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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. An unassuming 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 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 aftermath of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they state, is dependent on cracking the yield issue and resolving the hazardous land-use problems intertwined with its initial failure.
The sole staying 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 comeback falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential 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 throughout the world. The rush to jatropha curcas 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 fell flat.
Now, after years of research study and development, the sole staying big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha comeback is on.
"All those business that failed, embraced a plug-and-play design of hunting for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you require to domesticate it. This belongs of the process that was missed out on [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.
Having found out from the mistakes of jatropha's past failures, he says the oily plant might yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, lowering transportation carbon emissions at the global level. A new boom might bring extra advantages, with jatropha likewise a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are doubtful, keeping in mind that jatropha has currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach complete capacity, then it is necessary to gain from previous mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not only by poor yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social problems in countries where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts also suggest that jatropha's tale provides lessons for scientists and business owners exploring appealing brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, significant bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal came from its guarantee as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from grasses, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous supposed virtues was an ability to flourish on abject or "marginal" lands; thus, it was claimed it would never ever compete with food crops, so the theory went.
Back then, jatropha ticked all packages, says Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that appeared miraculous; that can grow without too much fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or too much demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not complete with food since it is toxic."
Governments, global firms, financiers and business purchased into the hype, introducing efforts 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 prepared for WWF.
It didn't take long for the mirage of the miraculous biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Friends 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, a worldwide 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 thrive 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, just 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations began to stop working as anticipated yields refused to emerge. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as declared, but yields remained bad.
"In my opinion, this combination of speculative investment, export-oriented potential, and potential to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, produced a huge problem," resulting in "ignored 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 problems, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural areas were reported.
Studies found that land-use modification for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico found the "carbon repayment" of jatropha curcas plantations due to involved forest loss ranged in between two and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon financial obligation may never be recuperated." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, but making use of fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you look at most of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was situated on marginal land, however the concept of minimal land is very elusive," explains 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 definition of "limited" suggested that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was typically illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The fact that ... currently no one is using [land] for farming doesn't suggest that no one is utilizing 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 gained from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which must be heeded when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], but unfortunately not of research study, 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 curcas buzz was unwinding, Muys and associates published a paper mentioning 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 might be used to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for example, his group launched 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 degraded and marginal 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 thought about a considerable and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary information might avoid inefficient monetary speculation and reckless land conversion for new biofuels.
"There are other extremely promising trees or plants that might serve as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We wished to avoid [them going] in the same instructions of premature buzz and fail, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines important requirements that must be satisfied before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields should be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a prepared market should be offered.
"Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos states. Jatropha "was practically undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so weird."
How biofuel lands are obtained is likewise crucial, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were purchased for production, authorities must ensure that "guidelines are put in place to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to lower a few of the problems we observed."
A jatropha return?
Despite all these difficulties, some scientists still believe that under the best conditions, jatropha might be a valuable biofuel service - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "responsible for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I believe jatropha has some prospective, however it needs to be the best material, grown in the best location, 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 manner in which Qatar may decrease airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its use as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% decrease of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is performing continuous field studies to increase jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he envisages a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can really enhance the soil and farming lands, and secure them versus any further deterioration triggered by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar job's success still hinges on lots of elements, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another vital action, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production innovation that uses the whole 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 study and advancement have actually led to ranges of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade ago.
"We were able to hasten the yield cycle, improve the yield range and improve the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he specifies, the tree is now domesticated. "Our first job is to expand our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."
Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is looking at. The fruit and its by-products could 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 when again resumed with the energy shift 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 thinks 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 candidate for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he states. "Our company believe any such growth will occur, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [permitting] no competition with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any nation."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends upon complex aspects, 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 bothersome issue of attaining 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 stirred dispute over prospective repercussions. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep trouble, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which became problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically unfavorable in many of the jatropha sites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he explains.
Other researchers chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers stay uncertain of the environmental viability 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 lot 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 performed research on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega mentions past land-use issues related to expansion of different crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not deal with the economic sector doing whatever they want, in regards to developing environmental issues."
Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages might be well matched to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays concerned about potential environmental costs.
He suggests limiting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in truly poor soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in very sterile wastelands," he describes. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery method for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated problems are higher than the potential advantages."
Jatropha's global future remains unpredictable. And its possible as a tool in the fight versus climate change can only be unlocked, say lots of specialists, by avoiding the litany of problems related to its first boom.
Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its function as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" which the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he states, "to collaborate with us to establish and expand 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 effects
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