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Earlier this century, jatropha curcas was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was hugely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on degraded lands across Latin America, Africa and Asia.

A jatropha rush occurred, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields led to plantation failures nearly everywhere. The consequences of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.

Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, is dependent on cracking the yield problem and resolving the harmful land-use concerns intertwined with its initial failure.

The sole remaining big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have been attained and a new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds important 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 guarantee as a sustainable source of biofuel that could be grown on deteriorated, 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 remaining big plantation focused on growing jatropha curcas remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha comeback is on.

"All those business that failed, adopted a plug-and-play design of scouting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to advertise it, you require to domesticate it. This belongs of the procedure that was missed out on [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.

Having gained from the mistakes of jatropha's previous failures, he says the oily plant could yet play a key function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transport carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom could bring fringe 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 complete capacity, then it is vital to gain from past errors. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not only by poor yields, but by land grabbing, deforestation, and social problems in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts likewise suggest that jatropha's tale offers lessons for scientists and business owners checking out promising brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, significant bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal stemmed from its promise as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from grasses, trees and other plants not obtained from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous supposed virtues was a capability to flourish on abject or "minimal" lands; therefore, it was claimed it would never ever take on 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 incredible; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or too much need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food due to the fact that it is poisonous."

Governments, worldwide agencies, financiers and business bought into the buzz, introducing initiatives to plant, or pledge 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 prepared for WWF.

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

In 2009, a Buddies of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high needs for land would indeed bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide evaluation 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 flourish 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 expected yields declined to materialize. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and endure dry spell conditions, as declared, but yields stayed poor.

"In my viewpoint, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, created a very huge issue," leading to "ignored yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.

As jatropha curcas plantations went from boom to bust, they were also pestered by ecological, social and economic troubles, state professionals. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural locations were reported.

Studies found that land-use modification for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico found the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss varied in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon debt may never be recovered." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, however making use of fertilizers led to increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you take a look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was positioned on minimal land, however the idea of limited land is very evasive," explains 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 definition of "limited" meant that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was frequently illusory.

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

Learning from jatropha

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

"There was a boom [in investment], however unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based upon supposed 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 colleagues released a paper citing key lessons.

Fundamentally, he describes, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This essential requirement for upfront research might be used to other potential biofuel crops, he states. Last year, for instance, his team launched a paper analyzing the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species" with biofuel promise.

Like jatropha curcas, pongamia can be grown on degraded and marginal 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 considerable and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary data could avoid inefficient financial speculation and reckless land conversion for new biofuels.

"There are other extremely appealing trees or plants that could serve as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We wished to avoid [them going] in the very same instructions of early buzz and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos underlines important requirements that need to be met before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields should be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a ready market needs to be readily available.

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

How biofuel lands are obtained is also crucial, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities should ensure that "standards are put in location to inspect how massive land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to minimize some of the issues we observed."

A jatropha curcas resurgence?

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

"I think jatropha has some possible, but it requires to be the ideal material, 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 method that Qatar may lower airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its use as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% decrease of "cradle to tomb" emissions.

Alherbawi's team is performing ongoing field research 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 implementation of the green belt can truly boost the soil and farming lands, and safeguard them against any additional degeneration triggered by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar job's success still depends upon numerous aspects, not least the ability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another crucial step, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production innovation that uses the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing efficiency.

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 explains that years of research and advancement have led to ranges of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade earlier.

"We were able to accelerate the yield cycle, enhance the yield variety and boost the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first job 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 could 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 transport sector that still beckons as the ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually when again reopened with the energy shift drive for oil business 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, but he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a really strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "Our company believe any such growth will happen, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [permitting] no competition with food crops, nor in any way endangering food security of any country."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially accountable depends on intricate elements, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state experts. Then there's the bothersome issue 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 push that has actually stirred argument over prospective consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep difficulty, having actually been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which ended up being troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically negative 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 ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers stay uncertain of the ecological viability 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 modification," 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 mentions past land-use problems associated with expansion of different crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not cope with the economic sector doing whatever they want, in terms of creating environmental 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 fit to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays worried about possible ecological expenses.

He suggests limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in truly poor soils in need of restoration. "Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in very sterilized wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated problems are greater than the potential advantages."

Jatropha's international future stays uncertain. And its potential as a tool in the fight versus climate modification can just be unlocked, say many professionals, by avoiding the litany of difficulties associated with its very first boom.

Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian thinks 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 establish 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).

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