India sees interest in jatropha grow and grow

The potential scale of the market for so-called second generation biofuels made from the seeds of the jatropha plant was underlined this week after it emerged an Indian firm is to invest up to $480m in the development of more than a million acres of jatropha plantations in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Supporters of jatropha-based biofuels claim that the plant offers a more sustainable alternative to conventional biofuels made from crops such as sugar cane, corn or soya, as jatropha can be grown on barren land, requires relatively little water and delivers far greater oil yields.

However, jatropha-based biofuels are yet to be developed on a commercial scale with many of those firms interested in the crop still only at the research phase in their development of jatropha refineries.

But that has not stopped India-based Bharat Renewable Energy announcing this week that it is to invest Rs 2,200 crore ($480m) in growing jatropha on more than a million acres of barren land.

According to several reports, the company has set itself a goal of producing more than a million metric tons of jatropha-based biodiesel by 2015 as it seeks to comply with a government mandate to deliver a 20 per cent blend of biofuel in petroleum by 2017.

The announcement is the latest evidence of growing support in India for second generation biofuels.

The government mandate demands that the biofuel that is blended with petroleum comes from non-food crops, while earlier this year, government-owned oil refiner Hindustan Petroleum announced plans to plant over 15,000 hectares of jatropha.