Jatropha a Viable Alternative Renewable Energy

Constantly the biodiesel market is searching for some alternative to produce renewable resource. Biodiesel prepared from canola, sunflower and jatropha can replace or be integrated with traditional diesel. During very first half of 2000’s jatropha biofuel made the headings as a preferred and promising option. It is prepared from jatropha curcas, a plant species native to Central America that can be grown on wasteland.

Jatropha Curcas is a non edible plant that grows in the deserts. The plant grows very rapidly and it can yield seeds for about 50 years. The oil got from its seeds can be utilized as a biofuel. This can be blended with petroleum diesel. Previously it has been utilized two times with algae combination to fuel test flight of commercial airline companies.

Another positive approach of jatorpha seeds is that they have 37% oil content and they can be burned as a fuel without refining them. It is also used for medical function. Supporters of jatropha biodiesel state that the flames of jatropha oil are smoke complimentary and they are effectively tested for basic diesel motor.

Jatropha biodiesel as Renewable resource Investment has attracted the interest of lots of companies, which have checked it for automobile use. Jatropha biodiesel has actually been road checked by Mercedes and three of the cars have covered 18,600 miles by utilizing the jatropha plant biodiesel.

Since it is because of some drawbacks, the jatropha biodiesel have not considered as a terrific eco-friendly energy. The most significant issue is that nobody understands that just what the productivity rate of the plant is. Secondly they don’t know how big scale growing might impact the soil quality and the environment as a whole. The jatropha plant needs five times more water per energy than corn and sugarcane. This raises another concern. On the other hand it is to be noted that jatropha can grow on tropical environments with annual rainfall of about 1000 to 1500 mm. A thing to be kept in mind is that jatropha requires proper irrigation in the very first year of its plantation which lasts for decades.

Recent survey states that it holds true that jatropha can grow on degraded land with little water and poor nutrition. But there is no proof for the yield to be high. This may be proportional to the quality of the soil. In such a case it may need high quality of land and might need the very same quagmire that is dealt with by most biofuel types.

Jatropha has one primary disadvantage. The seeds and leaves of jatropha are toxic to people and livestock. This made the Australian government to ban the plant in 2006. The government declared the plant as invasive species, and too risky for western Australian agriculture and the environment here (DAFWQ 2006).

While jatropha has stimulating budding, there are number of research obstacles stay. The value of detoxing has actually to be studied since of the toxicity of the plant. Along side an organized study of the oil yield need to be undertaken, this is really essential since of high yield of jatropha would most likely before jatropha can be contributed significantly to the world. Lastly it is also extremely important to study about the jatropha species that can survive in more temperature level climate, as jatropha is quite restricted in the tropical environments.