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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 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 caused plantation failures nearly everywhere. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they state, depends on breaking the yield problem and attending to the harmful land-use issues linked with its original failure.
The sole staying big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been attained and a new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback falters, 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 could 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 remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.

"All those business that stopped working, adopted a plug-and-play design of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you require to domesticate it. This is a part of the process that was missed out on [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, minimizing transportation carbon emissions at the global level. A brand-new boom could bring additional advantages, with jatropha likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are hesitant, noting that jatropha has actually currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach full capacity, then it is important to discover from previous errors. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by poor 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 uses lessons for scientists and business owners checking out promising 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 grasses, trees and other plants not derived from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous purported virtues was a capability to flourish on abject or "minimal" lands; hence, it was claimed it would never compete with food crops, so the theory went.

At that time, jatropha ticked all the boxes, 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 too much fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or too much demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food since it is toxic."

Governments, international firms, investors and business purchased into the hype, launching efforts 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 got ready for WWF.

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

In 2009, a Friends of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) warned that jatropha's high needs for land would certainly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, an international review noted that "growing outpaced both clinical 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 prosper 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 began to fail as anticipated yields refused to materialize. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and endure drought conditions, as claimed, but yields stayed poor.

"In my opinion, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and potential to grow under fairly poorer conditions, produced a huge issue," resulting in "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also afflicted by ecological, social and financial problems, say specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural locations were reported.

Studies discovered that land-use change for jatropha curcas in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico found the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss varied between 2 and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon financial obligation might never ever be recuperated." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, however the use of fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you take a look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was positioned on minimal land, but the concept of minimal land is very elusive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the nation over several years, and found that a lax meaning of "marginal" indicated that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying unblemished and unused was frequently illusory.

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

from jatropha

There are crucial lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, say experts, which should be hearkened when thinking about other auspicious second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in investment], but unfortunately not of research, and action was taken based on supposed benefits 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 associates released a paper mentioning essential lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This essential requirement for upfront research might be applied to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for instance, his group launched a paper analyzing the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel promise.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and minimal 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 significant and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary data might avoid inefficient financial speculation and negligent land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

"There are other extremely promising trees or plants that might serve as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys states. "We wanted to avoid [them going] in the exact same direction of premature hype and fail, 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 comprehended, and an all set market should be offered.

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

How biofuel lands are gotten is likewise essential, states Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities must ensure that "guidelines are put in location to inspect how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to reduce a few of the problems we observed."

A jatropha resurgence?

Despite all these obstacles, some scientists still think that under the best conditions, jatropha might be an important biofuel service - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I think jatropha has some potential, but it requires to be the right product, grown in the ideal place, 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 manner in which Qatar might minimize airline carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its usage as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is performing continuous field studies to increase jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he envisages a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can really enhance the soil and agricultural lands, and protect them versus any additional degeneration triggered by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar project's success still depends upon numerous aspects, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another crucial action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that uses the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing efficiency.

Back in Ghana, jOil is currently 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 doing not have more than a decade back.

"We had the ability to accelerate the yield cycle, improve the yield range and boost the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. "Our first task 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 could 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 ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has once again resumed with the energy transition drive for oil companies and bio-refiners - [driven by] the look for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."

A total jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be completed, however 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 air travel," he says. "We think any such growth will take place, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [enabling] 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 accountable depends on 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 specialists. Then there's the unpleasant problem of accomplishing high yields.

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

Many past plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which became bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically unfavorable in the majority of the jatropha sites, because 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 environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists stay skeptical of the environmental viability 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 lot 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 performed research on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega mentions previous land-use problems connected with growth of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not manage the personal sector doing whatever they desire, in regards to producing ecological problems."

Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well matched to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays worried about possible environmental costs.

He suggests limiting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in really bad soils in need of repair. "Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in very sterile wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are higher than the possible advantages."

Jatropha's global future stays unpredictable. And its prospective as a tool in the fight against environment change can just be opened, state many specialists, by avoiding the list of problems connected with its very first boom.

Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian believes its function as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" and that the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he states, "to work together 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 guide: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts

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