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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 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 polluted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they state, depends on breaking the yield problem and addressing the damaging land-use problems linked with its initial failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties 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 crucial lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming shrub-like tree native to Central America, was planted throughout 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 failed.
Now, after years of research and development, the sole remaining large 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 hunting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This is a part of the process that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.
Having gained from the mistakes of jatropha's previous failures, he says the oily plant could yet play an essential function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transportation carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A brand-new boom could bring additional advantages, with jatropha also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are skeptical, noting that jatropha has actually currently 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 first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not only by poor yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social problems in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts likewise suggest that jatropha's tale uses lessons for researchers and business owners exploring promising 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 stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several purported virtues was a capability to prosper on abject or "limited" lands; hence, it was declared it would never ever compete with food crops, so the theory went.
At that time, jatropha ticked all the boxes, says Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that seemed amazing; that can grow without too much fertilizer, too many pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not compete with food since it is harmful."
Governments, international agencies, investors and business bought into the buzz, releasing efforts to plant, or guarantee 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 research study prepared 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 known at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high needs for land would indeed bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide evaluation noted that "cultivation exceeded both scientific understanding of the crop's potential in addition to an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can flourish 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, just 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations began to stop working as expected yields refused to emerge. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and endure dry spell conditions, as claimed, but yields remained bad.
"In my viewpoint, this combination of speculative investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under relatively poorer conditions, created a huge issue," resulting in "undervalued yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also plagued by environmental, social and financial troubles, state professionals. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural locations were reported.
Studies discovered that land-use modification for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss ranged in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon financial obligation might never be recuperated." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, however making 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 minimal land, however the idea of marginal land is very evasive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the nation over several years, and found that a lax definition of "minimal" meant that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was frequently illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... presently no one is utilizing [land] for farming does not mean that nobody is using it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite images."
Learning from jatropha
There are crucial lessons to be found out from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which need to be observed 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," says Bart Muys, a professor in the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014, as the jatropha buzz was winding down, Muys and coworkers published a paper mentioning crucial lessons.
Fundamentally, he describes, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This important requirement for in advance research might be used to other potential biofuel crops, he states. Last year, for example, his group released a paper evaluating 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 minimal land. But Muys's research study showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a significant and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary data could avoid wasteful monetary speculation and reckless land conversion for new biofuels.
"There are other extremely appealing trees or plants that might act as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We desired to avoid [them going] in the exact same instructions of early hype and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines vital requirements that should be met before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields should be opened, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a prepared market should be available.
"Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [scientific understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos states. Jatropha "was almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so odd."
How biofuel lands are obtained is also key, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities must guarantee that "guidelines are put in location to check how large-scale 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 researchers still believe that under the ideal conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel service - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "responsible for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I believe jatropha has some potential, but it requires to be the ideal product, 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 method that Qatar may decrease airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its use as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is conducting continuous field studies to boost jatropha curcas yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he envisages a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The implementation of the green belt can actually boost the soil and farming lands, and safeguard them against any more wear and tear triggered by dust storms," he states.
But the Qatar project's success still hinges on numerous factors, not least the ability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another vital step, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production innovation that utilizes the whole 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) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian discusses that years of research study and development have actually resulted in varieties of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were doing not have more than a years back.
"We were able to speed up the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and enhance the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian states. 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 might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal alternative (essential 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 when 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 believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two aspects - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it an extremely strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he says. "Our company believe any such growth will happen, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [enabling] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method threatening food security of any nation."
Where next for jatropha curcas?
Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends on complex factors, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state specialists. Then there's the bothersome problem of accomplishing high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian government announced its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels press that has stirred debate over potential repercussions. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep problem, having actually been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, converted dry savanna woodland, which became troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically unfavorable in most of the jatropha sites, due to the fact that 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 environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain uncertain of the eco-friendly 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 lot of associated land-use change," 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 performed research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega points out previous land-use issues associated with expansion of numerous crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not handle the economic sector doing whatever they want, in regards to developing environmental problems."
Researchers in Mexico are currently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well fit to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains concerned about prospective ecological expenses.
He suggests restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in genuinely bad soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in really sterilized wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated issues are higher than the potential benefits."
Jatropha's global future stays unpredictable. And its possible as a tool in the battle versus climate change can just be unlocked, say lots of professionals, by avoiding the list of difficulties 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 return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he says, "to team up 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 by means of Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
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