D1 Oils, Abundant Biofuels Report Progress in Jatropha Development

Jatropha development is moving forward as Abundant Biofuels Corp. offers long term contracts and D1 Oils plc, based in the U.K., refocuses its business. Abundant Biofuels, based in Monterey, Calif., announced the availability of long-term, five to 10 year contracts to supply jatropha oil to U.S. refiners.The company is also planting jatropha in Peru, the Dominican Republic and other developing nations.

According to the CEO and Chairman Charles Fishel reports the company will potentially have access to 6 million acres of jatropha.D1 Oils plc is reorganizing its jatropha development efforts to focus on plantings totaling about 540,000 acres in northeastern India, Malawi and Zambia where the crop has performed well and will be scalable, according to D1 Oils’ spokesman Graham Prince.They could be slated to begin in 12 months to 18 months and for any quantity up to 35 million gallons, and they planned to expand from there.

see more

Jatropha Cultivation in Ethiopia - Emami Biotech

Emami Biotech, is planning to invest Rs. 400 crore within about 6 years time for the development of plantations in Ethiopia. This Emami group company has obtained land on a 45 year lease from the Ethopia government for the cultivation of this promising biofuel crop.

This company plans to extract 100,000 tonnes of crude- biofuel p.a which will be transported to West Bengal, India for the production of biodiesel in the company’s biodiesel plant. So far Jatropha has been cultivated in a 30,000 acres of land .

The initial investment of Emami Biotech will be around 120 crores. The majority of the funding would be through debt, the balance 30% would be funded by the company itself.

For those interested

Cellulosic Ethanol - The only hope

Here is an article where in the Ethanol producers have started keeping an eye on the algal blooms as these feedstock turn out to be way to cheaper than corn stover and other similar feedstock.

These algae based feedstock, unlike the corn based feedstock don't use much water, do not occupy land and are definetely less expensive to cultivate.

Experts in this domain claim that the biomass derived hydrocarbons produced from these feedstock such as cornstalks, algae and others are identical to petroleum- derived hydrocarbon are similar or identical to petroleum-derived hydrocarbons and might be used in existing energy infrastructure.

Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association, feels that Ethanol is the only alternative to petroleum.He strongly believes none of the technology developments would have been possible without the strides from the ethanol industry that we have today.And while none of the parties want to be shut out of the future biofuels sector, all imagine a future that includes both biomass-derived hydrocarbons and cellulosic ethanol.

To read the full article