Biodiesel from Jatropha curcas L

Jatropha curcas L is a yearly plant which seeds could be used as a material to produce a substitute to conventional fuel called biodiesel.

In countries like the United States or several other European countries, biodiesel has been widely used as vehicle alternative fuel since it is more environment friendly, the sectan level is quite high to become an alternative fuel. Some European countries and the United States have used this oil as a mixture of natural fuel (alcohol, Jatropha, etc) by code B 10 or B 20, which means that the diesel fuel is mixed with 10 % and 20 % with biodiesel.

Several decades ago, Indonesia was an exporter of oil and a member of OPEC. Now, it has turned into an oil importer so that the oil price is very much depending on the oil price in international market. To anticipate the impact of oil price fluctuation, along with the decreasing supply of oil, an exploration for natural alternative fuel which is renewable will have to be taken to action.

The efforts of using alternative fuel, especially from natural resources has been supported by the President of the Republic of Indonesia Instruction No. 1 2006, dated Januari 25 2006 about the availability and the use of natural fuel (biofuel) as an alternative fuel, followed by the President Regulation No. 5 year 2006 dated January 25, 2006 about the National Energy Policy.

The booming of Jatropha plantation has actually begun since the increasing of fuel price issued on October 2005. The increasing of fuel price automatically resulted in the increasing of people in poverty which finally lead to the illegal tree-felling by the less fortunate people to substitute the need of fuel. While there is still no cheap alternative fuel and the use of Jatropha as a possible alternative fuel has not been explored and used optimally.

Some institutions and individuals who are committed to bioenergy matter, especially biodiesel since October 2005 has discussed the biodiesel program in Indonesia, especially East Java. In short term, middle, or long term. The acceleration effort for the National Biological Energy Policy is focused to several stake holder, such as: investor, farmer, experts and bureaucrats as fasilitator and the society as consumer.

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