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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 ensued, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields caused plantation failures almost everywhere. The consequences of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the incredibly elusive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, depends on breaking the yield problem and dealing with the hazardous land-use concerns intertwined with its original failure.
The sole staying big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated ranges have been attained and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming shrub-like tree belonging to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its guarantee 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 large plantation concentrated on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.
"All those business that failed, embraced a plug-and-play model of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to advertise it, you need to domesticate it. This is a part of the procedure that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.
Having gained from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he states the oily plant might yet play a crucial function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transportation carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A new boom might bring additional benefits, with jatropha likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some researchers are doubtful, keeping in mind that jatropha has currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach full potential, then it is important to learn from previous errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by bad yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social issues 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 exploring appealing new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, significant bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal came from its pledge 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 several supposed virtues was a capability to grow on abject or "minimal" lands; thus, it was claimed it would never ever take on food crops, so the theory went.
Back then, jatropha ticked all the boxes, says Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that seemed incredible; that can grow without too much fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food due to the fact that it is dangerous."
Governments, global firms, investors and companies bought into the buzz, launching initiatives 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 got ready for WWF.
It didn't take wish for the mirage of the amazing biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Friends of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha's high needs for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international review kept in mind that "cultivation outpaced both clinical understanding of the crop's capacity in addition to an understanding of how the crop fits into 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 began to stop working as anticipated yields refused to materialize. Jatropha could grow on degraded lands and endure dry spell conditions, as claimed, however yields stayed poor.
"In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and possible to grow under fairly poorer conditions, created a huge issue," leading to "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also pestered by environmental, social and financial problems, state experts. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural areas were reported.
Studies discovered that land-use modification for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania led to a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied between two and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon debt may never be recovered." In India, production showed carbon benefits, however using fertilizers led to boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you take a look at most of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was situated on marginal land, but the concept of limited land is very evasive," explains Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker 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 definition of "limited" implied that presumptions 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 ... currently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming does not imply that nobody is using it [for other purposes] There are a lot of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you might not always see from satellite images."
Learning from jatropha
There are essential lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which must be followed when thinking about other auspicious second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], but sadly not of research, and action was taken based on supposed advantages of jatropha," says Bart Muys, a professor 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 citing crucial lessons.
Fundamentally, he explains, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This important requirement for in advance research could be used to other possible biofuel crops, he states. In 2015, for example, his team released a paper examining the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species" with biofuel promise.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and marginal land. But Muys's research study revealed yields to be highly 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 continuing understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary information could avoid inefficient financial speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other really appealing trees or plants that could serve as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys says. "We desired to prevent [them going] in the very same instructions of premature hype and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos highlights vital requirements that should be fulfilled before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be opened, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a prepared market needs to be offered.
"Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [clinical 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 obtained is likewise key, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were purchased for production, authorities must make sure that "guidelines are put in location to inspect how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to reduce some of the issues we observed."
A jatropha return?
Despite all these difficulties, some scientists still believe that under the right conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel solution - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I think jatropha has some prospective, however it needs to be the ideal product, grown in the ideal place, and so on," Muys said.
Mohammad Alherbawi, a postdoctoral research fellow at Qatar's Hamad Bin Khalifa University, continues holding out hope for jatropha. He sees it as a manner in which Qatar might lower airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its usage as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is carrying out ongoing field research studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can actually boost the soil and agricultural lands, and secure them versus any more degeneration triggered by dust storms," he states.
But the Qatar job's success still depends upon numerous aspects, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another important action, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production innovation that uses the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.
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) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian describes that years of research study and development have led to ranges of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were doing not have more than a years back.
"We were able to hasten the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and improve the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. "Our first task is to broaden our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."
Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is looking at. The fruit and its byproducts might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal alternative (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 once again resumed with the energy shift drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."
A complete jatropha life-cycle evaluation has yet to be finished, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 elements - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "Our company believe any such expansion will happen, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [enabling] no competition with food crops, nor in any way threatening food security of any country."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can genuinely be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends on complicated aspects, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say specialists. Then there's the nagging problem of attaining high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government announced its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has stirred dispute over prospective repercussions. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep problem, having actually been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many previous plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, converted dry savanna woodland, which became troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically unfavorable in many of the jatropha sites, due to the fact that the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he describes.
Other researchers chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain skeptical of the ecological viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it potentially ends up being so successful, that we will have a great deal of associated land-use change," states Daniel Itzamna Avila-Ortega, co-founder of the Mexican Center of Industrial Ecology and a Ph.D. student with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has performed research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega cites previous land-use problems related to growth of various crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not deal with the private sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of creating environmental issues."
Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based livestock feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well suited to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains worried about possible environmental costs.
He recommends limiting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in really poor soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in really sterilized wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated problems are greater than the prospective advantages."
Jatropha's worldwide future stays unpredictable. And its potential as a tool in the battle versus environment modification can only be opened, state lots of experts, by preventing the list of troubles connected with its very first boom.
Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian believes its role as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" which the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he states, "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 by means of Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
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