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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree belonging 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 occurred, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields led to plantation failures almost all over. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the incredibly elusive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they say, depends on breaking the yield issue and resolving the damaging land-use problems linked with its original failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have been attained and a new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence 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, 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 could be grown on broken down, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields fell flat.
Now, after years of research study and advancement, the sole staying large plantation focused on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.
"All those companies that failed, adopted a plug-and-play design of scouting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to advertise it, you need to domesticate it. This belongs of the procedure that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.
Having discovered from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he states the oily plant might yet play a key function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transportation carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A brand-new boom might bring additional benefits, with jatropha also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some researchers are hesitant, noting that jatropha has actually already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach full capacity, then it is necessary to find out from previous errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by bad yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social problems in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts also suggest that jatropha's tale offers lessons for scientists and entrepreneurs checking out promising brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, significant bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal originated from its promise as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from grasses, trees and other plants not derived from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its multiple supposed virtues was a capability to grow on degraded or "marginal" lands; thus, it was claimed 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 miraculous; that can grow without too much fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or too much demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food because it is poisonous."
Governments, worldwide agencies, investors and companies purchased into the buzz, releasing initiatives to plant, or guarantee 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 research study got ready for WWF.
It didn't take long for the mirage of the amazing biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Buddies of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high demands for land would indeed bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international review noted that "cultivation exceeded both scientific understanding of the crop's potential 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 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 stop working as anticipated yields declined to emerge. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and endure dry spell conditions, as declared, however yields stayed bad.
"In my opinion, this combination of speculative investment, export-oriented potential, and possible to grow under relatively poorer conditions, created a very big problem," leading to "undervalued yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also pestered by ecological, social and economic problems, state experts. 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 nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon debt might never be recovered." In India, production showed carbon benefits, however the use of fertilizers led to increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was situated on minimal land, but the idea of minimal land is really elusive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over several years, and found that a lax meaning 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 truth that ... presently nobody is using [land] for farming does not indicate that nobody is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you might not always see from satellite images."
Learning from jatropha
There are crucial lessons to be learned from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which need to be followed when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], but sadly not of research, and action was taken based upon alleged advantages of jatropha," says Bart Muys, a professor in the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014, as the jatropha hype was unwinding, Muys and colleagues released a paper citing essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he explains, there was an absence of knowledge about the plant itself and its requirements. This essential requirement for in advance research study could be applied to other possible 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 species" with biofuel guarantee.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and limited land. But Muys's research study showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a substantial and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary information could prevent wasteful monetary speculation and reckless land conversion for 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 prevent [them going] in the very same direction of early hype and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines crucial requirements that need to be satisfied before moving ahead with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields must be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market should 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 practically undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so unusual."
How biofuel lands are gotten is also essential, states Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities must make sure that "guidelines are put in place to check how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to minimize some of the problems we observed."
A jatropha return?
Despite all these obstacles, some researchers still think that under the best conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel option - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "accountable for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I think jatropha has some potential, however it needs to be the best product, grown in the right place, and so on," Muys stated.
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 method that Qatar might lower airline company carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% decrease of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is performing ongoing field research studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The implementation of the green belt can actually improve the soil and agricultural lands, and safeguard them against any more deterioration triggered by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar project's success still hinges on numerous factors, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another important action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that utilizes 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 resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade back.
"We were able to hasten 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 replacement (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 ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually as soon as again resumed with the energy shift drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the look for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."
A complete jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be completed, however he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two aspects - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it an extremely strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "Our company believe any such expansion will take location, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [allowing] no competition with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any nation."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can genuinely be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends upon intricate elements, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state professionals. Then there's the nagging issue of accomplishing high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has stirred dispute over prospective effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep difficulty, having actually been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which ended up being troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often negative in many of the jatropha sites, 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 scientists stay uncertain of the ecological practicality of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it perhaps becomes so effective, 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 points out previous land-use issues related to expansion of different crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not cope with the private sector doing whatever they want, in terms of producing ecological issues."
Researchers in Mexico are currently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well fit to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays concerned about potential ecological costs.
He suggests restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in genuinely poor soils in need of restoration. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in extremely 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 associated problems are greater than the prospective advantages."
Jatropha's global future remains unsure. And its possible as a tool in the fight versus climate modification can only be unlocked, state numerous professionals, by preventing the litany of troubles associated with its first boom.
Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian believes its role as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" and that the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he says, "to work together 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 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
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