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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was extremely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on abject lands across 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 all over. The aftermath 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 promise of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they state, depends on breaking the yield problem and addressing the damaging land-use problems linked with its initial failure.
The sole remaining large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have been attained and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds crucial lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, a simple shrub-like tree belonging to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its promise 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 failed.

Now, after years of research study and development, the sole staying big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.

"All those business that stopped working, embraced a plug-and-play design of hunting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This belongs of the process that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.

Having learned from the mistakes of jatropha's past failures, he states the oily plant might yet play an essential role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transport carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A new boom might bring fringe benefits, with jatropha likewise a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists 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 previous mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by bad yields, but by land grabbing, deforestation, and social problems in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts also suggest that jatropha's tale provides lessons for researchers and business owners checking out appealing brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, major bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal stemmed from its promise 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 a capability to thrive on abject or "marginal" lands; therefore, it was declared it would never take on 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 seemed incredible; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, too many pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not compete with food since it is poisonous."

Governments, international companies, financiers and business purchased into the hype, introducing efforts to plant, or promise 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 study got ready 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) warned that jatropha's high demands for land would certainly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a global evaluation noted that "cultivation surpassed both clinical 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 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, only 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations started to stop working as anticipated yields refused to materialize. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and spell conditions, as claimed, however yields stayed bad.

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

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also afflicted by environmental, social and economic difficulties, say experts. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural locations were reported.

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

"If you look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was situated on limited land, however the concept of minimal land is really evasive," explains Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over numerous years, and found that a lax meaning of "marginal" implied that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying unblemished and unused was often illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... currently no one is using [land] for farming does not imply that no one is using it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you might not necessarily see from satellite imagery."

Learning from jatropha

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

"There was a boom [in financial investment], but unfortunately not of research, and action was taken based on alleged benefits of jatropha," states 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 colleagues released a paper pointing out key lessons.

Fundamentally, he discusses, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This vital requirement for in advance research could be used to other potential biofuel crops, he states. In 2015, for example, his team released a paper evaluating the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species" with biofuel pledge.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and limited land. But Muys's research study showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a considerable and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge gaps." Use of such cautionary information might avoid wasteful monetary speculation and negligent land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

"There are other very appealing trees or plants that could work as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We wished to prevent [them going] in the exact same direction of premature hype and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos underlines important requirements that must be fulfilled before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields should be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market should be readily available.

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

How biofuel lands are gotten is also key, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities should ensure that "guidelines are put in location to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to minimize some of the problems we observed."

A jatropha return?

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

"I think jatropha has some possible, however it requires to be the best 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 reduce airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its use as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is carrying out ongoing field 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 boost the soil and agricultural lands, and protect them against any additional wear and tear brought on by dust storms," he states.

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

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) 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 lacking more than a decade ago.

"We had the ability to accelerate the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and boost the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. "Our first project 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 ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has 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 complete jatropha life-cycle evaluation has yet to be completed, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two elements - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "We think any such expansion will happen, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [permitting] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any nation."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends upon complicated elements, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state experts. Then there's the unpleasant problem of achieving high yields.

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

Many past plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which became bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically negative in most of the jatropha websites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he explains.

Other researchers chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists stay 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 effective, that we will have a lot of associated land-use modification," says Daniel Itzamna Avila-Ortega, co-founder of the Mexican Center of Industrial Ecology and a Ph.D. student with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has conducted research study on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega cites past land-use problems associated with expansion of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not deal with the private sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of producing environmental issues."

Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based livestock feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well suited to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays concerned about possible environmental costs.

He recommends limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it only in genuinely poor soils in need of remediation. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in really sterile wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated issues are higher than the prospective advantages."

Jatropha's international future remains unpredictable. And its possible as a tool in the battle versus climate modification can only be unlocked, say numerous experts, by preventing the litany of troubles related to its very first boom.

Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian believes its function as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" which the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he says, "to collaborate 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 through Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

A liquid biofuels primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world effects

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