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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was extremely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on degraded lands across Latin America, Africa and Asia.
A jatropha rush ensued, 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 after-effects of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they say, depends on breaking the yield issue and attending to the damaging land-use issues linked with its initial failure.
The sole remaining large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated ranges have been accomplished and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds important lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, a simple shrub-like tree belonging to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its pledge as a sustainable source of biofuel that might 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 and development, the sole remaining large plantation focused on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha return is on.
"All those business that failed, adopted a plug-and-play model of searching for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you require to domesticate it. This belongs of the procedure that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.
Having gained from the mistakes of jatropha's past failures, he states the oily plant could yet play a crucial function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transport carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A new boom might bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are hesitant, keeping in mind that jatropha has actually currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach complete capacity, then it is important to gain from past mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not only by poor yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social problems in countries where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil operates.
Experts likewise recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for scientists and business owners exploring promising new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, major bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal stemmed from its pledge as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from lawns, trees and other plants not stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous purported virtues was an ability to flourish on abject or "limited" lands; thus, 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 miraculous; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food because it is poisonous."
Governments, worldwide agencies, financiers and business purchased into the buzz, launching 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 study got ready for WWF.
It didn't take wish for the mirage of the incredible biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Pals of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high needs for land would certainly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide evaluation kept in mind that "cultivation surpassed 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 limited 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 started to fail as anticipated yields declined to emerge. Jatropha could grow on degraded lands and endure drought conditions, as claimed, but yields remained bad.
"In my opinion, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under fairly poorer conditions, produced a really huge problem," leading to "ignored 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 difficulties, state experts. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural areas 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 study from Mexico found the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss varied between two and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon financial obligation may never be recovered." In India, production showed carbon advantages, however using fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you take a look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was located on marginal land, but the idea of limited land is extremely evasive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the nation over a number of years, and found that a lax meaning of "minimal" meant that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying unblemished and unused was typically illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... presently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming doesn't suggest that no one is utilizing it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you may not necessarily see from satellite images."
Learning from jatropha
There are crucial lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which ought to be heeded when considering other auspicious second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in financial investment], but regrettably not of research, and action was taken based upon supposed 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 buzz was unwinding, Muys and associates released a paper mentioning crucial lessons.
Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its requirements. This important requirement for in advance research study could be used to other potential biofuel crops, he states. Last year, for example, his team released 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 abject and minimal land. But Muys's research study revealed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a substantial and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary information might prevent wasteful financial speculation and reckless land conversion for new biofuels.
"There are other really appealing trees or plants that could function as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We desired to avoid [them going] in the same direction of premature hype and fail, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines vital requirements that need to be met before moving ahead with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields should be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a ready market needs to be available.
"Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we know how it is grown," Gasparatos says. Jatropha "was virtually undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so strange."
How biofuel lands are acquired is likewise key, states Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities should make sure that "standards are put in location to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to lower a few of the problems we observed."
A jatropha comeback?
Despite all these obstacles, some researchers still think that under the ideal conditions, jatropha could be a valuable biofuel option - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I believe jatropha has some prospective, however it needs to be the best material, grown in the ideal 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 may minimize airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its use as a jet fuel could result in about a 40% decrease of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's group is conducting continuous field studies to increase jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he envisages a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can actually enhance the soil and agricultural lands, and secure them versus any additional wear and tear triggered by dust storms," he states.
But the Qatar task's success still depends upon many aspects, not least the capability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another vital action, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production innovation that utilizes the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing efficiency.
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 actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade earlier.
"We were able to accelerate the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and boost the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first project 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 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 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 evaluation has yet to be completed, but he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically suitable, 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 happen, [by clarifying] the definition 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, eco-friendly and socially accountable depends on complicated aspects, 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 nagging issue of accomplishing high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has stirred debate over potential repercussions. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep trouble, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which became problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently unfavorable in most of the jatropha websites, 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 researchers remain uncertain of the ecological 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 successful, 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. trainee with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has carried out research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega points out previous land-use issues connected with expansion of various crops, including 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 producing ecological issues."
Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based livestock feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well matched to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays concerned about prospective environmental expenses.
He suggests restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it only in really bad soils in need of repair. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in extremely sterilized wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are greater than the prospective advantages."
Jatropha's global future stays uncertain. And its possible as a tool in the fight against climate change can only be opened, state many experts, by preventing the list of problems related to its very first boom.
Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian believes its function as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he says, "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 impacts
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