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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree native to Central America, it was wildly 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 consequences of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they state, depends on breaking the yield problem and addressing the damaging land-use issues intertwined with its original failure.
The sole remaining large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds important lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming 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 could be grown on broken down, 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 staying large plantation concentrated on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha resurgence is on.
"All those companies that stopped working, adopted a plug-and-play model of scouting for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This is a part of the procedure that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.
Having gained from the errors of jatropha curcas's past failures, he states the oily plant might yet play an essential role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are skeptical, keeping in mind that jatropha has already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach complete capacity, then it is vital to discover from past mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not only by bad yields, however 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 uses lessons for researchers and business owners exploring promising 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 yards, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous supposed virtues was a capability to prosper on abject or "limited" lands; therefore, it was claimed it would never take on 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 incredible; that can grow without too much fertilizer, too lots of pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food due to the fact that it is harmful."
Governments, worldwide firms, financiers and business bought into the buzz, introducing 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 study got ready for WWF.
It didn't take long for the mirage of the incredible biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Friends of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) warned that jatropha's high demands for land would certainly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a global evaluation noted that "cultivation surpassed both clinical understanding of the crop's potential as well as an understanding of how the crop fits into 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 started to fail as anticipated yields refused to emerge. Jatropha could grow on degraded lands and endure dry spell conditions, as declared, but yields remained poor.
"In my opinion, this combination of speculative investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, created a very huge problem," resulting in "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise afflicted by environmental, social and economic difficulties, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural locations were reported.
Studies discovered that land-use modification for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon debt may never ever be recovered." In India, production showed carbon benefits, but using fertilizers led to 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 situated on minimal land, but the idea of marginal land is extremely elusive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over numerous years, and discovered that a lax definition of "minimal" indicated that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was frequently illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... currently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming does not suggest that nobody is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a great deal of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not necessarily see from satellite imagery."
Learning from jatropha
There are essential lessons to be found out from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which should be followed when considering other auspicious second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], but regrettably 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 hype was winding down, Muys and colleagues published a paper citing essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he describes, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This important requirement for in advance research study could be applied to other potential biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for instance, his group released a paper evaluating the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species" with biofuel guarantee.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and limited 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 stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary information might prevent wasteful monetary speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other really promising trees or plants that could serve as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We wanted to avoid [them going] in the same direction of early buzz and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines important requirements that should be met before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields must be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a prepared market needs to be readily available.
"Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we know how it is grown," Gasparatos says. Jatropha "was practically undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so weird."
How biofuel lands are acquired is likewise essential, states Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities must ensure that "standards are put in place to check how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to reduce some of the problems we observed."
A jatropha return?
Despite all these challenges, some scientists still believe that under the best conditions, jatropha could be a valuable biofuel solution - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "responsible for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I think jatropha has some potential, however it requires to be the right 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 manner in which Qatar may reduce airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its use as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% decrease of "cradle to tomb" emissions.
Alherbawi's group is performing ongoing field research studies to boost 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 implementation of the green belt can truly improve the soil and farming lands, and safeguard them against any additional degeneration brought on by dust storms," he states.
But the Qatar job'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 innovation that utilizes the entirety of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.
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 explains that years of research and advancement have actually resulted in varieties of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade back.
"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 very first project is to expand our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."
Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is taking a look 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 transport 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 assessment has yet to be completed, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two elements - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "We think any such expansion will happen, [by clarifying] the definition 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 really be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially accountable depends on complex factors, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state experts. Then there's the unpleasant problem of accomplishing high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government revealed its intention to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels press that has actually stirred dispute over potential effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep trouble, having actually been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which became problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically negative in most of the jatropha websites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he describes.
Other scientists chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically 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 effective, 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 adding to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega mentions past land-use issues connected with growth of various crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not deal with the private sector doing whatever they want, in regards to producing ecological problems."
Researchers in Mexico are currently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well fit to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains worried about potential ecological costs.
He recommends restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it only in really poor soils in need of remediation. "Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in extremely sterilized wastelands," he describes. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated problems are higher than the possible benefits."
Jatropha's worldwide future stays unsure. And its potential as a tool in the fight versus climate modification can just be unlocked, state many experts, by avoiding the list of troubles related to its very first boom.
Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian believes its role as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" which the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he says, "to work together 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).
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