NetSpace International Holdings, Inc. (fka NSIH)

[DFLY]

worth a repost imo..


http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=2007

Jatropha’s Advantages
While palm, soybean, other vegetable oils and waste grease continue to be feedstocks of choice for biodiesel production, producers have been turning to jatropha. The inedible crop thrives in subtropical regions and has been elevated to the top of the list as a primary source of feedstock for biodiesel production in Central America. A single jatropha tree yields approximately 1 gallon of biodiesel. Other advantages are: it doesn’t compete with existing food crops, uses less energy to produce, its glycerin byproduct can be used in the petrochemical and specialty chemical industries, it’s low in sulfur, and the husks that hold the seeds are high in nitrogen and can be used as a fertilizer. “There’s always been a focus on Central America when it comes to certain agricultural feedstocks [for biodiesel production], certainly from the U.S. perspective,” says Craig Frank, chairman of Alternative Fuels Americas, an emerging farm-to-fuel producer in the global biodiesel sector. The Florida-based company signed an agreement with Technoserve Guatemala, the local branch of a nongovernmental organization that works with entrepreneurs in poor, rural areas of developing countries, to develop a 600-acre area in southern Guatemala to experiment with different jatropha varieties. AFA plans to produce about 80 MMgy of biodiesel to sell directly to domestic markets. The company has a five-year expansion plan that calls for the aggregate control of at least 100,000 hectares (247,105 acres) for jatropha. In addition to its plans in Guatemala, AFA intends to expand its farm-to-fuel venture into Costa Rica, Panama and El Salvador. “Part of the challenge with these smaller, developing countries is that they don’t have a whole lot of room for error,” Frank says, adding that starting small could be the best strategy for other producers looking to do business in Central America. “If they make a mistake with a [large-scale] investment it could take [a country’s] whole initiative down. They have to find ways to mitigate those risks.”