Costa Rican biofuel

[Roy Lent]

New to this list, I'm involved with researching biofuel from Jatropha curcas and other plants. Jatropha yields a number of byproducts some of which hold promise as to food production: press cake, fruit husks and seed hulls. Anyone want to talk this subject up, I'm ready.

[Kareem Shihab]

Hello,
Recently I was asked to create a business plan on Jatropha for a job I interviewed for. I learned all about setting up a plantation, growing the plant and the refining process involved in producing Jatropha. The plant sounds pretty nice considering it can grow anywhere. ?
I was coresponding with a pretty notable guy on jatropha which said that refining the jatropha into biodiesel was a waste of time, and the raw jatropha oil could be used directly. Do you know if you can convert an engine to use the oil directly, or even power a generator? I fould some real cool "back yard refining" stuff on jatropha. look at the link here
http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_processor.html

If this job dosent work out I was considering going to India and trying to volunteer on a Jatropha plantation to learn more, know any good groups there? -kareem

[Roy Lent]

Here in Costa Rica, we are coming to the conclusion that the cultivation of Jatropha curcas to make biofuel is marginal because it must be hand harvested, which is costly. Therefore one must use every bit of by-product possible to increase income.

As for conversion of diesel engines to burn SVO, see:

http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html

It is quite possible that it would be better to cultivate Jatropha intercropped with one or more other crops, in a permaculture way. We're going to investigate this. We also are going to try J.c. as a shade tree for coffee.

Roy Lent

[Carlos Rivera Ramos]

I want to visit a jatropha curcas plantation in Costa Rica that produce biodiesel to learn some tricks because Iam starting a jatropha farm in Puerto Rico. Now I'am clearing 300 hectares to start!

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Carlos,

I suggest sending a PM (Private Message) to Roy Lent. If he's not cultivating Jatropha any longer he may still know others that do and arrange places to visit for you. I've not seen Roy for some time on this forum, but a PM will generate an E-mail to him, and hopefully that'll get through to him.

-RoB-

[Roy Lent]

Carlos,

I responded to your message by writing to you in this forum but nothing showed up. I'll try again.

We are cultivating J.c. here but little is over a year old. We are experimenting with elevation above sea level (sea level to 1,500 m), spacing of plantings, intercropping and reproduction. In reproduction we have stopped using cuttings and are mainly using seeds directly planted in the field. We want to move into meristems because one can better select the best genetic material that way.

We are working with the Costa Rican Ministry of Agriculture and with a large local agricultural cooperative. The Un.of Costa Rica is cooperating with a program to utilize waste byproducts of J.c. starting with the fruit husks.

As you can see, we will be a good source of information in the future but are not too useful in that way right now.

Roy Lent

[Carlos Rivera Ramos]

Thanks Roy for the information,it was very useful, now I will try Guatemala, If you know someone to contact there please let me know.