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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree native to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on abject lands throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia.

A jatropha rush took place, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields led to plantation failures nearly everywhere. The consequences of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.

Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they say, depends on splitting the yield problem and addressing the hazardous land-use issues linked with its initial failure.

The sole staying big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties 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 promising up-and-coming biofuel.


At the start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming 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 broken down, 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 big plantation focused on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha return is on.

"All those business that failed, adopted a plug-and-play design of hunting for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This is a part of the procedure that was missed [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.

Having gained from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he states the oily plant could yet play an essential function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transport carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A brand-new boom might bring additional benefits, with jatropha also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are skeptical, noting that jatropha has actually currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach complete capacity, then it is important to gain from past errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by poor yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in countries where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts also suggest that jatropha's tale offers lessons for researchers and entrepreneurs checking out promising 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 grasses, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its multiple supposed virtues was an ability to flourish on degraded or "marginal" lands; thus, it was declared it would never ever take on food crops, so the theory went.

Back then, jatropha ticked all packages, says Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that seemed miraculous; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food since it is poisonous."

Governments, worldwide companies, financiers and business bought into the hype, launching efforts to plant, or guarantee to plant, millions of 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 got ready for WWF.

It didn't take long for the mirage of the miraculous biofuel tree to fade.

In 2009, a Buddies of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha's high needs for land would certainly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, a global evaluation noted that "growing exceeded both scientific understanding of the crop's capacity in addition to an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can grow on marginal 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 fail as anticipated yields declined to emerge. Jatropha might grow on degraded lands and tolerate drought conditions, as claimed, however yields stayed bad.

"In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and potential to grow under relatively poorer conditions, produced a huge problem," leading to "undervalued yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise plagued by environmental, social and financial difficulties, say experts. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural areas were reported.

Studies found that land-use change for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania led to a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico found the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied in between two and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon financial obligation might never be recovered." In India, production showed carbon benefits, however making use of fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you take a look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was positioned on marginal land, but the concept of marginal land is really evasive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha curcas plantations in the country over a number of years, and found that a lax meaning of "marginal" indicated that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying unblemished and unused was often illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... presently nobody is using [land] for farming doesn't indicate that no one is utilizing it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you may not necessarily see from satellite images."

Learning from jatropha

There are essential lessons to be found out from the experience with jatropha curcas, state experts, which ought to be followed when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in financial investment], but sadly 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 winding down, Muys and coworkers published a paper mentioning key lessons.

Fundamentally, he discusses, there was an absence of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This crucial requirement for in advance research study might be applied to other potential biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for example, his group launched a paper analyzing the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel pledge.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and limited land. But Muys's research study showed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a substantial and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary information might avoid inefficient financial speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

"There are other very promising trees or plants that might function as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We desired to prevent [them going] in the very same direction of premature buzz and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos highlights vital requirements that need to be met before moving ahead with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields must be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set market needs to be readily available.

"Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [scientific understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos says. Jatropha "was practically undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so odd."

How biofuel lands are gotten is also key, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities must guarantee that "standards are put in location to check how massive land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to minimize a few of the problems we observed."

A jatropha comeback?

Despite all these obstacles, some researchers still believe that under the right conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel service - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I believe jatropha has some potential, however it needs to be the best product, grown in the ideal location, and so on," Muys said.

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 manner in which Qatar may reduce airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is carrying out continuous field research studies to improve jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The implementation of the green belt can actually enhance the soil and farming lands, and protect them against any additional deterioration brought on by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar task's success still depends upon numerous aspects, not least the ability to get quality yields from the tree. Another essential step, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production technology that uses the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.

Back in Ghana, jOil is presently managing more than 1,300 hectares (1,830 acres) of jatropha, and growing a pilot plot on 300 hectares (740 acres) dealing with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian describes that years of research and development have actually resulted in varieties of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were lacking more than a years earlier.

"We were able to hasten the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first job is to broaden our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."

Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is taking a look at. The fruit and its byproducts could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal replacement (crucial 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 actually when again reopened with the energy transition drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the look for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."

A total jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be finished, however he believes 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 prospect for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he says. "We believe any such expansion will take location, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [allowing] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any country."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, environment-friendly and socially accountable depends upon complex elements, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state experts. Then there's the bothersome issue of accomplishing high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government revealed its intention to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels push that has stirred argument over prospective effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep trouble, having actually been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which ended up being troublesome 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 explains.

Other researchers chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers stay skeptical of the ecological viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it perhaps becomes so effective, that we will have a great deal of associated land-use change," 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 adding to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega mentions previous land-use issues associated with growth of different crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not deal with the private sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of producing ecological problems."

Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well suited to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays concerned about possible environmental expenses.

He suggests restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it only in genuinely bad soils in need of remediation. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in really sterile wastelands," he describes. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery method for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are higher than the potential advantages."

Jatropha's worldwide future stays unsure. And its prospective as a tool in the fight against climate modification can just be unlocked, state lots of specialists, by preventing the list of difficulties related to its first boom.

Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its role as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" and that the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he says, "to work together with us to develop and broaden 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).

A liquid biofuels primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts

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