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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on degraded 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 resulted in plantation failures almost all over. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was polluted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the incredibly elusive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, depends on splitting the yield issue and dealing with the damaging land-use concerns linked with its original failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated varieties have actually been accomplished and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming shrub-like tree native 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 degraded, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields failed.
Now, after years of research study and development, the sole remaining large plantation focused on growing jatropha curcas is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha comeback is on.
"All those companies that stopped working, adopted 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 [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.
Having found out from the errors of jatropha's past failures, he says the oily plant might yet play an essential role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transportation carbon emissions at the global level. A brand-new boom could bring extra benefits, with jatropha also 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 complete potential, then it is vital to gain from previous mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by bad yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social problems in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts likewise recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for researchers and entrepreneurs exploring promising new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, significant bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal originated from its promise as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from yards, trees and other plants not stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous supposed virtues was an ability to thrive on degraded or "marginal" lands; therefore, it was declared it would never ever compete with food crops, so the theory went.
Back then, jatropha ticked all the boxes, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that seemed incredible; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, too many pesticides, or too much demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food since it is poisonous."
Governments, global companies, investors and business bought into the hype, releasing efforts to plant, or promise 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 study prepared for WWF.
It didn't take long for the mirage of the amazing biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Pals of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high needs for land would indeed bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, an international review kept in mind that "growing surpassed both clinical understanding of the crop's potential along with an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can prosper on limited lands."
Projections approximated 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 fail as anticipated yields refused to materialize. Jatropha might grow on degraded lands and tolerate dry spell conditions, as claimed, however yields remained poor.
"In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and possible to grow under relatively poorer conditions, created a huge problem," leading to "undervalued yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also afflicted by ecological, social and economic troubles, say specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural areas were reported.
Studies discovered that land-use modification for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico found the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied in between two and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon debt might never be recovered." In India, production revealed carbon benefits, but the usage of fertilizers led to boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you take a look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was situated on minimal land, but the concept of marginal land is very evasive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over a number of years, and discovered that a lax meaning of "minimal" indicated that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was typically illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... presently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming does not mean that nobody is using it [for other functions] There are a great deal of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not necessarily see from satellite images."
Learning from jatropha
There are essential lessons to be learned from the experience with jatropha, say analysts, which must be followed when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in financial investment], however unfortunately not of research, and action was taken based upon supposed advantages of jatropha," states 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 unwinding, Muys and associates published a paper citing key lessons.
Fundamentally, he discusses, there was an absence of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This essential requirement for in advance research study could be used to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for example, his group released a paper evaluating the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel promise.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and limited 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 stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary information could avoid wasteful financial speculation and careless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other very promising trees or plants that could work as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys states. "We wanted to prevent [them going] in the exact same direction of premature buzz and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos highlights important requirements that must be fulfilled before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market should be readily available.
"Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [scientific understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos states. Jatropha "was almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so weird."
How biofuel lands are gotten is likewise key, states Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities must make sure that "guidelines are put in location to inspect how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to lower a few of the problems we observed."
A jatropha comeback?
Despite all these difficulties, some scientists still think that under the ideal 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 think jatropha has some prospective, but it needs to be the best product, grown in the best place, 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 minimize airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its use as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's group is performing ongoing field research studies to improve jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The implementation of the green belt can really improve the soil and agricultural lands, and secure them against any additional deterioration caused by dust storms," he states.
But the Qatar job's success still depends upon many aspects, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another important step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that utilizes the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.
Back in Ghana, jOil is presently handling 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 explains that years of research and advancement have actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade earlier.
"We were able to accelerate the yield cycle, improve 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 task 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 by-products might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal substitute (important 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 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 total jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be completed, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it an extremely strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "We think any such growth will take location, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [permitting] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method 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 elements, including where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say experts. Then there's the unpleasant problem of accomplishing high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian government announced its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels press that has stirred argument over prospective repercussions. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep trouble, having actually been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many previous plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which ended up being problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically negative in most of the jatropha websites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he discusses.
Other researchers chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers stay uncertain of the eco-friendly viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it perhaps 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 study on the possibilities of jatropha curcas contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega points out previous land-use issues related to growth of numerous crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not handle the private sector doing whatever they want, in terms of creating environmental problems."
Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based animals feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well suited to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains concerned about possible ecological expenses.
He recommends restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in truly poor soils in need of restoration. "Jatropha could be one of 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 method for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are greater than the possible advantages."
Jatropha's worldwide future stays unpredictable. And its possible as a tool in the battle against environment modification can only be opened, state numerous experts, by avoiding the list of troubles related to its first boom.
Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian believes its function as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he states, "to collaborate 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 through Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
A liquid biofuels primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world effects
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