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ans to invest Rs 80 crore in a biofuel project, is to set up a facility to process about 24,000 tonnes of jatropha seeds a year to produce about 8,000 tonnes of oil.

The plant is expected to come up in January 2006 in Chengalpattu, near Chennai, according to Mr D. Aristotle, General Manager (Projects).

The company hopes to rope in farmers through contract farming to cultivate jatropha on over 5 million hectares in 5-7 years.

It has launched the project in Tamil Nadu, where it plans to cover 40,000 hectares, Andhra Pradesh 20,000 hectares and Chattisgarh 50,000 hectares. It also plans to extend the cultivation to Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.

The company will buy back the jatropha seeds and provide technical support. The initial cost of Rs 28,500 a hectare will be disbursed as loan by banks over the first three years.

A Central Government subsidy of 30 per cent, or Rs 6,000 a hectare, will be adjusted in the loan. The company estimates that biodiesel prices will be marginally cheaper than diesel, at about Rs 30 a litre.

The chemical reaction

BIOFUEL production is a two-stage process that starts with the raw material, oilseeds, being crushed in oil mills to physically expel the oil, leaving behind the oil cake, which can be used as manure. The second stage is a chemical process involving a reaction called transesterification. The expelled oil is treated with an alcohol, say, methanol, and a base, say, potassium hydroxide, to convert it to fuel. This reaction removes free fatty acids and also gives off by-products glycerine and a fertiliser from the base used.

In the 1940s scientists used similar reaction to produce glycerine to make explosives.

Land equation

THE estimates of land area needed for extracting jatropha oil to replace diesel.

Under irrigated condition jatropha seeds output is 3 tonnes per hectare. This yields one tonne of oil.

Current diesel consumption: 40 million tonnes a year.

For equivalent jatropha oil, 40 million hectares would have to be brought under the crop.

Forty million hectares or four lakh sq km is the combined area of Chattisgarh (1.35 lakh sq km) and Madhya Pradesh (3.08 lakh sq km).

For 20 per cent blending of diesel with jatropha oil, that is, for 8 million tonnes, eight million hectares would need to be brought under the plant, or 80,000 sq km, which is 60 per cent of Tamil Nadu's land area (1.3 lakh sq km).

India has 6 lakh sq km of wasteland.