Jatropha: Too much hype on little known plant
DEMAND AND SUPPLY
By BOO CHANCO

I am getting a little nervous at the great amount of hype being poured
on jatropha by our government officials. I googled jatropha and it
seems the excitement over the bush is worldwide. But little is known
about the commercial possibilities of the plant because it had not yet
been grown and its nuts processed in a large scale basis.
The Philippine Star
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I e-mailed an old associate who was head of our technical staff at
Petron when I was there during the 80s in an attempt to find out a
little more about the potentials of jatropha as an alternative fuel.
He confirmed the potentials of jatropha but cautioned that there are
still many issues to be resolved before it becomes an energy product
of commercial value as diesel fuel replacement.

Dodo Galindo should know. Now in retirement, he is still involved in
developing coco-diesel and during our time working together, he was
the technical guy on top of alcogas and the early attempts at
coco-diesel. Anyway, Dodo’s comments about jatropha gained additional
credibility for me after I also came across the comments of a group of
Los Baños scientists on jatropha as published in a scientific journal.

Here’s what Dodo had to say: “Firstly, it contains a high degree of
unsaturated components, which means, its oxidation stability is
relatively low. Additionally, because of the lack of current local
harvests in commercial quantity, reliable data such as average
production per hectare for different regions in the Philippines is not
yet available. The oil’s performance after its conversion to biodiesel
is yet to be proven in long term tests and accepted by different
engine manufacturers. Even the Department of Energy announced it had
“stopped testing jatropha as feedstock for biofuels due to lack of
fuel samples.”

Dodo wrote me that “in summary, jatropha is a future energy product
worthy of consideration, but unless all the major issues like
stability, engine performance, effect on engine emissions, etc. are
resolved, we should not rush into incorporating the product into our
energy mix. Otherwise, it may just end up like our cocodiesel and
ethanol programs of the past and affect whatever good experience we
have so far with our current biodiesel program using coconut methyl
ester.”

The Los Baños scientists, Professors Ted Mendoza, Oscar Zamora and
Joven Lales faculty members of Crop Science, College of Agriculture,
UP Los Baños, on the other hand, point out that jatropha becomes a
viable source of biodiesel if diesel is retailed at P40 per liter; if
the crop has a high fruit yield of 36,000 kilogram per hectare (ha);
if it has a high rate of oil extraction (34 percent and 38 percent);
and if byproducts are included and provide 50-percent additional
income from the oil revenue.

Those are tough assumptions which, the scientists point out, may be
difficult to meet from what we know now. “Can we achieve a high yield
of 36,000 kg/ha and high oil content (34 percent and 38 percent) under
Philippine conditions? No jatropha variety is grown in the Philippines
that yields 34 percent oil,” the scientists say. “The current
laboratory oil extraction is in the range of 28 percent to 32 percent.”

They surmise that at a low-yield level (12,000 kg/ha), jatropha
becomes profitable for farmers growing it if the diesel price
increases to about P140 per liter at a 30-percent rate of oil
extraction (revenue is from oil alone). And that estimate excludes
processing and marketing costs. Current estimates put the processing
cost at P12/liter. Then, the price of biodiesel from jatropha becomes
P152/liter [P140 + P12].

And contrary to the impression being made, specially by Ate Glue in
her SONAs, that all it takes is for government to jumpstart the
planting of jatropha and the miracle product will be available in the
market, the scientists say “it takes five years before some
considerable quantity of jatropha seeds will be available throughout
the country and 35 years before a real high yielding hybrid can be
developed.”

The scientists think “three or five years after planting jatropha is
too short a time to expect commercialization. Are the processing
plants ready by that time?” Furthermore, they say there is a need to
quickly acquire the know-how “to accelerate the optimization of
processing raw oil into trans-esterified oil before it can be used as
biodiesel oil, and processing of byproducts (press cake and/or
glycerol) into high-priced products be acquired soon.”

Anyway, the message of the scientists to those who may have been
enticed by government press releases to get in the jatropha bandwagon
is for them to review the numbers. In fact, even government should
perhaps review their numbers too and not get carried away by the
fad-like enthusiasm for the plant. According to the New York Times,
“farmers in India are already expressing frustration that after being
encouraged to plant huge swaths of the bush they have found no buyers
for the seeds.”

While it is right to invest some money in finding out more about the
plant, it is another thing altogether to throw money into it as if it
is a proven thing. As it is, government is ready to invest billions of
pesos in setting up plantations and processing plants probably without
realizing that the promise of jatropha is still to be proven anywhere
in the world. The folks at PNOC Alternative Fuels Corp. should crunch
their numbers well and proceed only with their eyes fully open to the
possibility that jatropha may not live up to the hype.

As with any alternative fuel, its economics versus petroleum must be
there before serious money is committed to its development. Hopefully,
jatropha lives up to its promise but hold the press releases and the
enthusiastic endorsement of the President in her SONAs until we know
more about it.
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=92400