JAIPUR: Experts attending a zonal consultation on bio-fuel for semi-arid eastern plains of Rajasthan here over the week-end called for evolving a balance between the commercial production of bio-fuel bearing plants such as jatropha and the use of common land, crucial for the rural poor, for their cultivation.
Research on energy from nuclear, wind, tidal and biological origins gained great momentum but it needs special infrastructure facilities, whereas biofuels can be produced from a diverse set of crops. Each country is adopting a strategy that exploits the comparative advantages it holds in certain crops.
The American food system rests on an unstable foundation of massive fossil fuel inputs. It must be reinvented in the face of declining fuel stocks. The new food system will use less energy, and the energy it uses will come from renewable sources. The seeds of the new food system have already been planted. America's farmers have been reducing their energy use for decades.
Access to land for biofuel cultivation is often negotiated with rural communities. Ensuring that sufficient consultation and discussion are carried out and that agreements are respected is a big challenge. This case study from Mozambique illustrates some of the difficulties.
Can pastoral communities benefit from the cultivation of biofuel crops? Work carried out by SOS Sahel International U K to facilitate debate and understanding on the current biofuel boom in dryland Africa points to some interesting possibilities. At the same time many questions need to be answered before pastoralists can benefit from bioenergy production.
Tata Chemicals, leading manufacturer of caustic soda and fertilisers in the country, said today that it had bought a 35 per cent stake in JOil Pte, a Singapore-based jatropha seedling company. The stake buy will help the firm gain exclusive marketing rights for technology to develop the best seed varieties of the plant, which yields biodiesel.
It is not often that an issue approved by the Cabinet, after having been vetted by a group of ministers (GoM), is sent back to the GoM for review. But such has been the fate, for understandable reasons, of the national policy on bio-fuels which was formally okayed by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs in September.
EU sets target for non-food biofuel The European Parliament recently voted to limit the use of food crops as biofuel. It proposed that at least 4 per cent of the total biofuel used in vehicular transport should come from non-food crops, dubbed second generation biofuels. It can also come from biomass, green electricity and hydrogen produced from renewables. Green campaigners have
The production of clean energy for transportation makes demands on resources that are already scarce. Biofuels can contribute to a solution, but only to a limited extent. (Editorial)
