> Producing Methane "Gobar Gas" from "night soil"
We do not need fuels for heating homes here in India, in fact quite 
the opposite, its a hot country. It was meant primarily as a cooking 
fuel. And the food is cooked in open vessels. So the food 
smells/tastes quite literally like shit. :-)

> Jatropha does look like a useful plant for extracting bio energy 
> from
> very low productivity land.
Yes! This institute (http://www.jatrophaworld.org/) is in an arid part 
of the country, Rajasthan. Jatropha grows wild there. Apparently, 
requires very little 'maintenance' or so the fellow tells me.

> It would be interesting to know what if
> any other crops it competes with and whether its promotion will 
> affect
> food production in any way.
None whatsoever. The plan is to grow Jatropha on land which has no 
chance of being cultivated. And to shift farmlands with low yields of 
other crops to Jatropha making more sense economically.

Mohit Mahajan.

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