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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was extremely 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 everywhere. The consequences of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they say, is dependent on cracking the yield problem and attending to the hazardous land-use problems linked with its initial failure.
The sole staying big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start 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 promise as a sustainable source of biofuel that might 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 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, embraced a plug-and-play model of hunting for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to advertise it, you require to domesticate it. This belongs of the process that was missed [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.
Having found out from the mistakes 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 worldwide level. A brand-new boom could bring additional advantages, with jatropha likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some researchers are skeptical, keeping in mind that jatropha has 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 mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not just by bad yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in countries where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil operates.
Experts likewise recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for researchers and business owners exploring appealing brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, major bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal came from its guarantee as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from grasses, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several purported virtues was an ability to prosper on abject or "minimal" lands; hence, it was claimed it would never ever complete with food crops, so the theory went.
At that time, jatropha ticked all packages, 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 excessive fertilizer, too many pesticides, or too much need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not complete with food due to the fact that it is poisonous."
Governments, global agencies, investors and companies bought into the hype, launching efforts 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 study got ready for WWF.
It didn't take long for the mirage of the miraculous 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 certainly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international review kept in mind that "growing exceeded 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 thrive 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, only 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations began to stop working as expected yields refused to materialize. Jatropha might grow on degraded lands and endure drought conditions, as claimed, but yields remained bad.
"In my opinion, this combination of speculative investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under fairly poorer conditions, created a really huge issue," leading to "ignored yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also pestered by ecological, social and financial problems, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural areas were reported.
Studies found that land-use modification 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 in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon debt may never be recuperated." In India, production showed carbon advantages, but making use of fertilizers resulted in increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was situated on marginal land, but the idea of marginal land is really elusive," explains 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 found that a lax meaning of "limited" meant that assumptions 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 ... currently no one is utilizing [land] for farming does not mean that no one is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you might not necessarily see from satellite images."
Learning from jatropha
There are key lessons to be discovered from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which must be hearkened when considering other auspicious second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], but unfortunately 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 buzz was winding down, Muys and colleagues published a paper citing key lessons.
Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This essential requirement for in advance research study might be used to other prospective biofuel crops, he states. Last year, for instance, his group released a paper analyzing the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species" with biofuel promise.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and marginal land. But Muys's research study revealed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a substantial and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary information might avoid inefficient monetary speculation and reckless land conversion for new biofuels.
"There are other extremely appealing trees or plants that could work as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys states. "We desired to avoid [them going] in the very same instructions of early hype and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos underlines vital requirements that need to be satisfied before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields must be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market must be readily available.
"Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos says. Jatropha "was almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so odd."
How biofuel lands are acquired is likewise key, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were acquired for production, authorities need to make sure that "guidelines are put in place to inspect how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to reduce a few of the problems we observed."
A jatropha return?
Despite all these obstacles, some researchers still believe that under the best conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel solution - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "responsible for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I believe jatropha has some potential, but it requires to be the ideal product, grown in the right 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 manner in which Qatar may decrease airline company carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its usage as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is conducting continuous field research studies to boost 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 truly improve the soil and agricultural lands, and secure them versus any additional degeneration triggered by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar project's success still hinges on many aspects, not least the capability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another crucial action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that uses the entirety 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) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian describes that years of research and development have resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were lacking more than a decade earlier.
"We had the ability to quicken 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 taking a look at. The fruit and its by-products 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 actually when again resumed with the energy shift drive for oil companies and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."
A complete jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be finished, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two aspects - that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration - makes it an extremely strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he states. "We think any such growth will occur, [by clarifying] the definition of abject land, [enabling] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method threatening food security of any country."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can genuinely be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends on intricate factors, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say professionals. Then there's the nagging problem of achieving high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government announced its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has actually stirred dispute over potential consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep problem, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which ended up being troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently unfavorable in many 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 explains.
Other scientists chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain skeptical 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 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 carried out research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega cites past land-use issues related to expansion of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not handle the personal sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of producing environmental problems."
Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages might be well suited to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays worried about potential environmental expenses.
He recommends restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in really poor soils in need of remediation. "Jatropha might be one of those plants that can grow in extremely sterile wastelands," he explains. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are higher than the possible benefits."
Jatropha's worldwide future remains unsure. And its potential as a tool in the fight against environment modification can just be opened, state numerous professionals, by preventing the litany of problems related to its very first boom.
Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian believes its role as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" 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 broaden the supply chain of jatropha."
Banner image: Jatropha curcas trees in Hawai'i. Image by Forest and Kim Starr by means of Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
A liquid biofuels primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts
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