Cuba’s newest biodiesel plant in Paraguay in the Guantanamo province is turning “bellyache bush” seeds into green fuel, adding another alternative fuel to the country’s diverse energy-producing portfolio.
Jatropha seeds come from inside a golf-ball-sized fruit which, after being pressed, releases an oil quite similar to palm oil. This oil can be used as biodiesel and the leftover mush from the plant and stems can be used in anaerobic digesters to create biogas. The plant is called the “bellyache bush” due to how toxic the seeds are: consuming as little as three of them can be fatal. In tiny doses, they have traditionally been used in Cuba to combat intestinal bugs and to lower fevers, reports Yahoo News.
The use of an inedible, toxic plant to create biofuels could aleve concerns that some have about burning food to create fuel. In addition, jatropha can be grown just about anywhere, requiring little water or fertilization, and can be intermixed with other crops such as coffee. “It’s a major change to the widespread paradigm in global biofuel production,” said Jose Sotolongo, director of the Center for Applied Technology for Sustainable Development in Cuba. The country’s biodiesel plant is capable of producing over 100 tons of fuel from its 130 acres of plantings per year.
In 2007, Goldman Sachs claimed that the jatropha plant would be one of the best sources for future biodiesel production and several airlines must have taken note. In 2008 Air New Zealand completed a test flight using a 50/50 mix of jatropha-oil-derived biofuel and conventional jet fuel, followed by Continental Airlines in 2009 and Air China in 2011.
Brazil and the Phillippines are already using the seeds to make biodiesel, and several countries in Africa are planting fields of jatropha in preparation for converting the seeds into fuel as well. Cuba already uses sugar cane and wood from trees to produce electricity, and it aims to generate one-sixth of its needs from renewable sources by 2020. The “bellyache bush” should help them achieve that goal.
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