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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was hugely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on abject lands across Latin America, Africa and Asia.
A jatropha rush occurred, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields resulted in plantation failures almost everywhere. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was polluted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the evasive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they say, is dependent on splitting the yield issue and resolving the hazardous land-use issues intertwined with its initial failure.
The sole staying big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds important lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, a simple shrub-like tree belonging to Central America, was planted throughout the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its promise as a sustainable source of biofuel that could be grown on deteriorated, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields fell flat.
Now, after years of research and development, the sole remaining large plantation focused on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha comeback is on.
"All those companies that failed, embraced a plug-and-play model of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to advertise it, you require to domesticate it. This belongs of the process that was missed [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.
Having discovered from the errors of jatropha's past failures, he states the oily plant could yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transportation carbon emissions at the global level. A new boom might bring fringe benefits, with jatropha likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are skeptical, keeping in mind that jatropha curcas has actually currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach full capacity, then it is important to find out from previous errors. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by poor yields, but by land grabbing, deforestation, and social problems in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil operates.
Experts likewise recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for researchers and business owners checking out appealing new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, major bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal originated from its guarantee as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from turfs, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several purported virtues was a capability to flourish on abject or "limited" lands; therefore, it was claimed it would never ever take on food crops, so the theory went.
At that time, jatropha ticked all packages, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that seemed amazing; that can grow without too much fertilizer, too numerous pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food because it is harmful."
Governments, international agencies, financiers and business bought into the buzz, launching efforts to plant, or pledge to plant, countless hectares of jatropha. By 2008, plantations covered some 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) in Latin America, Africa and Asia, according to a market research study prepared for WWF.
It didn't take wish for the mirage of the amazing biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Pals of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high demands for land would certainly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide evaluation noted that "growing exceeded both scientific understanding of the crop's capacity along with an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can thrive on limited lands."
Projections estimated 4.7 million hectares (11.7 million acres) would be planted by 2010, and 12.8 million hectares (31.6 million acres) by 2015. However, just 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations started to stop working as expected yields declined to materialize. Jatropha might grow on degraded lands and endure dry spell conditions, as claimed, but yields stayed poor.
"In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative investment, export-oriented capacity, and possible to grow under fairly poorer conditions, developed a really huge issue," resulting in "ignored yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise pestered by ecological, social and economic difficulties, state experts. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural areas were reported.
Studies found that land-use modification for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss varied in between two and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon debt may never ever be recovered." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, however the use of fertilizers led to boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was located on limited land, however the idea of marginal land is very elusive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the nation over numerous years, and discovered that a lax meaning of "marginal" implied that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying unblemished and unused was typically illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... presently no one is using [land] for farming doesn't suggest that no one is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a great deal of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite images."
Learning from jatropha curcas
There are key lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, say analysts, which need to be followed when thinking about other auspicious second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in financial investment], but unfortunately not of research, and action was taken based upon supposed benefits of jatropha," says Bart Muys, a teacher in the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014, as the jatropha buzz was unwinding, Muys and coworkers published a paper citing essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he discusses, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This vital requirement for upfront research might be used to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for instance, his group released a paper examining the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel pledge.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and marginal land. But Muys's research study revealed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a significant and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary data might avoid wasteful monetary speculation and reckless land conversion for new biofuels.
"There are other really appealing trees or plants that could work as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We desired to avoid [them going] in the exact same instructions of premature buzz and fail, like jatropha."
Gasparatos highlights essential requirements that must be satisfied before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market must be readily available.
"Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we know how it is grown," Gasparatos says. Jatropha "was practically undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so weird."
How biofuel lands are gotten is also crucial, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were purchased for production, authorities must ensure that "guidelines are put in place to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to decrease a few of the issues we observed."
A jatropha resurgence?
Despite all these obstacles, some scientists still think that under the ideal conditions, jatropha might be a valuable biofuel option - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I think jatropha has some prospective, however it needs to be the right material, grown in the best location, and so on," Muys stated.
Mohammad Alherbawi, a postdoctoral research study fellow at Qatar's Hamad Bin Khalifa University, continues holding out hope for jatropha. He sees it as a method that Qatar may decrease airline carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its use as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% decrease of "cradle to tomb" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is carrying out ongoing field research studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can actually enhance the soil and agricultural lands, and protect them against any additional wear and tear triggered by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar job's success still hinges on numerous aspects, not least the capability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another vital action, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production innovation that uses the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.
Back in Ghana, jOil is currently managing more than 1,300 hectares (1,830 acres) of jatropha, and growing a pilot plot on 300 hectares (740 acres) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian discusses that years of research and development have actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade ago.
"We were able to quicken the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and boost the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. "Our first job is to broaden our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."
Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is looking at. The fruit and its by-products could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal substitute (essential in Africa where much wood is still burned for cooking), and even bioplastics.
But it is the transportation sector that still beckons as the perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has when again resumed with the energy shift drive for oil companies and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."
A total jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be finished, but he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 elements - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it an extremely strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "Our company believe any such expansion will take location, [by clarifying] the definition of abject land, [allowing] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any nation."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, environment-friendly and socially responsible depends on complicated elements, including where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state professionals. Then there's the nagging problem of achieving high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian government announced its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has stirred argument over prospective effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep trouble, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, converted dry savanna woodland, which became bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently unfavorable in most of the jatropha websites, because the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he discusses.
Other scientists chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain uncertain of the environmental practicality of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it possibly becomes so successful, that we will have a lot of associated land-use modification," says Daniel Itzamna Avila-Ortega, co-founder of the Mexican Center of Industrial Ecology and a Ph.D. trainee with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has actually conducted research study on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega mentions previous land-use problems associated with growth of various crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not handle the economic sector doing whatever they want, in terms of producing environmental issues."
Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as a low-priced and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well fit to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays worried about potential ecological expenses.
He suggests restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in truly bad soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha might be one of those plants that can grow in extremely sterile wastelands," he explains. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are greater than the prospective advantages."
Jatropha's international future remains unpredictable. And its possible as a tool in the battle against environment change can just be unlocked, say many professionals, by preventing the list of difficulties associated with its very first boom.
Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its function as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" and that the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he states, "to team up with us to develop and expand the supply chain of jatropha."
Banner image: Jatropha curcas trees in Hawai'i. Image by Forest and Kim Starr via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
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