From: Sreenivas Ghatty (gs@treeoilsindia.com) Sent: 23 November 2009 22:23PM To: Sreenivas Ghatty (gs@treeoilsindia.com) Biofuels have a limited role in India due to land limitation and food security issues, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said, a view which differs from the official line pushing for a 20 per cent blend of such fuel in gasoline and diesel by 2017. Pitching for hybrids and CNG-run vehicles, Ramesh said "biofuel does not has a relevance role in Indian context in view of land limitation and food security." He was speaking at the inaugural session of the two-day 4th Environment Friendly Vehicles' conference.

JATROPHA CURCAS: HIGH YIELDIG ACCESSIONS AND IMPROVEMENT. Ashwani Kumar Energy Plantation Demonstration project and Biotechnology Center. Bio-Technology Lab Department of Botany University of Rajasthan, Jaipur - 302 004 E mail. msku31@yahoo.com

Obituary

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 After years of stagnation in climate policy for transport, there have been a number of important developments over the last twelve months. Notably, policymakers have begun to get to grips with gas guzzling cars, through fuel efficiency standards agreed in Europe and the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />US. Thus, recognition has grown that if we are ever to tackle the climate crisis, we must tackle transport emissions. But the tide is far from being turned.

It is estimated that biomass covers currently up to 15% of the world energy demand, almost 1/3 of all energy consumption in the Less-Developed Countries. This rate was over the last years rather constant, with increasing overall demand bioenergy consumption increased in absolute terms. Table 1 : World Energy Consumption pattern 1997 (ref 1) Biomass Share Total World 9.6 Bio TOE 1-1.5 Bio TOE 11-15% Asia 2.3 Bio TOE 0.6-0.8 Bio TOE >30% Africa 0.4 Bio TOE 0.2-0.27 Bio TOE >50% Lat. America 0.4 Bio TOE Table 1 makes it clear that the proportion of bioenergy is particularly high in Africa. In most sub-saharan countries biomass counts for over 80% of all energy needs.