Jatropha

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Jatropha

• The Future of Biofuel or All Hype?

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About the plant

• Jatropha is a genus of about 175 plants. When
  people refer to Jatropha as a biofuel they are
  speaking of Jatropha curcas.
• It is a hardy, drought and pest-resistant plant.
• It produces seeds containing up to 40 oil.
• Botanical features
• Large green to pale-green leaves
• Flowering plant
• Fruits are produced in winter or throughout the
  year depending on temperature and soil moisture.
• Seeds become mature when the capsules change from
  green to yellow.

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Easy Cultivation

• Grows almost anywhere including wastelands,
  gravelly, sandy, and saline soils. It can thrive
  on even some of the poorest stony soil and will
  grow in crevices of rocks.
• Complete germination is achieved within 9 days.
• Survives and thrives on a mere 250 mm (10 inches)
  of rain a year.
• Ploughing and planting are not needed regularly
  since the shrub will continue to grow for about
  forty years.

• The plant responds negatively to organic
  fertilizers like manure during germination.
• The use of pesticides are not necessary due
  the pesticidal, poisonous, and fungicidal
  properties of the plant.
• Begins yielding after 9-12 months. However,
  effective yield comes only after 2-3 years.

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Where Does it Grow?

• Jatropha is native to Central America but it has
  become naturalized India, Africa, North America
  and parts of Asia

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Focus on India

• New uses for land in India According to the
  Ministry of Rural Development, only 173 million
  of 306 million hectares of land are used for
  cultivation, while the remaining land is either
  eroded farm land or non-arable wasteland. Such
  previously unused land can be used for Jatropha.
• Government Focus India's Planning Commission
  recommended a national mission on biofuel,
  specifically Jatropha
• Stage 1 - 500,000 hectares of jatropha grown on
  government land across the country. The fuel
  would be produced at the village level by local
  governing bodies.
• Stage 2 - India's central government would plant
  a total of 12 million hectares of the plant and
  privatizing the production of jatropha biodiesel

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The Production Process
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Why Focus on Jatropha?

• The Perfect Storm
• High oil prices force a search of possible
  long-term alternatives to run automobiles.
• Climate change motivates people to seek green
  energy sources
• Food prices necessitate alternative energy
  (specifically biofuel sources) that do not
  tradeoff with food producing crops.
• Recent Attention
• International speculation in December of 2007,
  Goldman Sachs identified Jatropha as a
  potentially strong source of biofuel for the
  future.
• Growing investment in India, China and Africa
  has made this created a lot of hype around the
  possible fuel source.
• European companies looking for new fuel sources
  are considering a turn to Jatropha.

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Why the paper.

• Right now, ad-hoc research is being done by
  different agenciesbut it doesn't add up, because
  they each do their own thing.
• - Nature, October 2007

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Our Question Navigating Uncertainties

• A good deal of uncertainties exist when it comes
  to Jatropha as a biofuel source. These
  uncertainties can be grouped into two categories
  
• Production and Refinery Uncertainties
• - Lack of domestication of the plant.
• - What to do with the biproduct of the plant.
• - Varying estimates of oil yield from the seed.
  
• - Oil production based on where the crop is
  grown.
• - How much carbon does production cost?
• 2. Economic and Political Viability Uncertainties
  
• - Viability of and differences with large scale
  production.
• - Whether government subsidy is necessary (like
  in India)
• - Food production tradeoff?

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Varying Output Figures
One of the greatest Uncertainties with Jatropha
is how much oil is produced per acre of plants.
The existing numbers on this are often suspect
and vary widely. For instance, Indias
planning commission thinks it would be about
1,300 liters of oil per hectare. Pushpito
Ghosh, director of the Central Salt and Marine
Chemicals Research Institute, says its half
that. These discrepancies are due in some part
to who is doing the research. A good deal of
these estimates come from sources who are
invested in Jatropha. This paper is a more
leveled study.
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Cost of production
One of the greatest concerns when it comes to
biofuels is the cost per barrel of fuel. Recent
studies have shown that ethanol, for instance,
has huge costs in the refining stages which
ultimately render it inefficient without large
government subsidies. A central question for
this paper is whether the cost to produce
Jatropha makes it inefficient without subsidy
or whether the fuel source could exist in the
free market without government support.
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Estimated Cost of Jatropha Cultivation (U.S.)
Source LOZANO CDM Proposal