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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was hugely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on degraded lands across 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 tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they state, depends on breaking the yield problem and addressing the hazardous land-use problems intertwined with its initial failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been accomplished and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming shrub-like tree native to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its pledge 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 failed.
Now, after years of research study and development, the sole remaining big 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 stopped working, embraced a plug-and-play design of scouting for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to advertise it, you require to domesticate it. This belongs of the procedure that was missed [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.
Having learned from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he says the oily plant could yet play an essential function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, lowering transportation carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A brand-new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha likewise a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are doubtful, noting that jatropha has actually already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach complete potential, then it is important to find out from previous errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not just by poor yields, but by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil operates.
Experts likewise recommend that jatropha's tale offers lessons for scientists and entrepreneurs checking out promising new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, major bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal stemmed from its guarantee as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from yards, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several supposed virtues was an ability to grow on degraded or "minimal" lands; therefore, it was claimed it would never ever complete with food crops, so the theory went.
At that time, jatropha ticked all packages, says Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that appeared amazing; 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 dangerous."
Governments, international firms, investors and companies bought into the hype, releasing initiatives 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 research study got ready for WWF.
It didn't take long for the mirage of the incredible biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Friends of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha's high demands for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation kept in mind that "cultivation outmatched 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 flourish on marginal 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, 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 abject lands and endure drought conditions, as claimed, but yields stayed bad.
"In my viewpoint, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and potential to grow under fairly poorer conditions, created a very huge issue," resulting in "ignored yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also afflicted by environmental, social and financial problems, state professionals. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural locations were reported.
Studies found that land-use change for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico found the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss ranged in between two and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon debt may never be recovered." In India, production showed carbon advantages, however the 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 situated on marginal land, but the concept of minimal land is extremely evasive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over a number of years, and discovered that a lax meaning of "minimal" meant 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 reality that ... currently no one is using [land] for farming doesn't imply that nobody is utilizing it [for other purposes] 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 gained from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which should be followed when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], but regrettably not of research study, and action was taken based on alleged benefits of jatropha," states 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 associates released a paper mentioning essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he describes, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This crucial requirement for upfront research study could be applied to other prospective biofuel crops, he states. In 2015, 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 limited 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 considerable and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary information could avoid inefficient financial speculation and careless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other really appealing trees or plants that could act as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys says. "We wished to avoid [them going] in the same instructions of early buzz and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines essential requirements that should be fulfilled before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market needs to be 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 strange."
How biofuel lands are acquired is also key, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were bought for production, authorities need to ensure that "standards are put in location to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to decrease some of the problems we observed."
A jatropha comeback?
Despite all these difficulties, some scientists still believe that under the best conditions, jatropha could be a valuable biofuel service - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I believe jatropha has some prospective, however it requires to be the ideal product, grown in the ideal place, and so on," Muys stated.
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 may minimize airline 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 group is conducting ongoing field studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added advantage, he envisages a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can really improve the soil and farming lands, and protect them against any more deterioration triggered by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar project's success still depends upon many aspects, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another essential step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that uses the whole 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) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian discusses that years of research and development have actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were lacking more than a years ago.
"We had the ability to hasten the yield cycle, improve the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. 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 byproducts could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal replacement (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 actually once again resumed with the energy shift drive for oil companies and bio-refiners - [driven by] the look for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."
A complete jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be completed, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "Our company believe any such growth will take location, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [permitting] no competition with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any country."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends upon complicated factors, 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 bothersome 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 dispute over prospective effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep difficulty, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many previous plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which ended up being problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently negative in the majority of the jatropha sites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he explains.
Other scientists chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists 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 ends up being 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 carried out research study 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, 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 creating environmental problems."
Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based animals feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages might be well matched to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains worried about possible environmental costs.
He suggests restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it only in truly poor soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in really sterilized wastelands," he describes. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated issues are higher than the prospective benefits."
Jatropha's international future stays uncertain. And its potential as a tool in the battle against climate change can just be opened, state numerous experts, by preventing the litany of problems associated with its very first boom.
Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian thinks its role as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" which the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry 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 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
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