Monday, August 27, 2007

A VIABLE Alternative Fuel?




Here’s some interesting news on the alternative energy front. Earlier this summer, British Petroleum dumped $90 million dollars into research of a weed known as jatropha.
Here’s what BP found: The jatropha plant is a large shrub filled with golf ball-size oily green fruit. It can grow almost anywhere, doesn’t require an abundant water supply, it’s inedible, resistant to pesticides and is essentially worth squat to those surrounded by it. In India, they use the plant to build hedges.
But as it turns out, jatropha oil can be poured right into a biodiesel tank. Making it “potentially” one of the first truly low-impact, high efficiency, natural biofuel sources. And it’s cheap…
Thanks WSJ
At $43 per barrel, that makes jatropha fuel almost half as cheap as oil. A highly efficient, easy-to-grow biofuel source that has no direct effect on the global food supply? We expect more money will be flowing in this direction very soon.

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