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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Tell me more about this “rape seed”…
Tell me more about this “rape seed”…
Wow, those GS numbers are unbelievable – they are talking about a barrel of fuel, not crude which means gasoline would be at maybe $100 or more… The numbers look off, on the low side. If cellulose produce alcohols is only $300 some a barrel now, with a bunch of technology just being developed, it is obviously the long term goal. We will likely see 2x reduction of costs of that from technology in the pipeline now. You could take ag waste for that, along with your Jatropha – after squeezing the oil out. The numbers would make me very optimistic, they seem way to good (ignoring the Jatropha number, even).
Wow, those GS numbers are unbelievable – they are talking about a barrel of fuel, not crude which means gasoline would be at maybe $100 or more… The numbers look off, on the low side. If cellulose produce alcohols is only $300 some a barrel now, with a bunch of technology just being developed, it is obviously the long term goal. We will likely see 2x reduction of costs of that from technology in the pipeline now. You could take ag waste for that, along with your Jatropha – after squeezing the oil out. The numbers would make me very optimistic, they seem way to good (ignoring the Jatropha number, even).
“This plant will save humanity, I tell you.”
Wait a minute, what ever happened to:
“Bread! Bread! The Staff of Life!!!”
(Oh yeah, now I remember: that bread bit was from a Carol Burnett Show skit. Oh well).
“This plant will save humanity, I tell you.”
Wait a minute, what ever happened to:
“Bread! Bread! The Staff of Life!!!”
(Oh yeah, now I remember: that bread bit was from a Carol Burnett Show skit. Oh well).
How many square miles you have to grow this plant on in order to produce 5,178,000 barrels a day? (U.S. crude oil production as of 2005)
How many square miles you have to grow this plant on in order to produce 5,178,000 barrels a day? (U.S. crude oil production as of 2005)