Last night our local news had a story on the exciting potential of the Jatropha nut for biofuel purposes. They talked about how well it grew in marginal soils, so I looked online. The first thing I found was this story. The Jatropha plant can grow in barren, marginal land that it appears otherwise would not support other major crops. However, it isn’t without it’s drawbacks.

Currently yields of the crop have been quite variable. In other words from one year to the next they are not getting consistent output. More troubling though is the toxicity of the plant and the labor intensive harvesting. Harvesting must be done by hand because the nuts ripen at different times. The nuts and leaves are toxic and require careful handling by farmers and I assume those that have been hired to pick the nuts. Also, processing plants will need to take special precautions in part due to the toxic fumes or vapour created when crushing the nuts. GREAT! sign me up for that! No, seriously. It sounds as though in several years the Jatropha nut may be a viable biofuel source but we will need to be certain to keep in mind safe handling and processing practices. Taking ALL of that into account it makes me wonder if the price of making this biofuel wouldn’t be too expensive to be competitive.