Dear All Today's jatropha thread has been a grand discussion. I would like to express some concerns however regarding jatropha. There are many jatropha genotypes. The primary reason people are planting Jatropha is because it can be used to produce a high quality fuel oil. While I will not address my concerns regarding the introduction of non native species into certain ecosytems , other concernes are more pertinent to this list and should be mentioned. It should be noted that many jatropha genotypes are highly toxic. Short term,exposure to these toxins can cause death and blindness, and the long term carcinogenic effects of phorbol esters found in many genotypes of jatropha have been documented for years. While there are some less toxic varieties of jatorpha (native to Mexico) they do not have the same crop yields as their more toxic relatives and so it is safe to assume that much of the available waste will be of the more toxic variety. In the cases where jatropha is being considered not only as a fuel for cooking, but also to produce biochar it should be noted that the resultant content of PAH’s in some of the biochar produced with jatropha is well beyond what is considered safe for humans and should not be used in soils intended for food production. I am all in favor of using agricultural residues and waste but would like to echo Otto’s wise advice to test before we promote the use of new fuels. After all plastics also work very well in gasifieing stoves but I would certainly not advise using them. While there has been talk of setting up stove test centers I would also recommend centers to test for the safety of fuels intended for cooking and fuels intended for biochar production. Cautiously yours, Nat of WorldStove
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