Abstract
Factors, such as overpopulation, resource reduction and loss of biodiversity are considered most threatening for humanity and their interaction in the history of mankind are shortly revisited. These are the driving forces that led governments worldwide to the implementation of renewable energies. Among, the renewable energies that started to contribute to the energy grid, biofuels are considered as an obligate step. Here, an attempt has been made to overview the particular case of Jatropha curcas L. and elicit how the international scientific community has concertedly contributed to draw it from anonymity in just few years and worked to implement it as an alternative biodiesel option to feed the energy grid.
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Acknowledgements
N. Carels is grateful to Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) and Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (FIOCRUZ) for providing a research fellowship from the Centro de Desenvolvimento Tecnológico em Saúde (CDTS).
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Carels, N. (2012). The Birth of a New Energy Crop. In: Carels, N., Sujatha, M., Bahadur, B. (eds) Jatropha, Challenges for a New Energy Crop. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4806-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4806-8_1
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