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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was extremely 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 almost all over. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the incredibly elusive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they say, is dependent on cracking the yield problem and attending to the harmful land-use concerns linked with its original failure.
The sole remaining large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been accomplished and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds crucial lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, a simple shrub-like tree native to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its guarantee as a sustainable source of biofuel that might be grown on deteriorated, 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 focused on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha comeback is on.
"All those business that stopped working, adopted a plug-and-play design of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you require to domesticate it. This is a part of the process that was missed [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.
Having gained from the errors of jatropha's past failures, he states the oily plant could yet play an essential role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transport carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A new boom could bring extra advantages, with jatropha also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some researchers are doubtful, noting that jatropha has already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach full capacity, then it is essential to learn from past errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by poor yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in countries where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts likewise suggest that jatropha's tale provides lessons for scientists 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 obtained from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous purported virtues was an ability to flourish on abject or "minimal" lands; therefore, it was declared it would never ever contend 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 seemed miraculous; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, too many pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food because it is poisonous."
Governments, worldwide agencies, financiers and business purchased into the buzz, releasing efforts 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 prepared for WWF.
It didn't take wish 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 demands for land would certainly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international review kept in mind that "growing surpassed both scientific 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 prosper 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 could grow on degraded lands and endure dry spell conditions, as claimed, but yields remained poor.
"In my opinion, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and possible to grow under fairly poorer conditions, created a huge problem," leading to "ignored yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise pestered by environmental, social and financial problems, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural locations were reported.
Studies found that land-use modification for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss varied in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon financial obligation might never ever be recovered." In India, production showed carbon benefits, however using fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you take a look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was situated on limited land, but the idea of marginal land is very evasive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over numerous years, and found that a lax definition of "limited" implied that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying unblemished and unused was typically illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The fact that ... presently nobody is using [land] for farming doesn't mean that nobody is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a great deal of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you might not necessarily see from satellite images."
Learning from jatropha
There are key lessons to be found out from the experience with jatropha, say experts, which must be heeded when thinking about other auspicious second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in financial investment], but regrettably not of research, and action was taken based upon alleged advantages 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 hype was unwinding, Muys and associates released a paper citing key lessons.
Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its requirements. This crucial requirement for upfront research might be applied to other potential biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for instance, 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 showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a substantial and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary information might avoid wasteful monetary speculation and careless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other very appealing trees or plants that might function as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys says. "We wanted to avoid [them going] in the very same instructions of early hype and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines crucial requirements that should be met before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields must be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market needs to be offered.
"Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [scientific 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 obtained is likewise key, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were purchased for production, authorities need to guarantee that "standards are put in location to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to reduce some of the problems we observed."
A jatropha resurgence?
Despite all these challenges, some scientists still believe that under the ideal conditions, jatropha might be an important biofuel service - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "responsible for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I think jatropha has some potential, but it needs to be the best 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 method that Qatar might reduce airline carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its use as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is performing continuous field research studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can really enhance the soil and agricultural 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 ability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another essential action, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production technology that uses the entirety of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.
Back in Ghana, jOil is currently handling 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 and development have resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were doing not have more than a years ago.
"We had the ability to speed up the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first project is to broaden our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."
Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is looking at. The fruit and its by-products might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal replacement (crucial in Africa where much wood is still burned for cooking), and even bioplastics.
But it is the transport sector that still beckons as the ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has once again resumed with the energy transition drive for oil companies and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."
A complete jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be finished, however he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related 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 occur, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [allowing] no competition with food crops, nor in any way endangering food security of any nation."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environment-friendly and socially accountable depends on complex factors, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say professionals. Then there's the nagging issue of achieving high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government revealed its intention to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels press that has actually stirred debate over prospective repercussions. 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, alerts Ahmed, converted dry savanna woodland, which ended up being problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often unfavorable in most of the jatropha websites, because the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he explains.
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 ecological viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it possibly becomes so effective, that we will have a great deal of associated land-use modification," says 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 adding to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega cites previous land-use issues related to growth of various crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not manage the personal sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of developing environmental issues."
Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well fit to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays worried about potential environmental costs.
He suggests limiting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it only in really bad soils in need of restoration. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in very sterile wastelands," he describes. "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 higher than the potential advantages."
Jatropha's global future stays uncertain. And its prospective as a tool in the battle against environment change can only be unlocked, say numerous specialists, by preventing the list of troubles associated with its very first boom.
Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian thinks its role as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he says, "to team up with us to establish and expand the supply chain of jatropha curcas."
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 effects
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