Here’s my nominee for quote of the day, from a (gated) front page article in today’s Wall Street Journal:
“This plant will save humanity, I tell you.”
The person who said that is O.P. Singh, a horticulturist for the railway ministry of India. What plant is he talking about? A shrubby weed called jatropha, whose seeds contain an oil that Singh and others believe may power the biofuel revolution. Here’s how the Journal‘s Patrick Barta puts it:
With oil trading at roughly $70 a barrel, this lowly forest plant is suddenly an unlikely star on the world’s alternative-energy stage. The seeds from jatropha’s golf-ball-size fruit contain a yellowish liquid similar to palm oil that can be made into biodiesel … But unlike other biodiesel crops, jatropha can be grown almost anywhere — including deserts, trash dumps, and rock piles. It doesn’t need much water or fertilizer, and it isn’t edible. That means environmentalists and policy makers don’t have to worry about whether jatropha diverts resources away from crops that could be used to feed people.
Barta’s article also includes some Goldman Sachs data on the estimated cost per barrel of fuel made from a variety of sources:
Cellulose: $305
Wheat: $125
Rapeseed: $125
Soybean: $122
Sugar Beets: $100
Corn: $83
Sugar Cane: $45
Jatropha: $43
The article makes it sound as though jatropha is certainly a comer, especially compared to palm oil and corn. FWIW, this is not the first time that optimistic news about a biofuel “that might help save the planet” appeared on this blog.
Maybe it is time for the prediction market at PopSci.com to add a jatropha market, and/or to expand its Energy and the Environment market to offer betting on the future success of individual fuel sources, as it now does with ethanol.
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I question the $43 per barrel cost of jatropha, but there is a more critical issue: if the plant’s preferred habitat is forested areas, then primary forests will be clearcut in order to set up jatropha plantations.
Clearing larger plants that sequester carbon more effectively in order to make room for jatrophas will result in a major net contribution to CO2 emissions. These calculations contain data fluctuations, depending on the motivations of the researchers, but by using IPCC criteria it is clear that removing large woody biomass is just as catastrophic as powering vehicles with gasoline.
This is not as widely known as it should be, in spite of the Stern Report, due to the influence of the timber industry, especially in the US.
I question the $43 per barrel cost of jatropha, but there is a more critical issue: if the plant’s preferred habitat is forested areas, then primary forests will be clearcut in order to set up jatropha plantations.
Clearing larger plants that sequester carbon more effectively in order to make room for jatrophas will result in a major net contribution to CO2 emissions. These calculations contain data fluctuations, depending on the motivations of the researchers, but by using IPCC criteria it is clear that removing large woody biomass is just as catastrophic as powering vehicles with gasoline.
This is not as widely known as it should be, in spite of the Stern Report, due to the influence of the timber industry, especially in the US.
Hmm
Hmm
This is the biggest lie of the modern era–the notion that creating synthetic fuel or food or anything else will “save the planet.” It’s a naked emperor phenomenon–or a poisoned well–you pick your metaphor. We don’t need more fuel to create more cars and factories; we don’t need more food to feed more people; we don’t need more anything–especially people. It is overpopulation and overuse of a delicate global environment that will eventually kill us.
This is the biggest lie of the modern era–the notion that creating synthetic fuel or food or anything else will “save the planet.” It’s a naked emperor phenomenon–or a poisoned well–you pick your metaphor. We don’t need more fuel to create more cars and factories; we don’t need more food to feed more people; we don’t need more anything–especially people. It is overpopulation and overuse of a delicate global environment that will eventually kill us.
hmm x 2
hmm x 2