Lanza Tech New Zealand Ltd.

Lanza Tech New Zealand Ltd.

24 Balfour Road
Parnell
Auckland
New Zealand
Phone: +64 9 373 4929
Fax: +64 9 929 3038

About
LanzaTech New Zealand Ltd. is a privately held company funded by Khosla Ventures, LLC, arguably the top venture firm in the U.S. focusing on alternative, clean green energy systems.

The company was founded in 2005 and operates from its facilities in Auckland New Zealand.

LanzaTech has developed a proprietary platform for producing lowest-cost fuel ethanol in any industrialized geography, at a much larger scale than is currently being envisioned elsewhere.

Specifically, our plan is to develop an ethanol production process that can be retrofitted to industrial facilities to generate ethanol from the carbon monoxide component of waste flue gases.

Industrial flue gases are an inherently low cost, high volume, point location resource, produced in most industrialized regions. LanzaTech’s mission is to enable industries that produce high volumes of carbon monoxide containing flue gases to become the lowest cost, highest volume producers of fuel ethanol.

Technology

LanzaTech has developed a technology to allow high volume industrial waste streams to become a resource for bio-ethanol production. This technology has been developed and demonstrated in their purpose built laboratory.  The company is now embarking on a process refinement and scale-up plan.

Coskata Inc.

Coskata Inc.

Coskata, Inc.
4575 Weaver Parkway, Suite 100
Warrenville, Illinois 60555
Main: 630-657-5800
Fax: 630-657-5801
info@coskata.com

About

Coskata, Inc. is a biology-based renewable energy company, with technology for the production of liquid fuels. Using proprietary microorganisms and transformative bioreactor designs, the company will produce ethanol for under US$1.00 per gallon anywhere in the world, from almost any input material (feedstock).
Process

Coskata is commercializing a proprietary process and related technologies for the conversion of a wide variety of input materials into ethanol. Coskata has an efficient, affordable, and flexible three-step conversion process:

1. Incoming material converted into synthesis gas (gasification)
2. Fermentation of the synthesis gas to ethanol (biofermentation)
3. Separation and recovery of ethanol (separations)

During gasification, carbon-based input materials are converted into syngas using well-established gasification technologies. After the chemical bonds are broken using gasification, Coskata’s proprietary microorganisms convert the resulting syngas into ethanol by consuming the carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2) in the gas stream. Once the gas-to-liquid conversion process has occurred, the resulting ethanol is recovered from the solution using “pervaporation technology.”

Coskata’s proprietary microorganisms eliminate the need for costly enzymatic pretreatments, and the bio-fermentation occurs at low pressures and temperatures, reducing operational costs. In addition, the Coskata process has the potential to yield over 100 gallons of ethanol per ton of dry carbonaceous input material, reducing both operational and capital costs. Coskata’s exclusively licensed separation technology dramatically improves the separations and recovery component of ethanol production, reducing the required energy by as much as 50%.

Coskata Ethanol

 

Ethanol is a clean burning fuel, with the ability to be completely renewable and transform the global fuel market with its many positive attributes:

 

• Ethanol from renewable sources is environmentally friendly, reducing greenhouse gas emission levels substantially
• Ethanol is great for the U.S. at large, helping to alleviate dependence on foreign sources of oil and allowing for domestic fuel production
• Stimulates the economy and increases the value of domestic resources while creating jobs
• Ethanol is great for the consumer because it can reduce fuel costs

However, not all biofuels are created equal. Coskata does NOT make ethanol from food products; it makes the fuel from sources like municipal solid waste (trash), agricultural and forest residuals, bagasse and many other carbon containing input materials. Coskata’s process technology converts what has frequently reached the end of its useful lifecycle into renewable energy, while being energy positive.

Range Fuels

Range Fuels

11101 W. 120th Avenue, Suite 200
Broomfield, CO 80021
Phone: 303-410-2100
Fax: 303-410-2101

About
Range Fuels is a privately held company funded by Khosla Ventures, LLC, arguably the top venture firm in the U.S. focusing on alternative, clean (green) energy systems. Their leadership team melds experience from the fast-paced, high-tech world, and the technologically intense coal, coal gasification, and gas-to-liquids industries.

They convert biomass into fuel-grade ethanol using emerging clean energy technologies. Biomass includes all plant and plant-derived material, such as wood, switch grass, corn stover, and miscanthus grass – making it a renewable energy resource that produces no net greenhouse gases.

Range Fuels can produce more ethanol for a given amount of energy expended than is possible with any other competing process. This key difference is a result of their ability to convert all – not just some – of the biomass used, along with their modular facilities, which bring the conversion process right to the biomass source. Their approach is highly flexible, efficient, cost effective, and scalable.

Technology

Range Fuels has invented a two-step thermo-chemical process to produce cellulosic ethanol. Even if these words are foreign to you, the positives are sure to resonate: the process is self-sustaining, produces virtually no waste products, emits very low levels of greenhouse gases, and produces high yields of clean ethanol.

A Design Driven by Efficiency
Their focus on efficiency goes beyond how they produce ethanol – it also extends to where they produce it. Their distributive design lets them bring systems to sources where biomass is most plentiful, instead of having to transport biomass to a central processing site. This reduces transportation costs and related transportation fuel consumption. Their modularity also allows the system to grow as more biomass becomes available. Simply adding another module – which is easy to ship and install – immediately doubles the output. They put their systems where they are needed, in just the size that is needed.

Nature’s Way

Range Fuels’ entire approach is based upon the invention of eco-friendly technology. The best evidence of this is that they produce more ethanol per energy input than competing technologies. Nature likes this. Especially since everything going in is plant and waste material that serves no useful purpose. We call this conversion “waste to value,” and this thrust is what motivates us to keep working our hardest.

The Two-Step Thermo-Chemical Process

Step 1: Solids to Gas
Biomass (all plant and plant-derived material) that cannot be used for food, such as agricultural waste, is fed into a converter. Using heat, pressure, and steam the feedstock is converted into synthesis gas (syngas), which is cleaned before entering the second step.

Step 2: Gas to Liquids
The cleaned syngas is passed over the proprietary catalyst and transformed into mixed alcohols. These alcohols are then separated and processed to maximize the yield of ethanol of a quality suitable for use in fueling vehicles.

A Simple Process
Because Range Fuels’ process utilizes a thermo-chemical process, it relies on the chemical reactions and conversions between forms that naturally occur when certain materials are mixed under specific combinations of temperature and pressure. Other conversion processes use enzymes, yeasts, and other biological means to convert between forms.

Feedstock Flexibility
The Range Fuels process accommodates a wide range of organic feedstocks of various types, sizes, and moisture contents. This flexibility eliminates commercial problems related to fluctuations in feed material quality and ensures success in the real world, far from laboratory-controlled conditions.

Tested and True
Range Fuels’ technology has been tested and proven in bench and pilot-scale units for over 7 years. Over 8,000 hours of testing has been completed on over 20 different non-food feedstocks with varying moisture contents and sizes, including wood waste, olive pits, and more. This technology will be used in their first plant planned for a site near Soperton, Georgia.

Mascoma Corporation

Mascoma Corporation

Corporate Office
1380 Soldiers Field Road
Second Floor
Boston, Massachusetts 02135
General: 617.234.0099
Fax: 617.868.0408
Email: info@mascoma.com

Research Facility
16 Cavendish Court, Suite 2A
Lebanon, NH 03766
General: 603.676.3320
Fax: 603.676.3321
Email: info@mascoma.com

Mascoma New York
679 Ellsworth Road
Rome, NY 13441
General: 315.356.4780
Fax: 315.356.4787
Email: info@mascoma.comAbout

Mascoma Corporation was founded in late 2005 with initial funding from Khosla Ventures and Flagship Ventures in early 2006. A Series B round of funding was closed in November of 2006 and a Series C round of funding was closed in May of 2008.

Mascoma has subsequently received several state and federal grants, including:

* A $14.8MM grant from the State of New York for the establishment of a demonstration plant.
* A $4.9MM grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for organism development.
* Part of the $125MM U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Science Center Grant led by Oak Ridge National Lab.
* A $26 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for the establishment of a demonstration plant.

Mascoma is aggressively pursuing the development of advanced cellulosic ethanol technologies across a range of cellulosic feedstocks. As part of their strategy of technology discovery, development and deployment, they are aggressively patenting numerous technologies and forming a broad set of research and commercial partnerships.

Their corporate and engineering offices are located in Boston, Massachusetts; the R&D labs are headquartered in Lebanon, New Hampshire; and our demonstration plant is in Rome, NY.

Technology

In the current economic and political climate, there has been enormous attention focused on the need to develop sustainable and renewable sources of transportation fuel. Ethanol has a significant and growing role in this development, providing a cleaner, domestically-produced, renewable energy solution.

However, the current generation of ethanol production in the U.S. utilizes corn and other edible feedstocks. Mascoma is committed to developing sustainable, viable, next generation ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks.

Mascoma’s industry leading R&D team is focused on developing biofuels from non-food biomass wood, straws, fuel energy crops, paper pulp and other agricultural waste products. Processing ethanol from cellulosic biomass minimizes the environmental impact of fuel ethanol production.

In nature, no organism is capable of quickly and cost-effectively producing and fermenting sugars from cellulosic biomass. Mascoma’s research laboratories are now developing a new generation of microbes and processes for economical conversion of cellulosic feedstocks into ethanol.

Mascoma’s organisms and processes are designed to:

• Rapidly break down the components of biomass
• Convert a range of sugars and polymers of sugars to ethanol
• Thrive in a manufacturing environment

With Mascoma’s next generation of processing solutions comes a complete rethinking of the way in which we fuel our economy.

LS9, Inc.

LS9, Inc.

100 Kimball Way
South San Francisco, CA 94080

Fax: 650-589-1289
Email: info@ls9.com

About

LS9, Inc., the Renewable Petroleum Company™, is a privately-held industrial biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, California developing patent-pending biofuels made with the power of synthetic biology.

LS9 DesignerBiofuels™ products are customized to closely resemble petroleum fuels, engineered to be clean, renewable, domestically produced, and cost competitive with crude oil.

LS9 is the market leader for hydrocarbon biofuels and is rapidly commercializing and scaling up DesignerBiofuels™ products to meet market demands, including construction of a pilot facility leading to commercial availability. While initially focusing on fuels, LS9 will also develop sustainable industrial chemicals for specialty applications.

LS9 has the financial backing of venture capital firms Flagship Ventures, Khosla Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The company’s scientific advisory board (SAB) includes leaders in the fields of synthetic biology, metabolic engineering, microbiology, enzymology, genomics, bioinformatics, and chemical engineering.

Technology

Petroleum, on which modern day society was built and is now dependent, is a diminishing resource with increasing environmental, political, and economic disadvantages.

The ideal alternative would be chemically identical to petroleum, allowing broad and rapid adoption, derived from renewable resources, scalable to support current and future demands, domestically derived, and cost competitive without subsidies.

LS9 has developed Renewable Petroleum™ technologies to meet this need.

Pushing the frontiers of synthetic biology and industrial biotechnology, LS9 has created industrial microbes that efficiently convert renewable feedstocks to a portfolio of “drop in compatible” hydrocarbon-based fuels and chemicals. LS9’s unique technology provides a means to genetically control the structure and function of its fuels, enabling a product portfolio that meets the diverse demands of the petroleum economy.

LS9 has developed a new means of efficiently converting fatty acid intermediates into petroleum replacement products via fermentation of renewable sugars. LS9 has also discovered and engineered a new class of enzymes and their associated genes to efficiently convert fatty acids into hydrocarbons. LS9 believes this pathway is the most cost, resource, and energy-efficient way to produce hydrocarbon biofuels and petroleum-replacement products. This translates into efficient land and feedstock use and directly addresses tensions between food versus fuel production.

 

Products

In the last 41 minutes, the world consumed 100 million gallons of petroleum – the equivalent annual output of a commercial ethanol plant.

Worldwide demand for petroleum products is insatiable. In the United States alone, there are 200,000 miles of pipeline, 170,000 fueling stations, and 243 million registered vehicles – all optimized for petroleum-based transportation fuels. These powerful network effects reinforce the dominance of hydrocarbon fuels and necessitate second-generation biofuels that are compatible with this existing distribution and consumer infrastructure.

LS9 DesignerBiofuels™ products are a family of fuels produced by specially-engineered microbes created via industrial synthetic biology. Starting from raw, natural sources of sugar such as sugar cane and cellulosic biomass, these renewable fuels will fundamentally change the biofuels landscape and set the stage for widespread product adoption and petroleum displacement. LS9 hydrocarbon biofuels have higher energetic content than ethanol or butanol and have fuel properties that are essentially indistinguishable from those of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel.

LS9’s technology provides a means to genetically control the structure and function of its fuels, enabling a product portfolio that meets the diverse demands of the petroleum economy. LS9 DesignerBiofuels™ products overcome a number of key challenges associated with first-generation biofuels, including infrastructure compatibility, product diversity, product economics, and quality consistency. LS9 products can go directly into vehicles or be further processed at a refinery. The products are designed to be cost-competitive with traditional petroleum products – without subsidies – and be commercially available within a few years.

Based on a highly efficient production method, LS9 products offer increased environmental benefits over production and refinement of crude oil and ethanol. LS9 DesignerBiofuels™ products approach carbon neutrality, with an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide consumed by the plant-based feedstocks as are generated from combustion of the fuels. In addition, LS9 products contain no carcinogens like benzene (commonly found in petroleum) and only trace amounts of sulfur.

Sapphire Energy

Sapphire Energy

San Diego, California

Phone: (650) 799-6782

About
Sapphire Energy was founded by a unique interdisciplinary team of scientists, entrepreneurs and investors to address the overwhelming inadequacies of current biofuel approaches — and the profound costs of American dependence on foreign oil.

Sapphire’s goal is to be the world’s leading producer of renewable petrochemical products. The team has built a scientifically superior platform that uses photosynthetic microorganisms to convert sunlight, and CO2 into carbon-neutral alternatives to conventional fossil fuels.

Product
Sapphire Energy has built a revolutionary platform that uses photosynthetic microorganisms to produce a renewable, high-value replacement for fossil fuel petroleum. This domestic crude oil requires only sunlight, CO₂ and non-potable water – and can be produced at massive scale on non-arable land.

Sapphire’s technology and team of renowned experts give the company the unique ability to scale biological systems and produce transportation fuels, including high-octane gasoline, to ASTM certification standards.

The company’s final products will have the same chemical composition as gasoline and will be completely compatible with the existing refining, distribution and fleet infrastructure.

Not ethanol, not biodiesel. Renewable gasoline.

United States EnviroFuels, LLC

United States EnviroFuels, LLC

10027 Water Works Lane
Riverview, FL 33569
(813) 425-5478

Email : info@usenvirofuels.com

About

U.S. EnviroFuels, LLC is a new, innovative alternative fuel corporation dedicated to providing Florida and the entire southeastern United States with the highest quality ethanol products available. The company is the founder and managing corporation for each subsidiary fuel ethanol plant established in Florida and throughtout southeastern U.S. Through our due diligent efforts, detailed plant site selection process, and superior project management, U.S. EnviroFuels, LLC will achieve their vision and help to improve the economy and the ecology of their region.

U.S. Envirofuels, LLC also hold an operational management services agreement for each subsidiary fuel ethanol plant. The goal of U.S. EnviroFuels, LLC is to ensure ethanol plant quality control, optimize process efficiency, and realize maximal yields of ethanol. The current members of U.S. EnviroFuels, LLC will act as directors in business management, commodity sourcing and marketing, engineering, and production technology.

U.S. EnviroFuels, LLC is comprised of a management team with diverse and highly complementary expertise, qualifications, and experience in the ethanol industry, investment strategy, commodity economics, ethanol fermentation and processing technology, mechanical engineering, WTE power plant systems, engineering of biological systems, and urban yard waste origination and processing. The Management Team includes: Bradley Krohn, President, Kevin Endres, Chief Operating Officer, Paul Hauck, Development Manager, Jeffrey Krohn, Risk Manager and Treasurer, and Thomas Kendall, Commodities Manager

 

United States EnviroFuels, LLC is an ethanol technology intellectual property company that is executing project development management, comprehensive permitting, total project financing, raw material sourcing, product marketing, and design, engineering and construction for planned, multiple fuel ethanol plants in Florida.

The company vision is threefold:

• Build zero effluent, environmentally-friendly, “green” ethanol plants which comply with all state and local emissions requirements in Florida.
• Help Florida reduce its heavy dependence on imported gasoline by building a Florida-based renewable fuel industry.
• Enhance the Florida economy through utilization of a variety of local, Florida feedstocks, including sugar-based streams, citrus pulp waste, green tomato discards, beverage waste, and urban yard waste, thereby minimizing commodity risk exposure.

ZeaChem, Inc.

ZeaChem, Inc.

1490 O’Brien Drive
Menlo Park, CA 94025

tel: (650) 543-8120
email: businessdevelopment@zeachem.com
ZeaChem, Inc. is developing a cellulose-based biorefinery platform producing either ethanol or a broad portfolio of other chemicals. ZeaChem’s indirect approach leap frogs the yield, capital and CO2 problems associated with traditional ethanol production practices and other potential cellulosic based ethanol processes. ZeaChem currently operates a pilot plant at its Menlo Park, CA laboratory.

Process Advantages

ZeaChem’s process combines biochemical and thermochemical platforms producing either ethanol or a broad portfolio of other chemicals. Utilizing a naturally occurring acetogen, found for example in termites, ZeaChem’s process fully utilizes all of carbon. Thus, the energy of all fractions of the biomass ends up in the product.

For every bone dry ton (BDT) of biomass, ZeaChem’s process will produce a theoretical maximum of 160 gallons of ethanol. Accounting for yield per acre, this is 3x more than corn based ethanol processes and ~1.5x more than either biological (enzymatic) processes or thermochemical (gasification) processes.

Technology Overview

ZeaChem’s innovative process was designed for high yield. The company is pioneering biorefinery technology using combinations of biochemical and thermochemical processing steps.

The biochemical processing step converts fermentable sugars in the cellulosic biomass into acetate, which is then recovered from the broth as an ester. The thermochemical processing step converts lignin and other non-fermentable materials in the cellulosic biomass into hydrogen. By combining these two streams in a hydrogenolysis reaction, ZeaChem produces ethanol. Unlike other processes, the Zeachem process uses all fractions of the plant – cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, giving it much higher yield.

Our approach allows both fermentable and non-fermentable fractions of the feedstock to contribute chemical energy to the ethanol product. Other approaches have theoretical restrictions that limit ethanol production to 60-100 gallons per dry ton of biomass. The ZeaChem technology will produce fifty percent more ethanol per ton of feed than the current best-in-class technology. Our higher yield dramatically improves process economics, allowing farmers to get more ethanol out of each acre of biomass crop.

Because the yield is so much higher and because energy integration is tighter, the ZeaChem process is friendlier to the environment. Ethanol produced by corn dry milling in the US has a net energy ratio of under 1.6, meaning that fewer than 1.6 units of renewable energy are produced for each unit of fossil energy used in the production the crops and conversion of the crops into fuel ethanol. In contrast, the ZeaChem technology enables a net energy ratio of 10-12. Such high values fundamentally change the nature of any policy debate on the environmental aspects of ethanol as a liquid transportation fuel.

The biochemical processing step can ferment any fermentable sugar, including simple sugars like those found in sugar cane juice, more complex sugars found in corn starch, and the mixed sugars commonly found in cellulosic hydrolyzates. Any material that isn’t readily fermented, such as lignin, can be processed via thermochemical means to produce hydrogen. The result is that the ZeaChem technology is highly flexibile and can be implemented anywhere in the world.

Valcent Products Inc.

Valcent Products Inc,.

Investor Relations
Suite 1010 – 789 West Pender Street
Vancouver, B.C. V6C 1H2
Bob Faris or Steve McGuire or Gerry Jardine

Tel: 1-800-877-1626 or 604-606-7979

E-mail: info@valcent.net

About

Valcent Products Inc. is a U.S. public traded company (VCTPF: OTCBB) with offices in Vancouver, B.C. and El Paso, Texas.

Valcent Products Inc. researches and develops life enhancing industrial, commercial and consumer products and processes that have mass consumer appeal and/or widespread commercial/industrial applications. All Valcent products and processes have patents or patents pending on integral technologies.

Vertigro Energy is a joint venture established with Global Green Solutions Inc. to market world wide Valcent’s patent-pending Vertigro bioreactor technology developed to provide a profitable and viable renewable energy resource and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

High Density Vertical Bioreactor

The Holy Grail in the renewable energy sector has been to create a clean, green process which uses only light, water and air to create fuel. Valcent’s HDVB algae-to-biofuel technology mass produces algae, vegetable oil which is suitable for refining into a cost-effective, non-polluting biodiesel. The algae derived fuel will be an energy efficient replacement for fossil fuels and can be used in any diesel powered vehicle or machinery. In addition, 90% by weight of the algae is captured carbon dioxide, which is “sequestered” by this process and so contributes significantly to the reduction of greenhouse gases. Valcent has commissioned the world’s first commercial-scale bioreactor pilot project at its test facility in El Paso, Texas.

Current data projects high yields of algae biomass, which will be harvested and processed into algal oil for biofuel feedstock and ingredients in food, pharmaceutical, and health and beauty products at a significantly lower cost than comparable oil-producing crops such as palm and soyabean (soybean).

The HDVB technology was developed by Valcent in recognition and response to a huge unsatisfied demand for vegetable oil feedstock by Biodiesel refiners and marketers. Biodiesel, in 2000, was the only alternative fuel in the United States to have successfully completed the Environmental Protection Agency required Tier I and Tier II health effects testing under the Clean Air Act. These tests conclusively demonstrated Biodiesel’s significant reduction of virtually all regulated emissions. A U.S. Department of Energy study has shown that the production and use of Biodiesel, compared to petroleum diesel, resulted in a 78.5% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

Algae, like all plants, require carbon dioxide, water with nutrients and sunlight for growth. The HDVB bioreactor technology is ideal for location adjacent to heavy producers of carbon dioxide such as coal fired power plants, refineries or manufacturing facilities, as the absorption of CO2 by the algae significantly reduces greenhouse gases. These reductions represent value in the form of Certified Emission Reduction credits, so-called carbon credits, in jurisdictions that are signatories to the Kyoto Protocol. Although the carbon credit market is still small, it is growing fast, valued in 2005 at $6.6 Billion in the European Union and projected to increase to $77 Billion if the United States accepts a similar national cap-and-trade program.

Valcent’s HDVB bioreactor system can be deployed on non-arable land, requires very little water due to its closed circuit process, does not incur significant labor costs and does not employ fossil fuel burning equipment, unlike traditional food/biofuel crops, like soy and palm oil. They require large agricultural acreage, huge volumes of water and chemicals, and traditional farm equipment and labor. They are also much less productive than the HDVB process: soybean, palm oil and conventional pond-grown algae typically yield 48 gallons, 635 gallons and 10,000 gallons per acre per year respectively.

D1 Oils Plc.

D1 Oils – Growing energy solutions

Jatropha contacts
For all enquiries related to the plant science and planting of jatropha, please contact D1-BP Fuel Crops:www.d1bpfuelcrops.com.

Investor and media contacts
For all investor and media enquiries contact:
Graham Prince
Communications Director
Mob: +44 (0)7973 323840
Tel: +44 (0)20 3043 8732
Email: gprince@d1plc.com

Careers contact
For all careers enquiries contact:
Jose Pottinger
Tel: +44 (0)1642 755580
Email: careers@d1plc.com

About

D1 Oils plc is a biofuels technology company. Their strategy is to develop new energy crops into sustainable commercial fuels. The provide technology and services for the breeding, development, planting and harvesting of new varieties of commercial biofuel crops, focusing on alternative, sustainable feedstocks that are not subject to the same price pressures as food-grade crops. They also have an established plant science and planting program for Jatropha curcas, a robust, tropical oilseed bearing tree. Jatropha produces inedible oil feedstock for biodiesel and is able to make use of land not suitable for arable agriculture.

New Energy Crops
D1 develops new energy crops into sustainable commercial fuels. We provide technology and services for the breeding, development, planting and harvesting of new varieties of commercial biofuel crops, focusing on alternative, sustainable feedstocks that are not subject to the same price pressures as food-grade crops.

Jatropha originated in South America, where from ancient times extracts from its leaves and seeds were used as medicines. Jatropha’s medical qualities derive from curcin, a chemical present in the plant’s shoots and leaves, which is effective as an antiseptic but can be poisonous if ingested in large quantities.

Learning of its medicinal qualities when they came to South America in the 16th century, Portuguese sailors took jatropha to Africa and India. It now grows from the forests of Brazil to the tropical islands of Fiji. In Africa it is widely used as a hedge to protect crops from foraging livestock, who avoid the leaves. Jatropha is still used as a traditional medicine in India, Africa, and the Philippines.

Jatropha vegetable oil can be extracted from the seeds by crushing. It is inedible and has been been used for centuries to make basic oil lamps. Until recently there has been no concentrated attempt to pioneer jatropha as commerical source of vegetable oil to make fuel.