Indian firm takes interest in jatropha biofuel plantation

Bharat Renewable Energy, a firm based in India, announced today that it will invest up to $480m in the development of more than a million acres of jatropha plantations in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Ode predicted back in July of 2007 that jatropha held more promise as alternative fuels than corn and sugarcane. Jatropha grows rapidly in even the most arid climates, requires little in the way of fertilizers or other agricultural input, reverses desertification and produces valuable byproducts after the fuel is extracted. Moreover, it can yield up to 1,000 barrels of biodiesel from a single square mile of otherwise inhospitable cropland each year. It also required no annual replanting as it is a shrub that lives 40 to 50 years, and it is a low-energy consumer—low amounts of tilling the ground, fertilizer and watering. The only drawback is that it only grows well in warm climates such as India as it does not tolerate frost.

According to several reports, the company has set itself a goal of producing more than a million metric tons of jatropha-based biodiesel by 2015 as it seeks to comply with a government mandate to deliver a 20 per cent blend of biofuel in petroleum by 2017

Via: BusinessGreen