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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was hugely 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 resulted in plantation failures almost all over. 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 evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they say, is reliant on cracking the yield problem and resolving the harmful land-use concerns linked with its initial failure.
The sole staying big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have been achieved and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds important lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning 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 promise 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 advancement, the sole remaining large plantation concentrated on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha comeback is on.
"All those companies that failed, embraced a plug-and-play design of scouting for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to advertise it, you require to domesticate it. This is a part of the procedure that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.
Having discovered from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he says the oily plant might yet play a crucial role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some researchers are hesitant, keeping in mind 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 learn from past mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not only by bad yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social problems 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 promising brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, significant bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal came from its pledge as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from yards, trees and other plants not obtained from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several supposed virtues was an ability to grow on abject or "marginal" lands; thus, it was declared it would never ever 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 excessive fertilizer, too many pesticides, or too much need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food because it is dangerous."
Governments, global agencies, financiers and companies bought into the buzz, introducing initiatives 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 research study got ready for WWF.
It didn't take wish for the mirage of the amazing biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Buddies 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 conflict with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide review noted that "growing outpaced both scientific understanding of the crop's capacity in addition to an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can prosper on limited 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 began to fail as anticipated yields declined to materialize. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and endure drought conditions, as declared, but yields remained bad.
"In my opinion, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and possible to grow under relatively poorer conditions, developed a very huge problem," resulting in "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 difficulties, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural areas were reported.
Studies discovered that land-use change for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss varied in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon debt might never ever be recovered." In India, production showed carbon advantages, but the use of fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you take a look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was located on minimal land, however the concept of minimal land is very elusive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over numerous years, and found that a lax meaning of "limited" indicated that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was often illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... currently no one is using [land] for farming doesn't 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 key lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, say analysts, which ought to be followed when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], but unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based upon supposed 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 associates published a paper pointing out key lessons.
Fundamentally, he describes, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This essential requirement for upfront research study could be used to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for example, his team released a paper analyzing 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 minimal land. But Muys's research study revealed yields to be extremely 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 avoid wasteful monetary speculation and careless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other extremely promising trees or plants that could work as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We wanted to prevent [them going] in the very same instructions of premature hype and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines important requirements that should be satisfied before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields should be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set market must be offered.
"Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [scientific understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos says. Jatropha "was almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so weird."
How biofuel lands are obtained is also crucial, states Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities must make sure that "standards are put in place to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to lower a few of the issues we observed."
A jatropha resurgence?
Despite all these challenges, some researchers still believe that under the best conditions, jatropha might be an important biofuel option - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "accountable for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I believe jatropha has some potential, but it needs to be the best material, grown in the ideal location, 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 minimize airline company carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its use as a jet fuel could result in about a 40% reduction 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 included benefit, he envisages a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can really enhance the soil and farming lands, and protect them against any further degeneration triggered by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar task's success still depends upon numerous elements, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another vital step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that uses the whole 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 discusses that years of research study and development have led to varieties of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade back.
"We were able to speed up the yield cycle, improve the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian states. 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 looking at. The fruit and its by-products could 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 when again reopened with the energy shift drive for oil companies 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, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 elements - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a really strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "We believe any such expansion 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 nation."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially accountable depends on complicated aspects, consisting of 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 objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels press that has actually stirred debate over potential consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep trouble, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many previous plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, converted dry savanna woodland, which became troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically negative in many of the jatropha websites, because 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 environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain skeptical of the ecological viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it perhaps ends up being so successful, that we will have a great deal of associated land-use change," 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 actually conducted research study on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega points out previous land-use issues associated with growth of different crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not manage the personal sector doing whatever they want, in terms of creating ecological issues."
Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well matched to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains concerned about possible ecological expenses.
He recommends restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in really bad soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in very sterile wastelands," he describes. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated problems are higher than the possible benefits."
Jatropha's international future remains uncertain. And its prospective as a tool in the fight versus environment modification can only be opened, say numerous specialists, by preventing the litany of troubles related to its first boom.
Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian thinks its function as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" and that the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he states, "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 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
A liquid biofuels primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world effects
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