Assessment of the biomass energy potentials and environmental benefits of Jatropha curcas L. in Southwest China

Jatropha curcas L. (JCL) is believed to be the most promising tree species used to produce biodiesel in China. Due to its abundant marginal land resource and good meteorological conditions, Southwest China is the major region to develop JCL. With Southwest China being taken as the study area in this paper, multi-factor comprehensive analysis is used to identify marginal land resources suitable to JCL plantation and make suitability assessment, thus obtaining their spatial distribution, suitability degree and total amount. With life cycle analysis (LCA), the life cycle net energy and greenhouse gas emission reduction capacity of marginal land resources with different suitability degrees used to produce biodiesel are investigated. Based on the research results, the life cycle model is expanded to obtain the potentiality of total net energy production and greenhouse gas emission reduction of large-scale plantation of JCL in southwest China. The results show that the area of land resources suitable and moderately suitable for JCL plantation is 1.99 × 106 ha and 5.57 × 106 ha, respectively. If all of these land resources are put into use, the maximum net production potential of biodiesel from JCL would be 1.51 × 108 GJ/a, and the total greenhouse gas emission reduction capacity 1.59 × 107 t/a in Southwest China. -- Highlights: •A LCA based approach for assessing net energy potential of Jatropha curcas L. was presented. •The net production potential of biodiesel from JCL is 1.51 × 108 GJ/a in Southwest China. •The total GHG emission reduction capacity from JCL is 1.59 × 107 t/a in Southwest China