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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was extremely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on degraded lands throughout 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 led to plantation failures nearly all over. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was polluted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the incredibly elusive pledge of high-yielding jatropha curcas. A comeback, they state, is dependent on breaking the yield issue and dealing with the harmful land-use concerns linked with its original failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated ranges have been achieved and a brand-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 beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, a simple 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 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 and development, the sole remaining large plantation focused on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha return is on.
"All those business that failed, adopted a plug-and-play model of searching for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to advertise it, you need to domesticate it. This is a part of the process that was missed [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.
Having discovered from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he states the oily plant might yet play a crucial function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transportation carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A new boom might bring extra advantages, with jatropha curcas likewise a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some researchers are doubtful, keeping in mind that jatropha has currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach full capacity, then it is necessary to discover from previous errors. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not just by bad yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil operates.
Experts likewise suggest that jatropha's tale offers lessons for researchers and business owners checking out promising brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, significant bust
jatropha curcas's early 21st-century appeal came from its pledge as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from lawns, trees and other plants not stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several supposed virtues was an ability to thrive on degraded or "minimal" lands; therefore, it was declared it would never 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 seemed amazing; that can grow without too much fertilizer, too numerous pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food since it is dangerous."
Governments, worldwide agencies, financiers and business bought into the buzz, launching efforts 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 amazing biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Pals of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high demands for land would certainly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation kept in mind that "growing outpaced both clinical understanding of the crop's capacity along with an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can flourish on minimal 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 declined to emerge. Jatropha could grow on degraded lands and endure dry spell conditions, as claimed, however yields stayed poor.
"In my viewpoint, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under relatively poorer conditions, produced a really huge problem," resulting in "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also plagued by ecological, social and economic difficulties, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural areas were reported.
Studies found that land-use change for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania led to a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico found the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon financial obligation may never be recovered." In India, production showed carbon benefits, but the usage of fertilizers led to increases 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 positioned on limited land, but the idea of minimal land is really elusive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over several years, and discovered that a lax definition of "marginal" implied that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was often illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... presently no one is utilizing [land] for farming does not suggest that no one 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 ought to be observed when thinking about other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], but unfortunately not of research, and action was taken based upon 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 mentioning essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he discusses, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This crucial requirement for upfront research might be applied to other potential biofuel crops, he states. In 2015, for example, his team 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 degraded and marginal land. But Muys's research study showed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a considerable and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting knowledge gaps." Use of such cautionary information might prevent inefficient financial speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other very promising trees or plants that could serve as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We desired to avoid [them going] in the exact same direction of early hype and fail, like jatropha curcas."
Gasparatos underlines vital requirements that should be met before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a prepared market should be available.
"Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we know how it is grown," Gasparatos says. Jatropha "was virtually undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so strange."
How biofuel lands are gotten is likewise essential, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were bought for production, authorities need to guarantee that "guidelines are put in place to check how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to reduce some of the issues we observed."
A jatropha resurgence?
Despite all these challenges, some scientists still believe that under the ideal conditions, jatropha might be an important biofuel option - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "responsible for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I think jatropha has some potential, but it needs to be the ideal material, 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 way that Qatar may reduce airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its use as a jet fuel could result in about a 40% decrease of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is carrying out continuous field research studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added benefit, he envisages a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The implementation of the green belt can actually improve the soil and agricultural lands, and safeguard them versus any additional degeneration triggered by dust storms," he states.
But the Qatar task's success still depends upon many factors, not least the ability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another crucial step, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the entirety of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.
Back in Ghana, jOil is currently 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 study and development have actually resulted in varieties of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were lacking more than a decade ago.
"We had the ability to speed up the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and boost the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first project is to broaden our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."
Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is taking a look at. The fruit and its by-products 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 transport sector that still beckons as the perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually once again resumed with the energy transition drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the look for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."
A complete jatropha life-cycle evaluation has yet to be completed, but he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two elements - that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he says. "We think any such growth will happen, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [allowing] no competition with food crops, nor in any way threatening food security of any country."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially accountable depends on intricate elements, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say experts. Then there's the irritating issue of accomplishing high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government announced its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels press that has actually stirred dispute over possible consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep trouble, having been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many previous plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which ended up being problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically unfavorable in many of the jatropha websites, because the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he discusses.
Other researchers chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain uncertain of the environmental viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it possibly ends up being 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 carried out research on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega mentions past land-use issues associated with expansion of various crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not handle the personal sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of creating 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 regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains worried about possible ecological expenses.
He suggests limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in truly bad soils in requirement of repair. "Jatropha might be one of those plants that can grow in extremely sterilized wastelands," he explains. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery method for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are greater than the potential benefits."
Jatropha's global future stays unpredictable. And its possible as a tool in the fight versus environment change can only be opened, state lots of experts, by avoiding the list of troubles associated with its first boom.
Will jatropha tasks 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 resurgence 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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