Even with the current atmospheric level of CO2, around 380 parts per million (p.p.m.), our climate is changing: causing record heat waves, floods and droughts simultaneously in different parts of the world. At the current level of growth, the CO2 level is projected to double by 2050 which according to several studies would have reached the threshold beyond which the global warming will be irreversible.

Global Crisis

The carbon dioxide, that was sequestered away in the form of fossil fuels million of years ago, is being consumed now at a breathtaking pace to supply world's energy. In 2005, the CO2 emissions reached 32 billion tons of which 25% came from the U.S. alone with China expected to surpass U.S. by 2010. China is adding at least 1 large coal power plant every week to sustain their current growth. Similarly, 50% of the households in India live off the grid and in the absence of any alternative they will follow a similar path. Moreover, it is estimated that in India the vehicle usage will go up 10 fold over the next couple of decades. Thus, increased vehicular usage and continued use of old and highly in-efficient coal fired plants will drastically increase India's contribution to the net carbon emissions.

To avoid such a disaster, governments in the developed countries are working on limiting their emissions. Most of the developed countries are committed to the Kyoto accord of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 483 million tons by 2012. Although these steps are necessary, they are not enough as the two fastest growing economies, China and India, are projected to build almost 800 new dirty coal-fired plants within the same time frame to fuel their economic growth. The combined greenhouse gases emissions from these plants alone would have consumed approximately 900 million tons of coal and emitted five times more CO2 than would be reduced by the countries that have signed the protocol. For China and India to do what has been done by the industrial societies since the industrial revolution is no longer an option. But for the lack of economic incentives, India and China will continue to burn coal as it is the cheapest way to fuel their growth.

Taking Environment crises as major concern, Rural Renewable Urja Solutions Pvt. Ltd. , has initiated plantation of Jatropha in India. 

Jatropha plantation is labor intensive hence creating jobs for poor indigenous people who otherwise are forced from their ancestral lands and displaced, having to live in extreme poor conditions in city slums.India has approximately 63 million hectares of wasteland and additional 174 million hectares suffering from land degradation thereby displacing farmers from their homes in search of subsistence work in overcrowded cities.

Jatropha cultivation has a huge potential to alleviate soil degradation, desertification and deforestation by greening this vast wasteland while providing employment to rural extremely poor and marginalized communities. Co-operatives are setup with the farmers for the joint plantation empowering small farmers. They are provided with the state-of-the-art cultivation techniques and high yield seeds. The oilseeds processing will be setup for every 100 hectares of plantation thereby providing employment locally. The by-products such as seedcake will be utilized locally either to fulfill the energy needs or making high value manure for organic farming. To date company has successfully planted 15K of plants and further planning to plant approx 1-2 million of jatropa plants.

Company is planning to provide diesel to local diesel vehicles or diesel generators will be modified to use the filtered oil directly to maintain the clean environment conditions. The leftover oil will be collected from these units to process bio-diesel.

2500 jatropha plants can be cultivated in 1 hectare. Each plant after 3 years of gestation period starts producing 2 kg seeds going up to 4 kg after 5 years. The typical seed yields 30% which can be improved up to 50% by using the right kind of technology. A jatropha plant has a lifetime of around 50 years. A hectare of jatropha yields more than four times as much fuel per hectare as soybean, and more than ten times that of corn. Farmers can use jatropha plants as a living fence to protect their crops as livestock do not like jatropha leaves or stems. Jatropha can also be inter-cropped with many cash crops such as sugar, fruits and vegetables offering fertilizer and protection against livestock.A vertically integrated system will be developed to further exploit different aspects of jatropha from plantation to bio-diesel.

What Jatropha Plantation can do 

• 1 hectare plantation (2500 plants) will produce a reduction of 20 tons of CO2 per year for 40 years
• 2500 plants will produce around 10 tons of seeds which at 35% yield will produce 3500 liters of biodiesel which will result in 9.2 tons of CO2 offset every year for 40 years
• 10 tons of seed will produce 6500 kg biomass from de-oiled seedcake which will be used for gasification to produce methane that will be harnessed for the captive consumption to replace highly-inefficient wood burners with gas fired burners and electricity. Thus, jatropha plantation has a much higher impact in reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in than any other plantation projects.

A Tonne of CO2 is emitted when you

• Fly 2000 miles in an airplane

• Drive 1,300 miles in a large SUV.

• drive 1,900 miles in a mid-sized car.

• drive 6,000 miles in a hybrid car

• run an average US household for 60 days.

• run your computer for 10,600 hours

• graze a Ugandan dairy cow for eight months.

Average CO2 emissions per year

• 4.5 tonnes for the average US car.
• 4.5 tonnes for the average global citizen.
• 6.2 tonnes for electricity use of the average US household.
• 21 tonnes for the average US resident.
• 1.5 million tonnes for a 500MW gas power plant.
• 8.3 million tonnes for an older 1,000MW coal power plant.
• 6 billion tonnes for the US as a whole.
• 25 billion tonnes for the planet as a whole.

For more details and support visit us at : www.plantjatropha.com