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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could 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 led to plantation failures almost everywhere. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was polluted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.

Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they state, depends on cracking the yield issue and dealing with the harmful land-use concerns linked with its initial failure.

The sole remaining big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated varieties have been achieved and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds crucial 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 study and advancement, the sole remaining large plantation focused on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.

"All those business that stopped working, embraced a plug-and-play model of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This is a part of the process 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 previous failures, he states the oily plant might yet play a key function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, lowering transport carbon emissions at the global level. A brand-new boom could bring additional advantages, with jatropha also a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are hesitant, keeping in mind that jatropha has currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach full capacity, then it is important to gain from previous errors. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not only by bad yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts also suggest that jatropha's tale provides lessons for scientists and business owners exploring promising brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, major bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal came from its pledge 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 multiple supposed virtues was a capability to flourish on abject or "limited" lands; thus, it was declared it would never ever compete with food crops, so the theory went.

At that time, jatropha ticked all the boxes, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that appeared incredible; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, too numerous pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food because it is toxic."

Governments, global agencies, investors and companies purchased into the hype, introducing initiatives to plant, or guarantee 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 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) alerted that jatropha's high demands for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international review noted that "growing exceeded both clinical understanding of the crop's potential in addition to an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can grow on minimal 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, only 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations began to fail as expected yields declined to materialize. Jatropha might grow on degraded lands and tolerate dry spell conditions, as claimed, however yields stayed poor.

"In my opinion, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and potential to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, developed an extremely big 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 ecological, social and financial troubles, say specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural locations were reported.

Studies discovered that land-use modification for jatropha in nations 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 2 and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon debt may never be recuperated." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, but making use of fertilizers resulted in increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was located on marginal land, however the idea of minimal land is extremely evasive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the nation over a number of years, and discovered that a lax meaning of "marginal" meant that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was frequently illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The fact that ... presently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming does not mean 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 necessarily see from satellite imagery."

Learning from jatropha

There are key lessons to be found out from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which must be observed when thinking about other auspicious second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in investment], but sadly not of research study, and action was taken based upon alleged 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 curcas hype was winding down, Muys and coworkers released a paper pointing out key lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This crucial requirement for upfront research study could be used to other potential biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for example, his group launched a paper examining the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species" with biofuel guarantee.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and marginal land. But Muys's research showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a significant and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary data could avoid wasteful monetary speculation and negligent land conversion for new biofuels.

"There are other really promising trees or plants that might function as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We wished to avoid [them going] in the exact same instructions of premature hype and stop working, like jatropha."

Gasparatos underlines vital requirements that should be satisfied before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields must be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, 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 virtually undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so strange."

How biofuel lands are gotten is also essential, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities should guarantee that "guidelines are put in place to check how massive land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to decrease some of the problems we observed."

A jatropha comeback?

Despite all these difficulties, some researchers still think that under the right conditions, jatropha might be an important biofuel solution - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I think jatropha has some potential, but it needs to be the best material, grown in the right 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 might reduce airline company carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.

Alherbawi's team is performing ongoing field studies to boost jatropha curcas yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can really enhance the soil and agricultural lands, and safeguard them against any further wear and tear triggered by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar task's success still depends upon many elements, not least the ability to get quality yields from the tree. Another vital action, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production innovation that utilizes the entirety of the jatropha fruit to increase processing efficiency.

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 study and advancement have actually resulted in 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 variety and improve the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he mentions, 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 taking a look at. The fruit and its byproducts might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal substitute (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 ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually as soon as again resumed 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 completed, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 elements - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a really strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he says. "We think any such growth will occur, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [allowing] no competition with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any country."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially accountable depends upon complex factors, consisting of 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 irritating problem of attaining high yields.

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

Many previous plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which became troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically unfavorable in the majority 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 scientists remain skeptical of the eco-friendly practicality 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 modification," 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 actually performed research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega cites past land-use problems connected with growth of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not manage the economic sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of producing environmental problems."

Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well matched to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains concerned about potential environmental expenses.

He suggests limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it only in really poor soils in requirement of remediation. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in extremely sterile wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are greater than the potential benefits."

Jatropha's worldwide future stays uncertain. And its potential as a tool in the fight against environment modification can just be opened, say numerous specialists, by avoiding the litany of difficulties related to its first boom.

Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian believes its role as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" and that the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he states, "to team up with us to establish 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).

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

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