The world’s annual consumption of jet fuel (excluding military) is about 2 billion barrels and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has stated it wants 10% of jet fuel to come from biofuels by 2017. For the reasons

discussed above, we believe that in the early years, Jatropha oil is by far the most desirable biofuel partial replacement additive to jet fuel and this trans­lates into a potential biokerosene market of 200 million barrels of Jatropha jet fuel per year.

I forecast the price of carbon credits to rise from the present historically low price of around $6-7 to $15 per tonne in 2014. In the first 3 days after the Japanese Tsunami and their nuclear reactor melt-down in March 2011, all financial markets went into a tailspin except for the price of carbon, went up by 12%.

There are new, high-potential opportunities to generate carbon finance in the biodiesel sector. The use of petrodiesel in engines creates a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can be greatly reduced by substituting a blend of biodiesel and petrodiesel or using 100% biodiesel. Greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced in a number of ways through the biodiesel pro­duction process:

• Carbon sequestration in the plantations of trees whose seeds are used for biodiesel production.

• Substitution of petrodiesel for biodiesel.

• Use of processed seedcake as an organic fertilizer.

Table 9.1 shows CER estimations for a 500-hectare J. curcas plantation. Note that trees per hectare can vary greatly and the price of CERs ranges according to the risk taken by the developer regarding guarantee of delivery of CERs.

Biodiesel production is a growing industry throughout the world. Interest in the use of the seeds of J. curcas, as well as other plants, to make the oil is rapidly expanding. CDM potential is present in a large number of countries due to the number of types of plants from which biodiesel can be made. The time for rea­lizing the potential of biodiesel in the carbon market has arrived.

New Jatropha plantations qualify to receive carbon credits; soybeans and rapeseed do not qualify.

130 | 9 Carbon Credits

9.3