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Editorial Service issue 01: Jatropha
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Bayer CropScience Editorial Service - Issue 1
Jatropha - This particular oil well holds a lot of future promise
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Planting hope, harvesting fuel
A humble desert plant named Jatropha has been receiving much attention lately, raising high hopes for the future. Offering a wide range of applications, the hardy shrub’s potential sounds more than promising: Jatropha can revive barren grounds, create jobs from virtually nothing, help small farmers in emerging countries to escape poverty, and it can even provide renewable energies.
This particular oil well holds a lot of future promise. Jatropha nuts provide up to 2,270 liters of high-quality biodiesel per hectare. Boasting 60 octane, it is one of the most effective bio-oils in the world. Refined Jatropha oil can be used for diesel motors with just minor modifications to the engine. What is more, the fuel is clean and environmentally friendly: it contains no sulphur, offers an outstanding CO2 balance and can thus contribute to protecting the climate.
Archer Daniels Midland Company, Bayer CropScience and Daimler to cooperate in Jatropha biodiesel project
Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM), Bayer CropScience AG and Daimler AG plan to jointly explore the potential for a biodiesel industry based on Jatropha (Jatropha curcas L.). A respective Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the companies. Jatropha, a tropical plant from the Euphorbia family, is seen by the three cooperating partners as a promising alternative energy feedstock for the production of biodiesel. Bayer CropScience plans to develop and register herbicides, soil insecticides and fungicides for disease and pest control of Jatropha plants.
The Jatropha plant itself is undemanding and tough. While other potential fuel plants require precious farmland, thus competing with feed and food plants, Jatropha thrives where nothing else will survive: on poor or degraded soils, that are unsuitable for growing maize or other food crops. This type of barren wasteland is available in abundance in tropical areas. India for example, has 200 million hectares of wasteland, where hardly anything but Jatropha will prosper.
“Food production takes priority”
Cultivation on poor or degraded soils is in the focus also for the Chairman of the Board of Bayer CropScience, Friedrich Berschauer : “Biofuels certainly make a contribution to covering the increasing global demand for energy while simultaneously lowering greenhouse gas emissions. However,” he continued “we would be well advised to also promote research into approaches that do not lead to competition in food growing”. He believes that the second generation of biofuels based on biomass and biomass residue will play an increasingly important role here in future. Berschauer summarized Bayer CropScience’s guiding principle as follows: “Food production takes priority”.
How it all started
The pioneer country of the Jatropha campaign is India. This is where, in 2003, an enterprising project woke the hardy shrub from centuries of inconspicuous slumber. Agricultural researcher Professor Dr. Klaus Becker of Hohenheim University in Stuttgart, Germany initiated the project together with Daimler Chrysler. Jatropha was cultivated in trial plantations in the Indian state of Gujarat, refined locally and used in test vehicles in early 2004. In April/May 2004, a modified Mercedes Benz C 220 CDI went on a 5,900km-tour through India, receiving worldwide publicity.
The Indian government has also come to realize the economic advantages of the succulent shrub bearing the scientific name of Jatropha curcas. So far, India imports 70 percent of its oil – an increasingly costly item in the country’s budget. Reducing the country’s dependence on fossil energy sources is therefore high up on the political agenda. By 2011, the government plans to substitute 20% of the country’s diesel consumption, and Jatropha is officially rated as the most important alternative fuel source.
New jobs
The Indian population will benefit from further advantages of the crop. Farming and processing Jatropha will create jobs where they are needed most: in the rural areas. The modest shrub requires little care and even less water. As it is inedible to animals, it does not need fences for protection. Its nuts cannot be harvested automatically, resulting in the creation of long-term jobs and income for the rural population. Professor Klaus Becker reckons that it takes 1,5 workers per hectare to grow and harvest Jatropha nuts. What is more, farmers need not worry about the demand side: the world’s energy hunger is insatiable.
While China and India have already started planting extensive areas, Africa is planning huge Jatropha farms as well. A BP and D1 Oils joint venture plans to process 2 million tons of nuts in four years time, enough to meet 18% of Europe’s demand for biodiesel.
Stopping erosion
Inexhaustible oil source, environmentally-friendly energy supplier, job generator – the plant offers all that and even more. According to Professor Klaus Becker it is even able to heal degraded surfaces: “We are planting Jatropha on wasteland to stop erosion. We hope that in 10-15 years time we might be able to recuperate these areas.”
Even the crop’s by-products might be useful. Once the oil has been extracted from the Jatropha nut, the remaining press cake can be used as animal feed. The quality of the Jatropha flour is significantly better than soy, Professor Becker explains. “The only problem we haven’t solved yet is how to extract the poison. But I’m sure we will work something out.” The poison itself could also be marketed. Professor Becker wants to use it as a biological pesticide. “It is a natural product, so biological farmers could use it for pest control.”
So far, Jatropha is still a wild plant that needs to be domesticated for cultivation. But researchers, industrialists and politicians worldwide are increasingly interested in the energy plant with its promising potential. Used as lubricant, hydraulic oil, fuel or heating oil, the Jatropha nut has what it takes to become a serious competitor to the petrochemical industry in just a couple of years.
| Jatropha - Profile Non eatable Jatropha curcas is a succulent shrub from the Euphorbiaceae family. Native to South America, it was brought to Africa and Asia by Portuguese sailors. The plant with its ivy-like leaves can reach a size of 3 meters and will only grow in tropical and sub-tropical climates. The fruit of the Jatropha is called physic nut or purging nut. It contains toxalbumin curcin, a toxic substance that healers used to prescribe as a strong purgative. A close relative, Jatropha macrantha, is known in South America as a particularly strong aphrodisiac. As the shrub is inedible to animals, Jatropha plants were traditionally used as living fences to prevent animals from grazing the fields. | |
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