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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 led to plantation failures almost all over. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they say, depends on splitting the yield issue and attending to the hazardous land-use problems linked with its initial failure.
The sole staying large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have been achieved and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this return falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential 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 pledge as a sustainable source of biofuel that could 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 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 companies that failed, adopted a plug-and-play design of scouting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you require 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 learned from the mistakes of jatropha's past failures, he states the oily plant could yet play an essential function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transport carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A brand-new boom could bring extra benefits, with jatropha also a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are skeptical, keeping in mind that jatropha has actually currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach full potential, then it is important to discover from previous errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by bad yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social problems in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for scientists and entrepreneurs checking out 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 grasses, trees and other plants not obtained from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its multiple purported virtues was a capability to thrive on degraded or "minimal" lands; therefore, it was declared it would never ever take on food crops, so the theory went.
At that time, jatropha ticked all the boxes, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that appeared incredible; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, too many pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food since it is harmful."
Governments, international agencies, investors and companies purchased into the hype, launching initiatives to plant, or promise 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 incredible biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Pals of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha's high needs for land would indeed bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international review noted that "cultivation outmatched both clinical understanding of the crop's capacity along with an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can thrive 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 drought conditions, as declared, but yields remained bad.
"In my opinion, this combination of speculative investment, export-oriented capacity, and potential to grow under fairly poorer conditions, developed a huge issue," leading to "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also pestered by ecological, social and economic problems, say specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural locations were reported.
Studies found that land-use modification for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico found the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss ranged between two and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon debt might never be recuperated." In India, production showed carbon benefits, but 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 claim that the jatropha produced was located on limited land, but the concept of minimal land is very elusive," describes 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 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 frequently illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... presently no one is utilizing [land] for farming doesn't mean that nobody is using it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite imagery."
Learning from jatropha
There are crucial lessons to be learned from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which ought to be heeded when thinking about other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], however sadly not of research, and action was taken based on supposed benefits of jatropha," says 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 winding down, Muys and associates published a paper mentioning crucial lessons.
Fundamentally, he explains, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This essential requirement for upfront research might be applied to other possible biofuel crops, he states. Last year, for instance, his group launched a paper evaluating the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel guarantee.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and marginal land. But Muys's research showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a significant and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge gaps." Use of such cautionary data might avoid wasteful financial speculation and negligent land conversion for new biofuels.
"There are other very promising trees or plants that could act as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We desired to avoid [them going] in the exact same instructions of early buzz and fail, like jatropha."
Gasparatos highlights essential requirements that need to be met before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market should be available.
"Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [scientific understanding] at a level that we know how it is grown," Gasparatos states. jatropha curcas "was almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so unusual."
How biofuel lands are acquired is also key, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities need to guarantee that "guidelines are put in place to inspect how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to decrease a few of the problems we observed."
A jatropha curcas comeback?
Despite all these difficulties, some scientists still think that under the ideal conditions, jatropha might be a valuable biofuel option - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I think jatropha has some potential, however it requires to be the right product, grown in the best place, and so on," Muys stated.
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 minimize airline carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its usage as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% decrease of "cradle to tomb" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is carrying out ongoing field research studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added advantage, he envisages a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can actually enhance the soil and agricultural lands, and safeguard them against any additional wear and tear triggered by dust storms," he states.
But the Qatar project's success still hinges on numerous aspects, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another vital action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.
Back in Ghana, jOil is presently managing 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 advancement have led to ranges of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were doing not have more than a years ago.
"We were able to accelerate the yield cycle, improve the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he specifies, the tree is now domesticated. "Our 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 byproducts 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 transportation sector that still beckons as the ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually 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 evaluation has yet to be completed, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two aspects - that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he states. "Our company believe any such expansion will occur, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [enabling] no competition with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any nation."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can genuinely be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends upon complicated factors, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say specialists. Then there's the irritating problem of attaining high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its intention to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has actually stirred debate over potential repercussions. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep difficulty, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many previous plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which became problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently negative in the majority of the jatropha sites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he explains.
Other scientists chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists remain skeptical of the ecological practicality of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it possibly becomes 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 adding to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega mentions previous land-use problems connected with growth of various crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not manage the personal sector doing whatever they want, in regards to developing ecological problems."
Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based animals feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well matched to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays concerned about possible ecological expenses.
He suggests limiting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in genuinely bad soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha might be one of those plants that can grow in extremely 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 involved issues are greater than the possible advantages."
Jatropha's worldwide future stays unpredictable. And its potential as a tool in the fight against climate modification can only be opened, say lots of experts, by preventing the litany of difficulties associated with its very first boom.
Will jatropha projects 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 return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he states, "to work together with us to develop 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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