India’s Uncertain “Jatropha Mission” May End
Was Jatropha planting on wasteland simply a waste? That’s what a tangle of central government and special committees must soon decide, and the quicker the better. The story goes back almost a decade to 2003, when Jatropha was being promoted as an ideal biofuel crop for wasteland cultivation. Ten years and volumes of plant physiology [...]
Biofuels and the IMF: Can three producer nations save the global economy?
Believe it or not, the answer may be yes. That’s because the three biofuel producers among the BRIC block nations, Brazil, China and India, have already practiced hard for three years at the national and regional scale to ready themselves for the challenge. Starting with emergency disaster relief, and lately working in full partnership with [...]
Biofuels thrive in the shadow of Asia’s oil crisis
Yes, Asia has an oil crisis, though it’s not of the familiar “dry hole” kind. This one is different. It’s financial. It’s an oil crisis in anticipation of what increasingly looks like a supply crisis created on the one hand by international policy sanctions, and on the other, by oil traders’ jitters as they watch [...]
The Palms Of Controversy
Palms are said to be a symbol of peace and prosperity, but you can’t prove it by the past few weeks of heated debate over palm biofuel. Last week, we looked at the discrepancy between the EU and EPA findings on the emissions reduction value of palm oil–17 percent–on the one hand, and the 40+ [...]
The Ten Top Asian Biofuels Trends: 2011 and 2012
Last year at this time we looked at ten Asian biofuels trends, many of which were just getting under way. 2011 was indeed a breakthrough year for Asian biofuels science and technology, much more so than we ever could have foreseen at the time. The scale and speed of change have been terrific. This year [...]
