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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was extremely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on abject 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 led to plantation failures nearly all over. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was polluted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they state, is reliant on splitting the yield problem and dealing with the hazardous land-use issues linked with its original failure.
The sole remaining large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated varieties have been achieved and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning 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 pledge as a sustainable source of biofuel that might 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 big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.
"All those business that failed, embraced a plug-and-play design 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 [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.
Having gained from the errors of jatropha's past failures, he says the oily plant could yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, lowering transportation carbon emissions at the global level. A brand-new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha likewise a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are doubtful, noting that jatropha has already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach complete potential, then it is important to gain from past mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not only by bad yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in countries where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil operates.
Experts also suggest that jatropha's tale offers lessons for scientists and business owners checking out promising new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, significant bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal stemmed from its guarantee as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from lawns, trees and other plants not derived from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its multiple supposed virtues was an ability to flourish on abject or "marginal" lands; thus, it was claimed it would never complete with food crops, so the theory went.
Back then, jatropha ticked all packages, says 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 too much demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not complete with food since it is harmful."
Governments, worldwide agencies, financiers and business bought into the buzz, launching efforts 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 research study prepared for WWF.
It didn't take wish for the mirage of the miraculous biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Friends 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 conflict with food crops. By 2011, a global review kept in mind that "cultivation outpaced both clinical 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 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, only 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 abject lands and endure dry spell conditions, as claimed, but yields stayed poor.
"In my opinion, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, created a huge issue," leading to "undervalued yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also 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 found that land-use modification 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 associated forest loss varied between 2 and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon financial obligation might never be recovered." In India, production showed carbon benefits, however using fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you look at most of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was positioned on limited land, but the concept of minimal land is extremely evasive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker 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 definition of "marginal" suggested that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually 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 imply that nobody is using it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you might not necessarily see from satellite imagery."
Learning from jatropha
There are crucial lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which should be followed when thinking about other auspicious second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], but regrettably not of research study, and action was taken based upon alleged advantages 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 published a paper mentioning key lessons.
Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This important requirement for upfront research might be applied to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for instance, his team launched a paper examining the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel pledge.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and marginal land. But Muys's research revealed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a considerable and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge spaces." Use of such cautionary information might prevent wasteful monetary speculation and negligent land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other extremely promising trees or plants that might act as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys says. "We wished to avoid [them going] in the exact same direction of premature hype and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines crucial requirements that must be satisfied before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields should be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set market should be available.
"Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos says. Jatropha "was almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so strange."
How biofuel lands are acquired is also essential, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were acquired for production, authorities should make sure that "guidelines are put in place to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to lower a few of the problems we observed."
A jatropha return?
Despite all these challenges, some scientists still believe that under the best conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel option - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I believe jatropha has some prospective, but it needs to be the right material, 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 way that Qatar might reduce airline company carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its use as a jet fuel could result in about a 40% decrease of "cradle to tomb" emissions.
Alherbawi's group is performing continuous field studies to increase jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added benefit, he envisages a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The implementation of the green belt can truly boost the soil and farming lands, and safeguard them against any additional deterioration brought on by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar task's success still depends upon many elements, not least the capability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another important action, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.
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 study and development have actually resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade ago.
"We had the ability to speed up the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and boost the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. "Our 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 substitute (important in Africa where much wood is still burned for cooking), and even bioplastics.
But it is the transportation sector that still beckons as the perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually as soon as again reopened with the energy shift 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 completed, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected 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 aviation," he says. "Our company believe any such growth will take location, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [permitting] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any country."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially accountable depends on complicated aspects, including where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say professionals. Then there's the unpleasant problem of achieving high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has actually stirred debate over prospective effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep trouble, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many previous plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which ended up being troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently negative in many of the jatropha sites, since 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 stay doubtful 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 change," 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 actually 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 law enforcement is so weak that it can not cope with the economic sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of producing environmental issues."
Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well suited to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains concerned about possible ecological costs.
He suggests restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it only in truly poor soils in need of repair. "Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in very sterile wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing method for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are higher than the potential benefits."
jatropha curcas's international future stays unpredictable. And its prospective as a tool in the battle versus environment change can only be unlocked, state lots of professionals, by avoiding the litany of troubles associated with its very first boom.
Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its role as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he states, "to collaborate with us to develop and broaden the supply chain of jatropha curcas."
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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