Biofuel Production with Castor Bean: A Win–Win Strategy for Marginal Land

Abstract

The urgency to reduce resource depletion and waste production is expected to lead to an economy based on renewable resources. Biofuels, for instance, are a great green alternative to fossil fuel, but they are currently derived from edible vegetable oils such as soybean, palm, and sunflower. Concerns have been raised about the social–economic implication and ecological impacts of biodiesel production. Cultivating new lands as biodiesel feedstock rather than food supply, with the consequent increase in food prices, leads to so-called indirect land-use change (ILUC). Establishing bioenergy crops with phytoremediation ability on contaminated soils offers multiple benefits such as improving soil properties and ecosystem services, decreasing soil erosion, and diminishing the dispersion of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) into the environment. Castor bean is an unpalatable, high-biomass plant, and it has been widely demonstrated to possess phytoremediation capability for several PTEs. Castor bean can grow on marginal lands not suitable for food crops, has multiple uses as a raw material, and is already used in biodiesel production. These characteristics make it perfect for sustainable biodiesel production. Linking biofuel production with environmental remediation can be considered a win–win strategy.

Knowledge Mapping of Research on Land Use Change and Food Security: A Visual Analysis Using CiteSpace and VOSviewer

“…Although the use of bioenergy instead of fossil fuels can effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a certain extent, the large-scale increase in bioenergy demand may also cause forest degradation and reduce food production [ 56 , 92 ]. Moreover, a large number of agricultural products are used to produce bioenergy, which greatly reduces the food supply in the international market and will inevitably lead to an increase in food prices [ 93 ], threatening global food security, especially the basic living needs of people in low-income countries with food shortages [ 94 , 95 ]. However, at present, there is no systematic research on how much-cultivated land is occupied by the development of bioenergy, what impact it has on land use change, how energy crops compete with other crop types at the household scale, and how to stabilize food production, which are worthy of further exploration by scholars in the future.…”

Effectiveness of Three Terminating Products on Reducing the Residual Moisture in Dwarf Castor Plants: A Preliminary Study of Direct Mechanical Harvesting in Central Greece

“…The previous year the field was at fallow. The mean annual rainfall in the region is 434 mm with about 1 4 of it allocated from April to September.…”

“…Herbaceous oil crops are gaining interest all over the world for vegetable oil production suitable for industrial applications [1]. Furthermore, the European Directives on Renewable Energy (RED I and RED II) aim to increase the contribution of renewable energy to the overall domestic energy production in Europe [2].…”

“…Nowadays, the indeterminate growth tendency in castor plants has been almost solved. In fact, dwarf genotypes are currently available on the market and several studies have proved them performing well also in marginal conditions [1]. Generally, dwarf hybrids exhibit higher harvest index, lower seed dehiscence [10,12] and even early flowering, which helps to shorten the productive cycle [13].…”

Response of Rainfed Castor to Soil and Foliar Application of Zinc and Iron Micronutrients

“…It is widely grown for its oil in India, China, Brazil and Mozambique. Of late, it has been recognized as a useful plant for biofuel production (Carrino et al, 2020) and phytoremediation of arsenic contaminated soils and hyper accumulation of nickel (Malarkodi et al, 2008). In general, crops need micro nutrients besides macro and secondary nutrients for proper growth, development and achieving better yields.…”