Galten’s Squeezing Biofuel from the Jatropha Seed
by Karin Kloosterman, Jerusalem, Israel on 09. 1.08
The inedible South American native jatropha plant, could be a winning biofuel alternative, according to the Israeli company Galten. I spoke with Galten’s Doron Levi yesterday. He in Ghana, me from my home office in Jerusalem.
The biofuel industry, he said recognizes the potential in the jatropha’s oily seed (up to about 40 percent oil), but haven’t yet devised an efficient method for extracting it. Having developed a superior method for squeezing out the oil (it’s still secret, they say), Galten is positioning itself as a global leader in the alternative fuel source, having leased about half a million acres of land in Ghana to grow the plant.
Some 250 acres are now installed as a pilot site and the company hopes to be producing biofuel (from Jatropha curcas) in a year or two. CNN is calling it a dream fuel.
With a backing of $10 million from Israeli investors, Galten's secretive extraction method could be worth more than gold.
Already grown in Ghana and other African countries, the jatropha is used as a hedge to keep foraging farm animals from grazing on crops. Although cultivating it can be dangerous (Levi told me there are some scary bush snakes to contend with), it is a pretty hearty and resilient plant, it lasts about 30-40 years, and is resistant to drought and pest attack.
Who knows, it might just be the future’s star biofuel.
More on biofuels on TreeHugger:
Jatropha Cultivation Expands in India
BioFuel That Grows Like A Magic Mushroom
Biofuel Comparison Chart: The "Good," the Bad and the (Really) Ugly
::CNN
(image credit: Woetan)
Wacky Invention "COOLBLAST" Comes to the Rescue for Tokyo Heatwave
|
Biking Across America with WE ADD UP - Day 27: Snafus
|
Problem with Jatropha is that it is very labor intensive to harvest.
Additional benefit is that the non-oil portion of it also helps enrich the surrounding soil.
So, what is going to keep greedy companies from converting rain forests into jatropha plantations? Or what about arable land currently used to raise edible crops?
This is the trap with any agro-fuel crop: raising them may be very profitable, but is fueling our cars and gadgets more important than sustaining a hungry world?
Magic bullet is not what we need. A change of thinking is in demand. I personally am hoping for the depletion of oil and the demise of society. If fuel scarcity doesn't kill us, something else will. I say let the train derail ASAP and let the survivors duke it out... or work together to build a new better world.
You may be right, I may be crazy....
We work with a company that allows businesses and individuals to offset some of their unavoidable carbon footprint by planting Jatropha in Binsulok, Sabah, Borneo. The bonus is that the Jatropha is very hardy and grows on land that is of little use for anything else. Because the fruit from the tree is a comodity in itself it creates jobs and a source of income reducing the necessity to log to provide an income (thus preventing any further destruction of the rainforest). Also, unlike Palm Oil trees it is very easy to intercrop Jatropha with other food crops such as watermelon (this becomes possible because of the nitrogen fixing capabilities of the Jatropha roots re-generating the topsoil). I was lucky enough to be able to go and see the plantation in Sabah and it is quite amazing what it is achieving for the local community (let alone the CO2 that is being sequestered through the planting of the Jatropha). Win-win if you ask me.
I hope jatropha biodiesel can help the people who need it most without hurting much land while doing so. It can be labor intensive but if it creates jobs that should be a good thing. Plus innovation will solve some problems.