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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might 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 caused plantation failures almost all over. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was polluted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, is reliant on cracking the yield issue and attending to the damaging land-use issues intertwined with its original failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been accomplished and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming shrub-like tree native to Central America, was planted across 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 failed.

Now, after years of research study and development, the sole staying big plantation focused on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.

"All those business that failed, embraced a plug-and-play model of scouting for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to advertise it, you require to domesticate it. This belongs of the procedure that was missed out on [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.

Having gained from the errors of jatropha's past failures, he states the oily plant might yet play an essential role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transport carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A new boom might bring additional benefits, with jatropha likewise a possible 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 warn that if the plant is to reach full capacity, then it is necessary to gain from past errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not only by bad yields, but 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 exploring promising new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, significant bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal came 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 a capability to grow on degraded or "marginal" lands; thus, it was claimed it would never compete with food crops, so the theory went.

Back then, 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, a lot of pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not complete with food due to the fact that it is dangerous."

Governments, global firms, investors and business purchased into the buzz, introducing initiatives 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 long 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) warned that jatropha's high needs for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation kept in mind that "cultivation surpassed both clinical understanding of the crop's potential as well as an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can grow 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, only 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations started to stop working as expected yields declined to materialize. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as declared, but yields stayed bad.

"In my opinion, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, created a really big issue," resulting in "undervalued yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also afflicted by ecological, social and economic difficulties, state professionals. of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural locations were reported.

Studies discovered that land-use modification for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss ranged between 2 and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon financial obligation might never be recovered." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, but 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 located on marginal land, but the concept of limited land is very 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 discovered that a lax definition of "limited" meant that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying unblemished and unused was often illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... currently no one is using [land] for farming does not indicate that no one is using it [for other purposes] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite images."

Learning from jatropha

There are crucial lessons to be learned from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which should be hearkened when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in financial investment], however sadly not of research, and action was taken based upon supposed advantages 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 winding down, Muys and colleagues released a paper mentioning crucial lessons.

Fundamentally, he describes, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This crucial requirement for in advance research could be applied to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for example, his team launched a paper examining 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 revealed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a considerable and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary data could avoid inefficient financial speculation and negligent land conversion for new biofuels.

"There are other extremely appealing trees or plants that could work as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We wanted to avoid [them going] in the very same direction of early hype and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos underlines important requirements that should be fulfilled before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a prepared market needs to be offered.

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

How biofuel lands are acquired is likewise essential, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities should guarantee that "standards are put in location to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to lower some of the problems we observed."

A jatropha resurgence?

Despite all these challenges, some scientists still believe that under the best conditions, jatropha could be a valuable biofuel service - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I think jatropha has some potential, however it requires to be the best material, grown in the ideal location, and so on," Muys said.

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 manner in which Qatar might decrease 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 team is conducting ongoing field research studies to increase jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The implementation of the green belt can really improve the soil and farming lands, and safeguard them versus any more degeneration triggered by dust storms," he states.

But the Qatar project's success still depends upon lots of elements, not least the ability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another important action, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.

Back in Ghana, jOil is presently managing 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 describes that years of research study and development have actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were lacking more than a decade back.

"We were able to accelerate the yield cycle, enhance the yield variety and boost the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he mentions, 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 taking a look at. The fruit and its by-products could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal alternative (crucial 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 actually as soon as again reopened with the energy shift drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."

A total jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be finished, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two aspects - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a really strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he states. "Our company believe any such growth will take place, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [allowing] no competition with food crops, nor in any way endangering food security of any nation."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends on complex aspects, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say specialists. Then there's the unpleasant issue of accomplishing high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has stirred argument over potential effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep difficulty, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which ended up being troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically unfavorable in the majority of the jatropha websites, because the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he discusses.

Other scientists chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain doubtful of the eco-friendly 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 great deal 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 performed research study on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega mentions previous land-use issues related to expansion of numerous crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not manage the private sector doing whatever they desire, in regards to developing ecological problems."

Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages might be well matched to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays worried about potential environmental expenses.

He suggests restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it only in genuinely poor soils in requirement of remediation. "Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in extremely sterile wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated problems are greater than the possible advantages."

Jatropha's worldwide future stays uncertain. And its possible as a tool in the fight versus climate change can only be opened, state many experts, by preventing the list of problems associated with its first boom.

Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its role as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he says, "to team up 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 through Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

A liquid biofuels guide: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world effects

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