Jatropha Cultivation - A Mixed Blessing in India

India has led the world in cultivating Jatropha to produce Biodiesel but the experience has not always been a good one as this article suggests: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45949 Cows have died from eating the toxic jatropha leaves (there is a new patented British technology, though, that makes jatropha oilcake safe for cattle feed) and all sorts of teething problems have been encountered. While jatropha is a good bridge to a fossil fuel free economy, this article only highlights the need for more concerted effort in installing advanced wind turbines, tidal powerplants, solar thermal and solar photovoltaic plants etc. None of those would be eaten by cows which get poisoned to death.

Let us hope that this happens sooner rather than later in India. The country needs to do this - India's people deserve to live in a clean environment.

Now Some Very Good News from India

Regular visitors to my blog are accustomed, I think, to my often strong criticism of India - I find it shameful that my country, which produces some of the best engineers and doctors in the world, also produces the world's most miserable politicians and bureaucrats. Unfortunately, in a country that was long socialist (and still is, if the constitution is to be believed, though, of course, a lot of the constitution has been diluted and trashed by the politicians) you cannot get away from the government's involvement as far as large projects especially in the energy sector are concerned.

So it is with great happiness that I present this news to you: Bharat Petroleum, one of India's large petroleum companies, the Shapurji Pallonji group (who own a huge chunk of Tata, ACC etc) and some more partners are due to build several large refineries to make biodiesel from jatropha as a source in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. The link to this news is at: http://www.greenteker.com/story/3/02/2009/bharat-petroleum-invest-2000-crores-bio-diesel

As you know, this is news that I will be monitoring. Yes, biodiesel is not clean in the sense that it still puts carbon into the air. But trucks, trains and diesel cars do need to run. I think that this is a good intermediate fix for India. And, it keeps money in India instead of sending it to the Gulf.

Congratulations, BP, Shapurji group and everyone involved in this project!

One more Reason for India to Concentrate on Jatropha Cultivation

Treehugger has this entry about a new technology to make jatrophs seedcake non-poisonous and safe for use as animal feed: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/jatropha-biodiesel-economics-could-be-transformed-new-seedcake-purification-method.php The company that ahs developed the process, D1 Oils in the UK http://www.d1plc.com/ hopes to get full regulatory approval to sell the technology by 2010. Considering that they already sell biodiesel units, they should be a good company to watch as far as future products are concerned. I am not sure what machinery is used in India to process jatropha but I can see D 1 making a strong pitch to sell their plants and technology in the future.