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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming 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 occurred, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields resulted in plantation failures nearly everywhere. 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 return, they state, is reliant on cracking the yield problem and resolving the harmful land-use concerns intertwined with its initial failure.
The sole staying large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return fails, 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, a simple 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 degraded, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields fell flat.
Now, after years of research and advancement, the sole staying big 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, embraced 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 [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.
Having found out from the mistakes of jatropha's past failures, he states the oily plant could yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transportation carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A brand-new boom could bring additional advantages, with jatropha likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are skeptical, noting that jatropha has actually already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach complete potential, then it is important to discover from past errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by poor yields, but by land grabbing, deforestation, and social problems in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts likewise recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for researchers and business owners exploring appealing brand-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 originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous purported virtues was an ability to thrive on degraded or "limited" lands; therefore, it was claimed it would never take on food crops, so the theory went.
At that time, jatropha ticked all packages, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that appeared amazing; that can grow without too much fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or too much need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food due to the fact that it is toxic."
Governments, global firms, investors and business bought into the hype, introducing efforts to plant, or promise to plant, countless 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 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 undoubtedly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a global evaluation noted that "growing outpaced 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 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, just 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations began to stop working as anticipated yields refused to materialize. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and endure drought conditions, as claimed, but yields remained bad.
"In my opinion, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under fairly poorer conditions, developed a huge problem," leading to "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise pestered by ecological, social and financial problems, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural areas were reported.
Studies discovered that land-use modification for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico found the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied between two and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon debt might never be recuperated." In India, production showed carbon benefits, however making use of fertilizers led to boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was located on minimal land, however the concept of minimal land is really evasive," 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 definition of "marginal" suggested that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was frequently illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... presently no one is utilizing [land] for farming doesn't suggest that nobody is using it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite imagery."
Learning from jatropha
There are key lessons to be learned from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which ought to be hearkened when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], however sadly not of research study, 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 colleagues released a paper pointing out essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he describes, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This crucial requirement for in advance research might be applied to other potential biofuel crops, he states. In 2015, for instance, his team launched a paper examining the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel guarantee.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and marginal land. But Muys's research study showed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a significant and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge gaps." Use of such cautionary data might avoid inefficient monetary speculation and careless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other very promising trees or plants that might function as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We wanted to avoid [them going] in the exact same instructions of premature hype and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos highlights crucial requirements that must be fulfilled before moving ahead with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a prepared market needs to be offered.
"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 odd."
How biofuel lands are gotten is likewise key, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities should ensure that "guidelines are put in place to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to minimize a few of the problems we observed."
A jatropha return?
Despite all these difficulties, some scientists still believe that under the right conditions, jatropha might be a valuable biofuel service - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I believe jatropha has some possible, but it needs to be the best material, grown in the ideal 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 method that Qatar may lower airline carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its use as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% decrease of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's group 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 (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The implementation of the green belt can actually enhance the soil and farming lands, and protect them versus any more degeneration brought on by dust storms," he states.
But the Qatar job's success still depends upon lots of elements, not least the ability to get quality yields from the tree. Another important step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that uses the whole 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) dealing with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian discusses that years of research and development have actually led to ranges of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were lacking more than a years ago.
"We were able to accelerate the yield cycle, improve the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first task 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 could 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 transport sector that still beckons as the ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has when again reopened 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, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "We think any such expansion will take place, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [enabling] no competitors with food crops, nor in any way threatening food security of any nation."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can genuinely be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends on complex aspects, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state specialists. Then there's the bothersome issue of attaining high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian government announced 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 already in deep difficulty, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which ended up being problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often negative in most of the jatropha websites, due to the fact that 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 stay uncertain of the environmental viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it potentially 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. student with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has actually conducted research study on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega cites past land-use problems related to growth 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 terms of producing ecological issues."
Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based animals feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well suited to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains worried about possible environmental expenses.
He recommends limiting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it only in truly poor soils in need of remediation. "Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in very 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 associated issues are greater than the potential benefits."
Jatropha's worldwide future remains uncertain. And its potential as a tool in the battle versus environment modification can only be unlocked, state many experts, by avoiding the list of troubles connected with its very first boom.
Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian thinks its function as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he states, "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 through Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
A liquid biofuels primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts
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