Indian group plans farm of 5B jatropha trees

Rajasthan, India-based Centre for Jatropha Promotion & Biodiesel (CJP) announced an aggressive plan to produce 2 million tons of biodiesel a year from jatropha seeds starting in four years.

CJP is a private company comprised of farmers, scientists, botanists and economists with jatropha plantation of around 42,000 hectares (104,000 acres).

CJP CEO Abhishek Maharshi told the Cleantech Group that a number of investors have been lined up to finance the 5 billion jatropha-tree farm in the state of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, with a billion trees planted each year.

CJP's plan has local farmers responsible for planting, maintaining and harvesting seeds from jatropha trees, then extracting the oil. CJP plans to offer its expertise and provide a purchase agreement for the oil to be used in refineries.

CJP says the effort will create 10,000 jobs.

CJP Director R.R. Sharma said the company is in talks to expand the program in west Africa and South and Central America.

Jatropha is getting attention as a second-generation biofuel because it can be cultivated on barren land, so it does not compete for land that is being used for food production (see ADM, Deere, Monsanto in corn stover research).

Biodiesel is made by crushing the seeds of toxic fruit from the jatropha shrub. Seeds can yield up to 40 percent oil and produce about 60 to 70 U.S. gallons of oil per acre. Estimates are that jatropha oil yields are 10 times that of corn, but that production hasn’t been realized on a commercial scale. 

Proponents say jatropha can alleviate soil degradation, desertification and deforestation, while requiring little water (see Wartsila to deliver jatropha-powered CHP plant). The oil from jatropha seeds can also be used for soap production.

"Attention must be to the critical issue of availability of right feedstock at right cost," Maharshi said. "Encouraged by the grand success of jatropha, we
have developed and cultivated a number of non-food crops for building a sustainable biodiesel industries."

CJP is also exploring the use of jojoba, karanja, kokum, mahua, neem, simarouba, moringa oleifera tumba, Jerusalem artichoke and ricinus communis camelina.

India accounts for about two-thirds of the world’s jatropha plantations, according to research firm New Energy Finance.

Mumbai-based Bharat Renewable Energy announced plans in September to spend Rs 2,200 crores ($480 million) to grow more than a million acres of jatropha on Indian wasteland in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, producing a million metric tons of biodiesel from the jatropha plantation by 2015 (see $480M Indian refinery signals jatropha shift?)

And in July, Mumbai-based Hindustan Petroleum said it was taking part in a venture to plant more than 15,000 hectares of jatropha (see Hindustan Petroleum in jatropha plantation venture).

The large-scale jatropha plantations come in response to a government mandate for a 20-percent blend of biofuel in petroleum by 2017 (see India, EU affirm new biofuels). The new policy mandates that the biofuels must come from non-edible crops.

The current requirement for Indian fuels is for 5 percent ethanol to blend with gasoline, and plans to increase that blend to 10 percent in October are likely on hold because of increased sugarcane costs (see India to delay October's ethanol mandate).

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