risk) per hectare compared to Jatropha. If the biodiesel industry goes belly up, at least moringa is a tree that can feed his family.
The biodiesel industry's infatuation with Jatropha is likely to cause serious damage to the African continent. I wish that the industry experts would look at other plants that are less likely to leave a poisonous legacy, as a worst case business scenario. Furthermore, I must question the economic merit of Jatropha with respect to the yields and value of oil versus the seed harvesting cost.
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Alagarsamy
5 Comments
Re: At the risk of spamming...
Yes sir
I agree. Moringa Olifera is an excellent intercrop and we export Drumsticks and the seeds are edible and the oil is very costly say Rs 400per litre...seeds are less and Farmer can adopt this fis welfare
S.A.Alagarsamy
India
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