Peak Oil Meet Jatropha

Peak Oil Debunked is one website that seeks to confront the illogic of the doomseekers of Peak Oil. At that website you can read about a new, massive coal deposit found off the coast of Norway that could supply 600 years of world energy use, eventually. But perhaps it would be more cautious to use renewable energy? Research into biofuels is proceeding rapidly. One of the more petroleum like biofuels can be obtained from Jatropha seeds.


Jatropha Curcas is a member of the euphorbiceae family. The oil from the seeds of this nonedible plant are exceptionally well suited for use in diesel engines, far better than the biodiesel typically used in North America from soy or rapeseed oil. The plant grows well in arid and semi-arid regions of the globe, making it available to much of the impoverished third world.

Biofuels hold a lot of promise for replacing much of the petroleum currently being used for heat and transportation fuels. In the third world, biofuels might well replace much of the firewood used for heating and cooking. As renewable fuels, biofuels have a neutral effect on the carbon balance, if the energy involved in their production comes from part of the yield of the biofuel itself.