TECHNOLOGY

An almost CO2-neutral bridge technology based on renewable raw materials, which uses existing technologies, can prevent the scenario of global climate change without massive, long-term investments. Due to their chemical-physical similarity to fossil fuels, vegetable oils are particularly suitable as a bridging fuel, as they can be integrated into the existing infrastructures with reasonable effort. Especially the oil from the perennial plant Jatropha curcas Linn. (in the following “JCL”) offers a feasible solution here. On the fuel side, the quality standard for vegetable oils for use in diesel engines is described by DIN 51623. Thanks to uncomplicated technical adjustments, diesel engines can be operated with vegetable oils. After market converters already offer market-ready solutions, from the adaptation of the engine management to the installation of adapted engine parts.

ECONOMY

Vegetable oils are particularly suitable for the so-called "drop-in" solution. For example, vegetable oils can be used directly or with only minor technical adjustments to operate diesel engines. As a perennial plant, the second generation of JCL (Jatropha 2.0) also offers the advantage of binding atmospheric CO2 in the plant biomass for up to 30 years. This generates additional income by participating in the global CO2 certificate trade, which can provide financial relief, especially in the phase of establishing cultivation areas. JCL plants fix up to 80 tons of CO2 per hectare in the first few years and bind this for a period of up to 30 years. With full utilization of the 2 billion hectares of degraded soil worldwide, the potential of JCL and other pioneering plants with high oil content becomes clear. The hydrothermal carbonization of the vegetative plant material also increases the greenhouse gas reduction potential, which can further increase income. At 2 billion hectare, 160 billion tons of CO2 are theoretically bound for 30 years!

From an economic point of view, vegetable oil fuels also offer the advantage of generating local financial cycles in the growing countries and reducing dependence on imports of fossil fuels. This is particularly interesting for developing and emerging countries, which are also subject to the global crude oil price and its fluctuations. Economically and politically motivated migration is also curbed by creating livelihoods through the creation of jobs and thus the negative prognosis of emerging and developing countries can be stopped and even reversed.

Furthermore, the cultivation of Jatropha results in additional (by-products) that help to complete the local, regional or national value chain of the respective cultivation area and thus also contribute to sustainability according to the cradle-to-cradle principle .

ECOLOGY

Vegetable oil fuels not only offer the advantage of reducing CO2 emissions through their use, vegetable oils also offer advantages in terms of direct emissions. When vegetable oils are burned, significantly fewer soot particles and sulfur and heavy metal emissions are produced. By using JCL as fuel, over 60% less CO2 is released compared to using fossil diesel tank-to-wheel. By looking at cradle-to-grave , this measurement result is almost 100%. In addition, vegetable oils are biodegradable (water hazard class 0) and can therefore also be used in ecologically sensitive areas. JCL does not compete with forage or food crops. It is even the contrary: The cultivation regenerates depleted soil through monocultures, which can later be used again for the cultivation of food crops. In addition, hardly any waste products are created in cultivation and processing, so that the cultivation and use of JCL also offer almost no target for critical representatives of competing approaches.