BIO-ENERGY POTENTIAL OF SEMI-ARID REGIONS OF RAJASTHAN
Ashwani Kumar and Vijay Rani Kumar
Energy Plantation Demonstration Project Centre
Department of Biotechnology Project
Department of Botany,
University of Rajasthan
Jaipur - 302 004
India
Fax : 0091-141-565905
E-mail : msku31@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
At the global level, according to recent estimates by FAO the annual tropical deforestation rate for the decade 1981 to 1990 was about 15.4 million ha (Mha). According to the latest data published in 1994, for the assessment period 1989-1991, the total area under forests is 64.01 Mha accounting for 19.5 percent of India's geographic area. There is rapid depletion of forest products and in order to provide alternatively energy sources a change is needed in conventional forestry management. The fact that nearly 90 percent of the worlds population will reside in developing countries by about 2050 probably implies that biomass energy will be with us forever unless there are drastic changes in the world energy trading pattern.
Two plants of the semi-arid region have shown great potential of bio-fuel production during the last 17 years of our investigations and efforts are underway to undertake their large scale cultivation and improvement at two sites in semi-arid region of Rajasthan. They include Calotropis procera and Euphorbia anitsyphilitica. Three to 7 fold increase in their latex contents has been obtained and the their biomass production is under process of optimization using various growth promoting agents and nutrients. Details of the work shall be presented.
