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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was hugely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on abject lands throughout 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 resulted in 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 guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they say, is reliant on breaking the yield issue and resolving the harmful land-use problems 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 accomplished and a new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start 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 pledge 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 study and advancement, the sole staying big plantation focused on growing jatropha curcas is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha return is on.
"All those companies that failed, adopted a plug-and-play model of hunting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to advertise it, you need to domesticate it. This is a part of the procedure that was missed [throughout 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 an essential role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transport carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A new boom might bring additional benefits, with jatropha likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some researchers are skeptical, noting that jatropha has actually already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution 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 obstructed not only by poor yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil operates.
Experts also suggest that jatropha's tale provides lessons for researchers and business owners exploring promising 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 lawns, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous purported virtues was an ability to grow on degraded or "marginal" lands; thus, it was declared it would never ever take on 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 appeared amazing; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or too much demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food due to the fact that it is harmful."
Governments, worldwide companies, investors and business bought into the buzz, introducing initiatives to plant, or pledge 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 amazing biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Buddies of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high needs for land would certainly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, a global review noted that "cultivation surpassed both scientific understanding of the crop's capacity in addition to an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can grow 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, 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 emerge. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and endure dry spell conditions, as claimed, however yields remained poor.
"In my viewpoint, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under relatively poorer conditions, created a huge problem," leading to "ignored yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise afflicted by environmental, social and financial difficulties, state experts. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural areas 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 associated forest loss varied in between two and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon debt might never ever be recuperated." In India, production revealed carbon benefits, but the usage of fertilizers led to boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you take a look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was positioned on marginal land, but the concept of minimal land is extremely evasive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over numerous years, and discovered that a lax definition of "minimal" implied that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was frequently illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... currently nobody is using [land] for farming doesn't suggest that nobody is utilizing it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you might not always see from satellite images."
Learning from jatropha
There are key lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, say experts, which ought to be heeded when thinking about other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], but sadly not of research study, and action was taken based on 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 hype was unwinding, Muys and coworkers released a paper mentioning essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he discusses, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This vital requirement for upfront research could be applied to other prospective biofuel crops, he states. In 2015, for example, 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 degraded and limited land. But Muys's research study 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 continuing understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary information could prevent wasteful monetary speculation and reckless land conversion for new biofuels.
"There are other very appealing trees or plants that could function as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys states. "We desired to avoid [them going] in the same instructions of premature hype and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos highlights crucial requirements that should be fulfilled before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields must be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set market should be offered.
"Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [scientific understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos states. Jatropha "was virtually undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so strange."
How biofuel lands are obtained is also crucial, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities need to ensure that "guidelines are put in location to inspect how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to minimize a few of the issues we observed."
A jatropha comeback?
Despite all these challenges, some scientists still think that under the best conditions, jatropha might be a valuable biofuel service - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "responsible for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I believe jatropha has some prospective, but it needs to be the best material, grown in the best place, 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 way that Qatar might minimize airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's group is conducting continuous field studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included advantage, 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 agricultural lands, and safeguard them against any additional degeneration brought on by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar job's success still depends upon many factors, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another important action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that utilizes the totality 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 actually led to ranges of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade earlier.
"We were able to accelerate the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and improve the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he specifies, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first job 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 substitute (important in Africa where much wood is still burned for cooking), and even bioplastics.
But it is the transportation 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 total jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be finished, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 elements - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it an extremely strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he says. "We think any such growth will happen, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [enabling] no competition with food crops, nor in any method threatening food security of any nation."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends upon complicated factors, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say experts. Then there's the irritating issue of achieving high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government announced its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels push that has stirred argument over prospective effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep difficulty, having actually been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which became troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often negative in many of the jatropha websites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he explains.
Other scientists chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers stay uncertain of the environmental 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 effective, that we will have a great deal of associated land-use modification," 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 actually carried out research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega mentions past 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 cope with the economic sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of producing environmental issues."
Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages might be well suited to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains worried about potential environmental costs.
He recommends restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it only in genuinely bad soils in requirement of remediation. "Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in very sterilized wastelands," he describes. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery method for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are greater than the prospective benefits."
Jatropha's worldwide future remains uncertain. And its prospective as a tool in the battle versus climate modification can just be unlocked, say numerous specialists, by preventing the list of problems related to its first boom.
Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian thinks its function as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he says, "to work together with us to establish and expand 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 effects
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