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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was hugely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on degraded 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 led to 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 incredibly elusive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they say, is dependent on cracking the yield problem and addressing the harmful land-use issues linked with its original failure.

The sole staying large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have actually been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds important lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.


At the beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, a simple shrub-like tree native to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its promise 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 remaining big plantation focused on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha return is on.

"All those business that stopped working, embraced 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 out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.

Having gained from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he states the oily plant could yet play a crucial function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom might bring additional advantages, with jatropha also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are hesitant, noting that jatropha has currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach full capacity, then it is important to gain from previous mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not only by bad yields, but by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in countries where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil operates.

Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for scientists and entrepreneurs checking out appealing 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 turfs, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its multiple purported virtues was an ability to prosper on degraded or "minimal" lands; hence, it was declared it would never contend with food crops, so the theory went.

At that time, jatropha ticked all packages, says Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that appeared miraculous; 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 toxic."

Governments, global agencies, financiers and business bought into the buzz, releasing 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 got ready for WWF.

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

In 2009, a Pals of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high demands for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide review noted that "cultivation surpassed both scientific understanding of the crop's capacity as well as an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can grow on marginal 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 started to fail as anticipated yields declined to materialize. Jatropha could grow on degraded lands and tolerate dry spell conditions, as claimed, however yields stayed bad.

"In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under fairly poorer conditions, created a huge issue," resulting in "ignored yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise plagued by environmental, social and financial troubles, say professionals. 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 nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico found the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss ranged in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon financial obligation may never ever be recovered." In India, production showed carbon benefits, however making use of fertilizers resulted in increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you take a look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was located on marginal land, but the idea of marginal land is very evasive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over several years, and found that a lax definition of "limited" suggested that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was often illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... presently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming doesn't suggest that no one is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite imagery."

Learning from jatropha

There are crucial lessons to be learned from the experience with jatropha, say analysts, which should be observed when thinking about other advantageous second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in financial investment], however regrettably not of research study, and action was taken based on 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 associates released a paper mentioning crucial lessons.

Fundamentally, he describes, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This vital requirement for in advance research study could be applied to other possible biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for instance, 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 limited land. But Muys's research study revealed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a substantial and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary data could prevent inefficient monetary speculation and careless land conversion for new biofuels.

"There are other really promising trees or plants that might act as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We wanted to avoid [them going] in the same instructions of premature buzz and stop working, like jatropha."

Gasparatos highlights crucial requirements that should be met before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields should be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set 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 also key, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities must make sure that "standards are put in place to inspect how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to minimize some of the issues we observed."

A jatropha resurgence?

Despite all these challenges, some scientists still believe that under the best conditions, jatropha might be an important biofuel solution - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "responsible for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I believe jatropha has some potential, but it needs to be the ideal product, grown in the ideal location, and so on," Muys said.

Mohammad Alherbawi, a postdoctoral research fellow at Qatar's Hamad Bin Khalifa University, continues holding out hope for jatropha. He sees it as a method that Qatar might lower airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its use as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is performing ongoing field research studies to increase jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can really improve the soil and farming lands, and safeguard them versus any more wear and tear brought on by dust storms," he states.

But the Qatar project's success still hinges on many elements, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another vital step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that uses 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) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian discusses that years of research and development have actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were doing not have more than a years back.

"We had the ability to speed up the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and boost the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he mentions, 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 looking at. The fruit and its by-products might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal replacement (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 perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually as soon as again resumed 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 evaluation has yet to be completed, but he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two elements - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he states. "We believe any such growth will happen, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [allowing] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any country."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially accountable depends on complex aspects, including 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 irritating problem of accomplishing high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government revealed its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels push that has stirred dispute over potential repercussions. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep trouble, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which ended up being bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically negative in the majority of the jatropha sites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he explains.

Other researchers chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists remain doubtful of the environmental viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it possibly becomes so successful, 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 points out previous land-use issues related to growth of various crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not deal with the private sector doing whatever they desire, in regards to developing environmental problems."

Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well suited to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains worried about prospective environmental expenses.

He recommends restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it only in genuinely poor soils in need of remediation. "Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in very sterile wastelands," he explains. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery method for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated issues are greater than the potential advantages."

Jatropha's worldwide future remains uncertain. And its prospective as a tool in the battle versus climate change can just be opened, state numerous professionals, by preventing the list of troubles connected with its very first boom.

Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its role 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 develop and broaden 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 primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts

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