Jatropha: The Biofuel That Bombed Seeks A Path To Redemption

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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree native to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on degraded lands throughout 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 nearly all over. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.

Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, is reliant on breaking the yield issue and resolving the damaging land-use problems linked with its original failure.

The sole staying big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have been accomplished and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.


At the beginning 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 degraded, 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 staying large plantation focused on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha return is on.


"All those companies that failed, adopted a plug-and-play model of scouting for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This belongs of the procedure 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 says the oily plant could yet play a crucial function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, lowering transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.


But some scientists are skeptical, noting that jatropha has already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach complete potential, then it is important to gain from past mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by bad yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social problems in countries where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil operates.


Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale provides lessons for researchers and entrepreneurs exploring appealing new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.


Miracle shrub, major 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 several supposed virtues was a capability to prosper on degraded or "marginal" lands; hence, it was claimed it would never ever 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 appeared incredible; that can grow without too much fertilizer, too lots 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 poisonous."


Governments, global firms, financiers and business bought into the buzz, introducing 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 long for the mirage of the miraculous biofuel tree to fade.


In 2009, a Friends of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha's high needs for land would indeed bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, an international review noted that "cultivation exceeded both clinical understanding of the crop's potential along with an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can flourish 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, just 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations began to stop working as anticipated yields declined to materialize. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and endure drought conditions, as declared, but yields stayed poor.


"In my opinion, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and possible to grow under fairly poorer conditions, created a really huge problem," leading to "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.


As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise pestered by environmental, social and financial troubles, say experts. Accusations 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 countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss varied in between two and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon financial obligation might never be recovered." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, but using fertilizers led to boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."


"If you take a look at most of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was positioned on minimal land, but the concept of marginal land is extremely evasive," 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 "minimal" meant that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying unblemished and unused was frequently illusory.


"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... presently no one is utilizing [land] for farming doesn't mean that nobody 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 essential lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, say experts, which ought to be observed when thinking about 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 benefits of jatropha," states Bart Muys, a teacher in the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014, as the jatropha buzz was unwinding, Muys and colleagues released a paper mentioning essential lessons.


Fundamentally, he describes, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This crucial requirement for in advance research might be used to other possible biofuel crops, he states. In 2015, for example, his group released a paper examining the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel promise.


Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and marginal land. But Muys's research showed 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 persisting understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary data could avoid wasteful monetary speculation and careless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.


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


Gasparatos underlines essential requirements that must be met before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields must be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set market needs to be available.


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


How biofuel lands are gotten is also crucial, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities must guarantee that "guidelines are put in place to check how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to decrease some of the problems we observed."


A jatropha return?


Despite all these obstacles, some scientists still think that under the right conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel solution - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."


"I believe jatropha has some potential, but it needs to be the ideal material, grown in the right location, 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 decrease airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.


Alherbawi's group is conducting ongoing field research studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can actually improve the soil and agricultural lands, and secure them versus any further degeneration triggered by dust storms," he states.


But the Qatar project's success still hinges on lots of factors, not least the capability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another essential step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that uses the entirety of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.


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 explains that years of research and development have actually led to ranges 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, improve the yield range and improve the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first task 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 might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal substitute (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 perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually as soon as again reopened with the energy transition 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 connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 elements - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a really strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "We think any such expansion will happen, [by clarifying] the definition of abject land, [permitting] 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 upon complicated aspects, including where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state experts. Then there's the irritating problem of achieving high yields.


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


Many previous in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which ended up being troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently negative in many 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 describes.


Other researchers chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically 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 potentially ends up being so effective, 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. trainee with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has conducted research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.


Avila-Ortega mentions past land-use issues related to expansion of different crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not handle the economic sector doing whatever they want, in terms of producing environmental problems."


Researchers in Mexico are currently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages might be well suited to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays worried about possible environmental expenses.


He suggests restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in really bad soils in need of remediation. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in really sterile wastelands," he explains. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing method for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are greater than the prospective advantages."


Jatropha's global future stays uncertain. And its possible as a tool in the fight against environment modification can just be opened, say numerous professionals, by preventing the litany of problems connected with its very first boom.


Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian believes its function as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" and that the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he states, "to collaborate 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).


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