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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree native to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on degraded lands across 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 caused plantation failures almost everywhere. The consequences of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they say, depends on cracking the yield problem and dealing with the damaging land-use concerns intertwined with its original failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated varieties have actually been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming shrub-like tree belonging to Central America, was planted throughout the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its promise as a sustainable source of biofuel that could 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 study and advancement, the sole remaining big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha is 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 model of hunting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This belongs of the process that was missed [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.
Having found out from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he says the oily plant might yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha likewise a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are skeptical, noting that jatropha has currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach full potential, then it is important to gain from past mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not just by poor yields, but by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in countries where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for scientists and business owners checking out appealing brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, major bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal stemmed from its promise as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from yards, trees and other plants not stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous supposed virtues was an ability to grow on abject or "marginal" lands; therefore, it was claimed it would never ever complete with food crops, so the theory went.
Back then, 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, a lot of pesticides, or too much need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not complete with food since it is toxic."
Governments, worldwide companies, investors and business purchased into the buzz, introducing initiatives to plant, or pledge 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 prepared for WWF.
It didn't take wish for the mirage of the miraculous 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, an international evaluation noted that "cultivation outpaced both clinical understanding of the crop's capacity as well as an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can grow 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 started to fail as expected yields declined to materialize. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and endure dry spell conditions, as claimed, but yields remained bad.
"In my viewpoint, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and potential to grow under relatively poorer conditions, produced an extremely huge issue," leading to "ignored 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 problems, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural locations were reported.
Studies found that land-use change for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico found the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss ranged in between two and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon financial obligation might never be recovered." In India, production revealed carbon benefits, however the use of fertilizers led to increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha curcas produced was situated on marginal land, however the idea of minimal land is very elusive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over numerous years, and found that a lax meaning of "limited" meant that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was often illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The fact that ... presently nobody is using [land] for farming does not suggest that nobody is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a great deal of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you may not necessarily see from satellite imagery."
Learning from jatropha
There are crucial lessons to be discovered from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which need to be observed when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], but sadly not of research, and action was taken based on alleged benefits of jatropha," states 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 unwinding, Muys and colleagues released a paper citing essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he explains, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This essential requirement for upfront research study might be applied to other potential biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for instance, his group launched a paper evaluating the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species" with biofuel pledge.
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 significant and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge spaces." Use of such cautionary data might prevent inefficient financial speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other extremely appealing trees or plants that could serve as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We wished to avoid [them going] in the exact same direction of premature hype and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines important requirements that must be satisfied before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields should be opened, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and an all set market must be readily available.
"Basically, the crop needs 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 unusual."
How biofuel lands are obtained is also crucial, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were acquired for production, authorities must ensure that "standards are put in place to check how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to reduce some of the problems we observed."
A jatropha return?
Despite all these obstacles, some scientists still think that under the right conditions, jatropha might be a valuable biofuel option - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I think jatropha has some possible, but it requires to be the ideal material, grown in the right 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 decrease airline company carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its usage as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is performing continuous field research studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can really enhance the soil and agricultural lands, and secure them against any additional degeneration brought on by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar job's success still hinges on numerous elements, not least the capability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another crucial action, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production technology that uses 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) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian describes that years of research and development have resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now attain 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 capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first task 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 could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal replacement (essential 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 transition drive for oil companies and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."
A complete jatropha life-cycle evaluation has yet to be finished, but he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a really strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "Our company believe any such growth will take place, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [allowing] no competitors with food crops, nor in any way endangering food security of any nation."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can genuinely be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends on complex elements, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say professionals. Then there's the nagging problem of achieving high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its objective to pursue jatropha curcas plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels press that has actually stirred argument over possible consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep problem, having been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many previous plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which ended up being troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically negative in the majority of the jatropha websites, 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 environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists stay skeptical of the eco-friendly viability 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 modification," states 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 carried out research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega mentions past land-use problems associated with expansion of various crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not handle the private sector doing whatever they desire, in regards to developing environmental issues."
Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based livestock feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well matched to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains concerned about prospective ecological costs.
He suggests restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in really bad soils in need of remediation. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in extremely sterile wastelands," he describes. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are higher than the potential advantages."
Jatropha's international future remains unpredictable. And its prospective as a tool in the battle against environment modification can only be opened, state numerous experts, by preventing the list of difficulties connected with its first boom.
Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian believes its role as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market 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).
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