The extraordinary collapse of Jatropha as a biofuel

Bob Geldof gave it his big seal of approval – another Geldof disaster……..
Biofuel should be banned as should wind farms and solar panels in the UK – if we the taxpayers have to subsidise anything let it be Thorium based nuclear power.

“As climate mitigation and adaptation activities intensify attracting large investments there is danger of such lapses becoming more frequent unless “due diligence” is institutionalized and appropriate protocols developed to avoid conflict of interest of research organizations. ”
Just admit it, the knowledge problem prevents the possibility of centrally-planning this endeavor. No amount of protocols will help, and in fact they would probably make things worse. If this were a profitable venture, millions of individuals would find ways to most efficiently grow and process it. Just commanding from on high that it will work usually means that it won’t work.

What’s everybody getting so upset about? This Public Policy Boondoggle will only to waste a few $Billion on top of the $Trillion already flushed down the Gaia Public Policy Appeasement commode.
What’s a few $Billion compared to the hundreds of $Billions squandered on wind turbines, solar farms, and high speed rail between Nowhere and Cant Get There From Here?
C’mon really . . . we need to be realistic about the greenie stupidity we expose and mock. Certainly the “north of $50Billion wasted per Project” is a target rich environment and I’d suggest we use that as the “Waste Line” for ridicule and exposure.
/sarc off

Let’s hope the ‘due diligence’ remains bad. Like any other criminal syndicate, the Carbon Mafia will only disappear after most of its participants decide it’s a money-loser. The ‘science’ stuff is just flash and dazzle to bring in the marks.

Looks to me to be another Tanganyika Groundnut Scheme! See wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanganyika_groundnut_scheme

Let small risks be taken by a few people willing to accept them. Let them profit from success. When governments impose mitigation schemes, it forces us all to accept big risks, and pay for the big failures. But let’s not forget they meant well.

This sounds even worse than the ‘Groundnut Scheme’ (1946-51). At least we were planning to cook with the peanut oil not burn it in our cars.
http://www.themeister.co.uk/economics/groundnut_scheme.htm

Genuine question: In what way is burning oil from “Jatropha” (whatever that may be) any better than burning fossil fuel oil, in terms of “climate change mitigation strategy”? Is the CO2 produced by Jatropha better than other forms of CO2? (Really. I’m not trying to score points here – I just don’t get it.)

If they would just get those pesky orangutangs out of the way….
….palm oil would be profitable

Perhaps the Jatropha plant carries a virus that it transmits to humans that causes such infected humans to do crazy things that help the Jatropha plant propagate itself.
Propagation of the Jatropha plant sure seems to have been the only result of all this craziness.

Chinese Tallow are considered the third most productive biodiesel species behind algae and oil palm.
They grow in a wide range in the southern US and are considered invasive. I have about a dozen of them.
http://www.esrla.com/pdf/tallow.pdf
They grow explosively. They require no irrigation, tillage, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and very little fertilizer. They are drought, flood, and cold tolerant. Indeed, the fear of wide scale cultivation is escaping from the farm and displacing native species. They become productive in 3 years and will grow to 100 years old.
The only “care” mine get are pruning so they don’t form an impenetrable jungle from the ground up as the branches start low on the tree and hang down until they touch the ground.

James Evans asks:
“Genuine question: In what way is burning oil from “Jatropha” (whatever that may be) any better than burning fossil fuel oil, in terms of “climate change mitigation strategy”? Is the CO2 produced by Jatropha better than other forms of CO2?”
The carbon dioxide in the biofuel is just recycled from the atmosphere (the plant removes it from the air, ‘stores’ it as plant material and it is then released back to the air when burned). The carbon dioxide from oil or coal or nat gas is ‘new’ to the atmosphere, as it has been stored away underground for a few million years.

Even the mentioned Wikipedia Jatropha entry hints at the level of the scam:

Estimates of Jatropha seed yield vary widely, due to a lack of research data, the genetic diversity of the crop, the range of environments in which it is grown, and Jatropha‘s perennial life cycle. Seed yields under cultivation can range from 1,500 to 2,000 kilograms per hectare, corresponding to extractable oil yields of 540 to 680 litres per hectare (58 to 73 US gallons per acre).[14] Time Magazine recently cited the potential for as much as 1,600 gallons of diesel fuel per acre per year. [15]
…
14. Dar, William D. (6 December 2007). “Research needed to cut risks to biofuel farmers”. Science and Development Network.
15. Padgett, Tim (February 6, 2009). “The Next Big Biofuel?”. Time Magazine.

Extractable oil yields of 58 to 73 US gallons per acre, Time Magazine in 2009 said there could potentially be as much as 1,600 gallons of biodiesel per acre.
Biodiesel production must be substantially different for Jatropha compared to common vegetable oils, since I have never heard before of more than a 20x increase in volume produced compared to the starting amount of oil. Truly amazing, no wonder they saw such potential in it.
Or did they somehow think they could develop the plant for more that twenty times the yield than what it currently gets under cultivation? What other plant were they cultivating that made them think it was possible, and can they legally sell it in California for medicinal purposes?

Jatropha oil with a 15% snake oil blend.

MorinMoss says:
August 7, 2011 at 11:24 am
@Brian Johnson uk
“Are you referring to a Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR)? One has yet to be built and the closest example, the ORNL Molten-salt reactor, never actually used thorium and was never used to generate electricity.”
Wrong. A 75 megawatt LFT research reactor was built and operated at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the 1950’s and 1960’s and operated continuously for ten years. Some claim that uranium reactors won the day because they produce weapons grade fissile material. I’m not so sure about that. Maintaining the right chemistry in a LFTR is not easy since it doesn’t burn spontaneously like enriched uranium. The fuel needs constant processing including enriched uranium as an ignitor. Given the technology has been around for 50 years it seems like someone would have brought it out of mothballs long before now if it had any significant cost advantage.

@ Brian Johnson uk says: August 7, 2011 at 10:51 am Biofuel should be banned as should wind farms and solar panels in the UK
I am fascinated by the latest stats from UK’s DECC. Wind made up 5.6% of the 89GW of installed power, but the MWh of energy they delivered in 2010 was 0.4% of the total. That works out at an effective load factor of 7%. I agree with Brian – wind farms don’t seem to make much sense.

Bah! How could anybody have been so stupid as to invest in such an obvious scam? It defies the imagination!
Now tulips, on the other hand, there’s a solid investment with guaranteed returns! Or, there’s this up-and-coming can’t-miss firm called the South Sea Company; crackerjack payoff, trust me. Better yet (and don’t spread this around), dot-coms; wave of the future; sky-high potential!
Oh, you’d rather invest in something more tangible? My friend, I have just one word for you: sub-prime mortgages. They’re backed by honest-to-goodness solid real estate property, and that never goes down!
No? I can see you’re a wise and careful investor, sir, so for you I recommend the most solid investment of all; rock-solid, in fact. Over 200 years of steady, reliable returns, renowned as the safest haven ever for jittery investors around the world: United States Government debt, backed by the full faith, honesty, and competence of the politicians in Washington, DC. The highest AAA rating in the world, and–
No??? Dang. Well, you force me to reveal my trump card, sir, the surest investment in the universe. I dare not speak its name, but I will reveal that until recently there was one born every minute. Nowadays it’s more like every second, especially in places like Washington, Sacramento, Canberra, and London, so the growth potential is obv– Yes? Excellent! How much would you like to invest, Mr. Pachauri?

From Dave Springer on August 7, 2011 at 12:27 pm:

Chinese Tallow are considered the third most productive biodiesel species behind algae and oil palm.
They grow in a wide range in the southern US and are considered invasive. I have about a dozen of them.

Great, another Asian Invasion to worry about. Here in Pennsylvania we’re getting regularly hammered with Public Service Announcements about the Emerald Ash Borer beetle that could wipe out every ash tree in the US. (“Don’t move firewood! Buy it where you burn it!”)
Have we forgotten about the chestnut blight brought in with Chinese and/or Japanese Chestnut trees that virtually eradicated the American Chestnut tree?
Kudzu.
And now you gleefully announce you are actively harboring an invasive Asian species? Have you no shame?

Correction to my LFTR post. It was Oak Ridge not Livermore. It was 7.5 megawatts not 75 megawatts. It was operated continuously for 5 years not 10. Aside from those details the rest is accurate.
Moreover, it is single-liquid where the chemistry is difficult to maintain (ORNL was single liquid). In dual liquid the chemistry is easier but there is no known material with the requisite properties for the plumbing other than graphite which doesn’t hold up long enough under high heat to be practical – it becomes brittle and cracks. Any modern incarnation has unsolved materials problems to deal with. Piping made with copper-reinforced graphite cloth is being talked about but no ones knows if it will work or not. The single liquid design it is still too difficult to control the chemistry. In the single liquid design one of the great difficulties is that highly corrosive chemicals are produced in the liquid that will destroy the plumbing if not constantly (and expensively) removed as it is generated.
Old technologies abandoned for “political reasons” that sound too good to be true invariably are just that – not true – and hauling them out of the dustbin of history for a second look is just a way to get a payday for the principals without ever producing anything of value.
This sounds mostly like wishful thinking. Perhaps not as wishful as fusion reactors but shares the same basic problem in that no known materials can stand up in the operating environment long enough to make operation economical.

In India the provisions of mandatory blending could not be enforced as seed production fell far short of the expectation

Don’t tell me, the production potential was greatly hyped beyond the reality, right? I will bet that if you look at the reporting over the years, the reported potential walked up with each report. An initial expected range was probably documented somewhere. The high end of that range then became the baseline expectation. The same thing happens with wind and solar production expectations. Wind farms are sold with “capacity” numbers that far exceed, often by over 300% of actual production.
I have seen this sort of thing in every single alternative energy scheme that has come down the pike.

Forgive them; for they know not what they do.

Dave Springer says:
August 7, 2011 at 12:54 pm
The fuel needs constant processing including enriched uranium as an ignitor.
Constant processing is an advantage. That’s what allows us to avoid expensive reprocessing. Th produces 233U and from that point, no 235U is needed. Another cost advantage is not having to manufacture solid fuel in the first place. Another is not having to store large amounts of waste. Another is being able to burn almost all of the fuel insted of 1 to 3% of it.
I’m surprised. You usually do better than that.

Cellulosic ethanol makes steps toward commercial implementation ….
http://wallacesfarmer.com/story.aspx/iowa-a-step-closer-to-cellulosic-ethanol-production-9-51115
Using farm waste as an addition to their corn ethanol plants – increases the yield of the corn planted plus can use waste from “food” corn and other biomass feedstock sources …
Jatropha – a perfect parallel to the GWS- Global Warming Scam 😉 … claims of certain science and all manner of benefits – few if any truly supported by clear, undisputed science of fact – luckily we haven’t gone down the mass implementation of the “plan” as with Jatropha

Looks like BP gave up on this 2 years ago – couple of comments suggest there was a scam afoot over acreage planted:
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/07/17/bp-gives-up-on-jatropha-for-biofuel/
http://www.d1plc.com/
http://www.google.co.uk/finance?client=ob&q=LON:DOO

Dave Springer says:
August 7, 2011 at 12:32 pm
“My older daughter is environmentally concerned. The electric company where she’s at, she lives about 25 miles from me and has a different electric company than mine, offers “pure wind power” at $0.08/kWh. ”
They can do that in the US because they get tax credits when they build the wind farm. The subsidy does not have to be added to the prize of the other electricity your daughter needs (yes, the evil electricity that she needs when the wind doesn’t blow).
.

In a way, the Jatropha thing was an ill-timed closing of a “circle of fraud.”
By now we were supposed to have a global carbon emissions scheme, with “developed” nations, in atonement for their carbon sins, sending massive gobs of cash to “developing” countries, with the built-in assurances that the “developing” nations wouldn’t develop further and become much-larger carbon polluters themselves.
The “developing” nations then get sold on growing crops for biofuels, with Jatropha looking attractive as suitable for land they wouldn’t be using for food production anyway. But biofuels are at least subject to the market force of competitiveness with each other. The cost of the product has to be low enough to compete with other biofuels, and all this development of Jatropha farming should have led to lots of production which would have driven down the market price. End result, the Jatropha farmers would be basically enslaved to the buyers, working for a subsistence income without local market demand and no one else to sell to, likely working land unsuitable for raising anything better, with the biofuel feedstock (if not the actual biofuel) being shipped to the “developed” countries. And because their countries won’t be developing into anything offering better opportunities anytime soon, that’s the best those farmers can get.
Meanwhile in the “developed” countries, with the mandated use of biofuels artificially driving up the prices for the consumers, the dealers in biofuels will make significant profits, for what came from feedstock bought dirt cheap. And who will be selling the biofuels, which are to be blended with traditional “carbon polluting” fuels? The same “Big Oil” that was to be punished by the carbon taxes.
Consumers get hit up for carbon taxes, that wealth gets “redistributed,” residents of the receiving countries (who likely won’t see any benefit from the money) are enslaved as cheap labor growing feedstock, which becomes expensive fuel for the carbon tax payers. Who, in ways direct and indirect, will pay carbon taxes on the biofuel as well. With “Big Oil” soaking up a good share of the “liberated” money getting sloshed around, while assorted governments split up the rest.
That would have been quite a sweet setup. It’s a crying shame it didn’t pan out.

To use any land for a monoculture that has limited return and destroys the local ecology cannot be a good idea. To grow biofuel plants instead of food crops is criminal.
Biodiesel has been shown to produce less power and destroy engine parts like injectors due to low lubricant properties. Two good reasons for not using it plus the fact that you can’t eat biofuel.

jorgekafkazar says:
August 7, 2011 at 7:02 pm
“Dave Springer says: “My older daughter is environmentally concerned. The electric company where she’s at, she lives about 25 miles from me and has a different electric company than mine, offers “pure wind power” at $0.08/kWh.”
“Check your wallet, Dave. You’re probably getting your pocket picked for the difference between 8 cents/kwh and the real cost.”
Possibly. There are restrictions on that rate. The home must meet certain standards for energy efficiency and must have an energy audit completed showing compliance. Thermostat can not be set lower than 79 degrees in the summer and probably some maximum in the winter which I didn’t ask about. I was pretty shocked that their electric bill for a 3000 sq.ft. house is only $80/mo. Water is another story though. If they water their small lawn regularly that bill can hit $300/mo in the summer and they have little choice due to HOA convenants requiring lawns be well maintained. Personally I don’t have any landscape plants, including lawn grass, that can’t survive without irrigation. If it isn’t producing food for the table it’s on its own.

I recall reading that the UK Dept of giving-money-away-to-foreigners gave money to India to plant Jatropha. The India based staff stayed in their offices and were delighted to report the acres planted, but were later upset by a journalist who had the audacity to actually go out and look what was happening – the swine – and reported unharvested and poor crop and impoverished farmers, who had been promised much.
Have to laugh, to stop myself weeping or getting VERY cross. Ground nut scheme revisited it seems.

If the polar bears were living forever; would have being 3-4 bears stuck on the top of each other. People drown / bears drown… The real reason they emphasize that is getting too hot for the bear in Arctic circle is: people to accept that: if is getting too hot there – what will happen in the subtropics…? Start panicking, what are you waiting for?! The real problem is: if is no carbon tax, Warmist adhesive fingers are useless.