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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on degraded 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 nearly everywhere. The consequences of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, depends on breaking the yield issue and attending to the damaging land-use issues linked with its initial failure.
The sole remaining large jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been achieved 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 start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming shrub-like tree belonging to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its guarantee as a sustainable source of biofuel that could be grown on deteriorated, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields failed.

Now, after years of research and development, the sole remaining big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims 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 process that was missed [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, lowering transport carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A new boom might bring fringe benefits, with jatropha likewise a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are skeptical, keeping in mind that jatropha has already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach full potential, then it is necessary to gain from previous mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by bad yields, but by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in countries where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts likewise 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, major bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal came from its promise as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from yards, trees and other plants not derived from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several purported virtues was an ability to flourish on degraded or "limited" lands; hence, it was declared it would never contend 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 appeared amazing; that can grow without too much fertilizer, too lots of pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food because it is harmful."

Governments, global firms, financiers and business purchased into the hype, introducing efforts 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 prepared for WWF.

It didn't take wish for the mirage of the incredible biofuel tree to fade.

In 2009, a Friends of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha's high demands for land would indeed bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation noted that "cultivation outpaced both clinical understanding of the crop's potential in addition to an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can flourish 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 stop working as expected yields refused to emerge. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as claimed, but yields stayed poor.

"In my opinion, this combination of speculative investment, export-oriented potential, and potential to grow under relatively poorer conditions, developed a really huge issue," leading to "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also plagued by environmental, social and economic problems, say specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural locations were reported.

Studies discovered that land-use change for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss ranged between 2 and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon debt may never be recuperated." In India, production showed carbon advantages, but the use of fertilizers resulted in increases 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 situated on limited land, but the idea of marginal land is extremely elusive," describes 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 discovered that a lax definition of "limited" suggested that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was typically illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The fact that ... currently nobody is using [land] for farming does not indicate that no one is using it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you may not necessarily see from satellite images."

Learning from jatropha

There are essential lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, say analysts, which need to be observed when considering other auspicious second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in financial investment], however unfortunately not of research study, 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 crucial lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This vital requirement for upfront research study could be used to other possible biofuel crops, he states. Last year, for instance, his group launched a paper analyzing 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 marginal land. But Muys's research showed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a substantial and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting knowledge gaps." Use of such cautionary data could prevent wasteful monetary speculation and careless land conversion for new biofuels.

"There are other very promising trees or plants that might function as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys states. "We desired to avoid [them going] in the exact same direction of premature hype and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos underlines vital requirements that must be satisfied before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a prepared market needs to be readily available.

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

How biofuel lands are gotten is likewise key, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were purchased for production, authorities must make sure that "guidelines are put in location to inspect how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to decrease some of the issues we observed."

A jatropha return?

Despite all these difficulties, some scientists still think that under the ideal conditions, jatropha might be a valuable biofuel service - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I think jatropha has some prospective, however it needs to be the best product, grown in the best 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 method that Qatar might minimize 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 tomb" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is performing ongoing field research studies to improve jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added advantage, he envisages a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can actually improve the soil and agricultural lands, and secure them against any additional degeneration brought on by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar project's success still hinges on numerous factors, not least the capability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another vital action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that uses the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing efficiency.

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

"We had the ability to accelerate the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and boost the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. "Our first project is to broaden our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."

Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is looking at. The fruit and its by-products might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal replacement (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 when again resumed with the energy transition drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."

A complete jatropha life-cycle evaluation has yet to be finished, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "Our company believe any such expansion will take location, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [permitting] no competition with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any country."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends on intricate factors, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say professionals. Then there's the bothersome issue of achieving high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels push that has actually stirred debate 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, transformed dry savanna forest, which became bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often negative in most of the jatropha websites, due to the fact that the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he describes.

Other researchers chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists stay uncertain of the eco-friendly practicality of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it potentially ends up being so effective, 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. student with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has conducted research study on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega points out past land-use problems associated with growth of numerous crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not deal with the private sector doing whatever they want, in terms of producing environmental issues."

Researchers in Mexico are currently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well matched to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays concerned about prospective environmental expenses.

He suggests limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it only in truly bad soils in need of restoration. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in extremely sterilized wastelands," he describes. "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 international future remains uncertain. And its prospective as a tool in the battle versus environment modification can only be opened, say many specialists, by preventing the litany of related to its very first boom.

Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian thinks its role as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" and that the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market 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 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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

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