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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was hugely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on abject lands throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia.
A jatropha rush occurred, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields caused 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 resurgence, they state, is dependent on breaking the yield problem and dealing with the harmful land-use concerns linked with its initial failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated varieties have been attained and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds crucial lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning 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 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 fell flat.
Now, after years of research study and development, the sole remaining large plantation concentrated on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha comeback is on.
"All those companies that failed, embraced a plug-and-play model of scouting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This belongs of the procedure that was missed out on [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.
Having learned from the errors of jatropha's past failures, he says the oily plant might yet play an essential function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transport carbon emissions at the international level. A new boom might bring additional benefits, with jatropha also a prospective 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 warn that if the plant is to reach complete potential, then it is necessary to gain from previous mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by poor yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social problems in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for researchers and entrepreneurs exploring 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 lawns, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous purported virtues was an ability to grow on degraded or "minimal" lands; hence, it was claimed it would never take on food crops, so the theory went.
Back then, jatropha ticked all packages, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that seemed 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 due to the fact that it is poisonous."
Governments, international firms, financiers and business purchased into the buzz, introducing initiatives to plant, or pledge 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 study got ready for WWF.
It didn't take wish for the mirage of the miraculous biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Pals 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, a worldwide review noted that "growing outpaced both clinical understanding of the crop's potential along with an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can thrive 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 fail as anticipated yields declined to emerge. Jatropha might grow on degraded lands and tolerate dry spell conditions, as claimed, but yields stayed bad.
"In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and possible to grow under fairly poorer conditions, developed 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 likewise pestered by ecological, social and economic difficulties, say experts. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural locations 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 study from Mexico discovered the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss ranged in between two and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon financial obligation might never be recovered." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, but using fertilizers resulted in increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you take a look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was located on minimal land, however the idea of marginal land is really evasive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over several years, and discovered that a lax definition of "marginal" indicated that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was frequently illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... presently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming doesn't indicate that nobody is using it [for other purposes] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you might not always see from satellite imagery."
Learning from jatropha
There are essential lessons to be learned from the experience with jatropha, say analysts, which must be followed when thinking about other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in financial investment], but regrettably not of research study, and action was taken based upon alleged benefits 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 hype was winding down, Muys and associates released a paper mentioning essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This vital requirement for upfront research study could be used to other possible biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for instance, his group released a paper examining 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 marginal land. But Muys's research revealed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a significant and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary data might avoid inefficient financial speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other very appealing trees or plants that could function as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys says. "We wanted to avoid [them going] in the very same instructions of premature hype and fail, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines important requirements that should be satisfied before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be opened, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a prepared market needs to be readily available.
"Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos states. Jatropha "was virtually undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so weird."
How biofuel lands are gotten is likewise crucial, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were acquired for production, authorities must make sure that "guidelines are put in place to check how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to minimize a few of the problems we observed."
A jatropha return?
Despite all these obstacles, some researchers still think that under the right conditions, jatropha might be an important biofuel solution - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I believe jatropha has some prospective, however it needs to be the best product, grown in the ideal place, and so on," Muys stated.
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 way that Qatar may lower airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its use as a jet fuel could result in about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's group is carrying out ongoing field studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he envisages a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can truly enhance the soil and agricultural lands, and protect them versus any further deterioration triggered by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar project's success still hinges on lots of aspects, not least the ability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another essential step, 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 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 describes that years of research and development have led to varieties of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade ago.
"We had the ability to quicken the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and improve the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. "Our first task is to expand 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 as soon as 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 evaluation has yet to be completed, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two elements - that it is technically suitable, 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 take location, [by clarifying] the definition of abject 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, environment-friendly and socially accountable depends upon complex factors, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state experts. Then there's the unpleasant issue of achieving high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government announced its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels push that has actually stirred debate over prospective effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep trouble, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which became troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently negative in the majority of the jatropha websites, because the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he discusses.
Other scientists chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically 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 potentially ends up being so effective, that we will have a lot 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 carried out 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 law enforcement is so weak that it can not manage the economic sector doing whatever they desire, in regards to producing environmental issues."
Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based animals feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well suited to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains concerned about potential environmental costs.
He suggests restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it only in really poor soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in really sterile wastelands," he explains. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated problems are greater than the possible benefits."
Jatropha's international future remains uncertain. And its possible as a tool in the fight against environment modification can just be unlocked, say many experts, by avoiding the list of difficulties related to its first boom.
Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian believes its function as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" and that the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry 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).
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