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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. A simple 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 took place, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields caused plantation failures almost all over. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.

Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they say, is reliant on breaking the yield issue and addressing the hazardous land-use problems linked with its initial failure.

The sole staying big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been accomplished and a new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds important 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 throughout the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its guarantee as a sustainable source of biofuel that might 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 and development, the sole staying large plantation concentrated on growing jatropha is 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 model of hunting 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 previous failures, he states the oily plant might yet play an essential function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transport carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom could bring additional advantages, with jatropha also a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are hesitant, noting that jatropha has actually currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach complete potential, then it is essential to discover from previous errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not only by bad yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social problems in countries where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale provides 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 stemmed from its guarantee as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from yards, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous supposed virtues was an ability to flourish on degraded or "limited" lands; hence, it was declared it would never take on 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 seemed amazing; that can grow without too much fertilizer, too many pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food because it is poisonous."

Governments, worldwide firms, investors and business purchased into the hype, launching initiatives 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 research study prepared for WWF.

It didn't take wish for the mirage of the incredible 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 demands for land would certainly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation kept in mind that "cultivation outmatched both scientific understanding of the crop's potential in addition to 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, just 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations started to stop working as expected yields refused to materialize. Jatropha could grow on degraded lands and tolerate dry spell conditions, as claimed, however yields remained poor.

"In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and possible to grow under fairly poorer conditions, created an extremely huge issue," leading to "ignored yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.

As jatropha curcas plantations went from boom to bust, they were also pestered by environmental, social and financial difficulties, state professionals. 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 countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania led to a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss ranged in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon financial obligation might never ever be recuperated." In India, production showed carbon advantages, however using fertilizers led to increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you take a look at most of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was located on marginal land, but the idea of marginal land is very elusive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over a number of years, and discovered that a lax definition of "marginal" meant that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying unblemished and unused was frequently illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... presently no one is using [land] for farming doesn't imply that no one is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you might not necessarily see from satellite imagery."

Learning from jatropha

There are essential lessons to be found out from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which need to be observed when thinking about other auspicious second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in financial investment], however regrettably 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 associates released a paper pointing out essential lessons.

Fundamentally, he discusses, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This important requirement for in advance research could be applied to other potential biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for example, his group launched a paper evaluating the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel pledge.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and limited land. But Muys's research revealed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a considerable and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge spaces." Use of such cautionary information could prevent wasteful financial speculation and careless land conversion for new biofuels.

"There are other very appealing trees or plants that could act as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We wished to prevent [them going] in the same direction of early hype and stop working, like jatropha."

Gasparatos highlights crucial requirements that must be met before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields must be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market must be available.

"Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos states. Jatropha "was almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so weird."

How biofuel lands are gotten is likewise key, states Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities need to guarantee that "standards are put in place to check how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to decrease some 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 solution - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "responsible for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I believe jatropha has some possible, but it requires to be the best 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 might reduce airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is performing continuous field research studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can really enhance the soil and agricultural lands, and safeguard them versus any more wear and tear triggered by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar job's success still depends upon lots of aspects, not least the ability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another vital step, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.

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 explains that years of research study and advancement have resulted in varieties of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were lacking more than a decade earlier.

"We were able to quicken the yield cycle, enhance the yield variety and improve the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. "Our first task 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 byproducts might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal alternative (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 ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has once 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 finished, however he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration - makes it an extremely strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "Our company believe any such expansion will take place, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject 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, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends upon intricate factors, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state experts. 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 national biofuels press that has actually stirred argument over prospective consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep problem, having actually been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which ended up being problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often unfavorable in the majority of the jatropha sites, due to the fact that 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 scientists stay skeptical of the eco-friendly 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 change," says 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 performed research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega points out previous land-use issues connected with growth of different crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not deal with the personal sector doing whatever they want, in regards to developing ecological problems."

Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based animals feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages might be well fit to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays concerned about prospective environmental expenses.

He suggests restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in truly poor soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha could be among 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 strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are higher than the potential advantages."

Jatropha's worldwide future remains uncertain. And its prospective as a tool in the fight versus environment modification can only be unlocked, state lots of professionals, by avoiding the litany of problems connected with its first boom.

Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian believes its function 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 establish 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 guide: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts

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