There was an interesting article about jatropha in the New York Times awhile ago. I had never heard of this plant before, but it looks like it may be a good source of biodiesel, among other things. It was originally from the Carribbean and Central America, then dispersed around the world by Portuguese traders. One of the big attractions is that does not need large amounts of water and fertilizer (unlike corn for ethanol), can grow on lousy land, and yields ten times as much fuel per acre as corn.
Up until now, people have used the plant as a fence, since the smell and the taste of the plant repels grazing animals. They have also used the plant to weave baskets, and used the oil to make candles and soap. Wikipedia also mentions that the extracts have an anti-tumor activity, the seeds can be used as a remedy for constipation, wounds can be dressed with the sap, and the boiled leaves remedy malaria and fever. A real variety of uses.
Link to wikipedia is below:
JatrophaWikipedia Large companies such as BP and D1 Oils are pushing the plant, as are the governments of the Phillippines and India. Africa is also growing more of the plant. If the increased fuel yields are correct, this weed would be a welcome replacement for the ethanol / corn boom.
I thought I’d also check out ethanol a bit as well. I was aware that it was not really that efficient and the boom was mostly due to politicians being paid off or trying to get votes. In California, there was and still is some bitterness about being forced to first add the polluting MTBE and now ethanol. Science takes a backseat to politics and money once again.
There are now over 100 ethanol refineries in the US, with 80 more coming online this year. They are sucking up 20% of the current corn production of the country, and may take up to 33% by 2010. Corn is one of the most heavily subsidized crops in America, to the tune of $37 billion between 1995 and 2003. Ethanol distributors pocket 51 cents subsidy for every gallon. Domestic producers are also protected with tariffs against lower cost sugar cane based ethanol from Brazil.
Some estimates indicate that if subsidies were stripped away, a gallon of ethanol would cost 38 cents more to produce than an energy-equivalent amount of gasoline (which is about two-thirds of a gallon due to ethanol's lower energy content).
One other effect of rapidly rising ethanol production is the rapid price of corn in the world, which has quadrupled in some areas. The increased costs have caused some real problems in areas like Mexico.
I also found a good website about ethanol effects, called Energy Justice. Link is below:
EnergyJusticeEthanolAmong their findings:
Ethanol production using corn grain requires 29% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produces. Using switchgrass requires 50% more; wood biomass: 57% more. Inefficient solar cells produce about 100 times more electricity than corn ethanol.
Ethanol costs three and a half times as much as gasoline to produce and contains only 60% as much energy per gallon as gasoline. So, while a gallon of ethanol-blended gas may cost the same as regular gasoline at the pump, it won't take you as far.
UPDATE 10/17/07:
The Wall St Journal had an editorial today titled “Ethanol’s Water Shortage”. Among the tidbits:
"Heavily subsidized and absurdly inefficient, corn-based ethanol has already driven up food prices. But the Senate's plan to increase production to 36 billion gallons by 2022, from less than 7 billion today, will place even greater pressure on farm-belt aquifers. Ethanol plants consume roughly four gallons of water to produce each gallon of fuel, but that's only a fraction of ethanol's total water habit. Cornell ecology professor David Pimentel says that when you count the water needed to grow the corn, one gallon of ethanol requires a staggering 1,700 gallons of H2O."
So that means that if they produce 7 billions gallons of ethanol today, they are using 11.9 trillion gallons of water.
I haven’t seen much on the water aspect, but this is really eye opening, given that there were already concerns about the midwest aquifiers having problems or going dry later this century. This ethanol push, driven in part by politicians looking for money and votes and ignoring science, is reminding me of the fight against increasing mileage requirements. The car companies and politicians have pushed against higher limits for sometime, even though it increases our reliance on foreign oil and in turn gives more of our dollars to hostile regimes. Long term thinking too often goes out the window.
