Indian Railways’ Jatropha Biodiesel Gathers Steam: a Biofuels Digest special report

by Biofuels Digest correspondent Joelle Brink

Southern Railway’s Perambur Locomotive Works in suburban Chennai (Madras) is holy ground to fans of vintage steam locomotives the world over. But in the past few years biofuel researchers, producers and heads of foreign railroads have begun making the pilgrimage as well.

At Perambur everything old is new again, including the world’s oldest working steam locomotive, the vintage 1855 Fairy Queen, now hauling rail fans and tourists instead of freight on the run from Delhi to the Sariska Tiger Sanctuary near Alwar. Jatropha curcas oil, too, has been given a new lease on life after serving as a diesel substitute during World War II. As biodiesel, it now fuels locomotives in both northern and southern India.

Jatropha curcas is not native to India but it was an early import form the New World thanks to Portuguese trade links between the West and East Indies and its fame as a medicinal plant—Jatropha literally means “medicinal plant” in Greek. Its anti-tumor and anti-cancer properties are well established in folk medicine and are now being investigated by medical research laboratories the world over. Especially in rural India were there is little access to modern pharmacies, a Jatropha curcas tree in the back yard is regarded as a blessing. And since nearly all food in India is eaten cooked, which deactivates the phorbol esters and other toxic compounds in Jatropha, young leaves and seeds of the tree are eaten as well. Jatropha’s fellow-traveler the tomato was not so lucky and is still regarded with a wary eye by many Indians.

Indian Railways was virtually bankrupt in 2002 when it began investigating Jatropha as a means to reduce its whopping diesel bill. There was no money to send Perambur’s engineers into the lab, but train travel was free so they were sent out to interview railway retirees and rural villagers in order to learn as much about the history of Jatropha as possible. Though the measure was not popular at the time, it turned out to be the key to Indian Railways’ success with Jatropha.

At Perambur, they say that everyone goes through the same cycle with Jatropha. When it’s a distant possibility it’s a miracle plant, when you might actually have to touch one it’s a poisonous weed, and when you finally get to know it you understand why J curcas has been an indispensable a companion of tropical mankind over the centuries. The family cow or dog can kill you too, but with practice you learn how to safely enjoy their benefits. The engineers from Perambur were still at the poisonous weed stage when they went into the field, but after interviewing railway veterans who had substituted Jatropha oil for diesel during World War II, farmers who had grown and used it over the generations, and especially after surviving those Tantric rites known as Jatropha family dinners, they finally arrived at Stage III, Enlightenment, albeit with some nagging stomach complaints. It turned out that traditional rural stoves do not produce enough heat to fully deactivate the toxins in the plant and there was also a shortage of firewood. So, being engineers, as they traveled through the country they taught people how to build more efficient stoves.

Back at Perambur, they planted three test fields on waste land with Jatropha seeds harvested from living fences in the countryside. One of these fields is producing reliably but not at the 40% oil standard typical of modern hybrids. In the second the plants never flowered, and in the third field no seedlings came up. Efforts to enlist local farmers also foundered because, as a public utility struggling to survive, Indian Railways could not compete with the crop prices and wages offered by the export Jatropha plantations. At the time, IR could not even afford to offer a seed repurchase guarantee. And after finally assembling some reluctant local farmers, the engineers at Perambur were faced with an public relations malfunction when one of them suddenly emerged from the Jatropha seed storage shed wearing a scuba mask and yellow rubber gloves. The farmers took one look and fled.

Despite these setbacks they persevered, planted new fields and built a pilot biodiesel plant with the capacity to produce 1,000 liters of biodiesel a day. Their research into Jatropha use during the war led to rapid progress from running B5 in their shop vehicles to B100, and then to B10 – B20 in locomotive engines. But they could not produce enough Jatropha oil to raise the percentage used in most locomotives higher than 5-10% although the flagship Delhi-Mumbai express trains were running B20 along tracks lined with J curcas trees.

Given the Jatropha oil shortage and the cultivation problems they had experienced, the engineers began looking for a backup plan that was both easy and cheap. They found it in free used fryer oil from five star hotels and restaurants. All they had to do was pick it up, bring it back to the pilot plant and blend it into biodiesel. As one team member commented at the time, “You can’t beat the economics.” In addition to Jatropha and fryer oil, the pilot plant at Perambur is now producing biodiesel from pongamia pinnatta (Karanj), neem and soybean oils, palm oil, and even fish oil.

By late 2003 Indian Railways was besieged with requests for consultation and training from some of the most respected railroads in the world, and the decision was made to offer assistance with biodiesel migration free of charge. The Fairy Queen became a rolling classroom and the Perambur pilot plant and loco sheds became the lab. In the Farewell Dinner which marked the conclusion of training, each participant consumed a delicious menu of well-cooked J curcas dishes prepared in the various regional styles of India. “It’s the new Fugu”, a British Rail executive declared.

With the financial turn-around of Indian Railways, the future of Jatropha biodiesel looks bright once again. As part of Indian Railways’ platinum jubilee, the National Railway Board has invested an initial $1.6 million to begin setting up dedicated plantations and regional biodiesel extraction and processing plants with the capacity to produce 53,000 gallons/year. The move is part of a long term policy decision by the Board to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and move to less expensive alternatives.

In addition, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University has announced the release of a new Jatropha hybrid variety that is better suited to biodiesel production and has a yield of 40% oil. The university is also exploring byproducts that could add further value to the Jatropha crop.

Unfortunately “The Jatropha Cookbook”, a labor of love on those long train rides between research interviews, never made it past Indian Railways’ legal office, though I suspect not all the copies have been burnt. Probably a good thing. J curcas might have been declared a food crop.

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Indian Railways’ Jatropha Biodiesel Gathers Steam: a Biofuels Digest special report

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