The Birth of a New Energy Crop

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 show 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.