The Importance of Jatropha for Brazil

Abstract

Fossil derived fuels currently supply most of the world’s energy, even though it represents a finite resource. Aiming at reducing the fossil fuels dependency, alternative sources of energy have been pursued in the last few years. In view of the urgent need to develop new technologies that may enable the widespread use of environment friendly forms of energy, biofuels in general and biodiesel in particular, are receiving considerable attention throughout the world and especially in Brazil. Due to the high quality of its oil that meets the rapeseed quality standard, to the fact that its oil can be easily converted into biodiesel, and its wide adaptability, physic nut (Jatropha curcas) has been considered a potential crop to serve as feedstock for biodiesel production. In that context, this chapter demonstrates the potential of physic nut as a biofuel crop, highlighting however the existing challenges to its wide adoption as a fuel crop. Even facing enormous challenges (detailed below), our cautiously yet optimistic vision is that a dense and directed research program may successfully make physic nut a viable feedstock for biodiesel production. In that respect we detail the Embrapa research initiative drawn to address many of the existing challenges.