The Economical and Environmental Advantages of Growing Jatropha Curcas on Marginal Land

Abstract

Biomass energy is a renewable clean energy, which may transfer the perennial biomass into energy, in additions, the plants will absorb the carbon dioxide in the air to reduce the speed of global warming. In this research, the biomass plant -Jatropha curcas will be cultivated on the poor gravel soil and drought land at Taitung in Taiwan, except the economic benefits, the advantages for the surrounding environment also will be discussed. In economical terms, this study comparing the benefits between glowing Jatropha curcas and the aboriginal people’s traditional crops including corn and millet. The results show that glowing Jatropha curcas harvest in its fourth year is same with planting corn but 25% better than planting millet, and will uprise year after year. As for the advantages for the surrounding environment, glowing Jatropha curcas obscured much more sunlight than other plants, the ground surface cooling effect is more obvious, in gravel soil, it can be reduced 60% ,while in drought land is 25%. For function of soil conservation, the depth and the land coverage area of the plant’s root will be measured for estimation. From the results, one can find that planting Jatropha curcas will be better than planting corn or millet, and the performance will enhancing year after year by lasting for 35~50 years, it means that, Jatropha curcas was definitely a good choice for planting on gravel soil or drought land no matter for economical, environmental or land preservative’s sake.