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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was extremely 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 caused plantation failures nearly everywhere. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they say, is dependent on breaking the yield issue and addressing the harmful land-use concerns intertwined with its initial failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner claims 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 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 guarantee 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 and advancement, the sole remaining large plantation concentrated on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha curcas comeback is on.

"All those companies that failed, adopted a plug-and-play model of hunting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you require to domesticate it. This is a part of the procedure that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.

Having discovered from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he states the oily plant could yet play an essential role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transport carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are hesitant, keeping in mind that jatropha has actually already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach complete potential, then it is vital to gain from past mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by bad yields, but by land grabbing, logging, 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 promising new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, significant bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal originated from its guarantee as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from turfs, trees and other plants not stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous supposed virtues was an ability to prosper on degraded or "marginal" lands; thus, it was declared it would never complete with food crops, so the theory went.

Back then, 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, too lots of pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food because it is poisonous."

Governments, worldwide firms, investors and business purchased into the hype, releasing efforts to plant, or guarantee 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 study prepared 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) cautioned that jatropha's high demands for land would indeed bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a global review noted that "cultivation surpassed both clinical understanding of the crop's potential along with an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can flourish on limited lands."

Projections estimated 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 refused to emerge. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as declared, however yields stayed poor.

"In my opinion, this combination of speculative investment, export-oriented potential, and potential to grow under fairly poorer conditions, produced an extremely big issue," resulting in "undervalued yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise plagued by ecological, social and financial difficulties, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural areas were reported.

Studies found that land-use change for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss varied in between two and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon debt may never ever be recovered." In India, production showed carbon advantages, but making use of fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was positioned on limited land, however the concept of marginal land is really evasive," explains 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 meaning of "minimal" suggested that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying unblemished and unused was often illusory.

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

Learning from jatropha

There are key lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which should be heeded when considering other auspicious 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 professor in the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014, as the jatropha buzz was unwinding, Muys and associates published a paper mentioning key lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This essential requirement for upfront research could be applied to other prospective biofuel crops, he states. In 2015, for example, his team launched a paper evaluating 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 marginal land. But Muys's research showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a substantial and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting knowledge gaps." Use of such cautionary data could prevent inefficient financial speculation and reckless land conversion for new biofuels.

"There are other really promising trees or plants that could serve as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys states. "We desired to prevent [them going] in the same instructions of premature hype and stop working, like jatropha."

Gasparatos underlines vital requirements that should be met before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields should be opened, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and an all set market needs to be readily available.

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

How biofuel lands are obtained is also crucial, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were purchased for production, authorities should make sure that "guidelines are put in location to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to minimize some of the issues we observed."

A jatropha comeback?

Despite all these obstacles, some researchers still think that under the ideal conditions, jatropha could be a valuable biofuel option - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "responsible for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I believe jatropha has some prospective, however it needs to be the best product, grown in the best location, 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 quotes, its use as a jet fuel could result in about a 40% decrease of "cradle to grave" emissions.

group is conducting ongoing field studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can really boost the soil and farming lands, and protect them versus any further degeneration brought on by dust storms," he states.

But the Qatar project's success still depends upon lots of elements, not least the capability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another essential step, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.

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) dealing with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian describes that years of research and advancement have led to varieties of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were lacking more than a decade earlier.

"We were able to hasten the yield cycle, improve the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he specifies, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first task 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 byproducts could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal replacement (crucial 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 as soon as 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, but he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two elements - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a really strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he states. "Our company believe any such expansion will take place, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded 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, environment-friendly and socially accountable depends upon intricate elements, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state experts. Then there's the irritating issue of achieving high yields.

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

Many previous plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which became bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently negative in many of the jatropha sites, due to the fact that the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he discusses.

Other researchers chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists remain doubtful of the ecological practicality of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it potentially ends up being so successful, that we will have a great deal of associated land-use change," 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 carried out research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega cites previous land-use issues related to growth of numerous crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not handle the personal sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of developing environmental problems."

Researchers in Mexico are currently checking out jatropha-based livestock feed as a low-priced and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages might be well fit to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays worried about prospective environmental expenses.

He recommends restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it only in truly poor soils in requirement of remediation. "Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in really 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 involved problems are higher than the potential benefits."

Jatropha's international future stays unsure. And its potential as a tool in the battle against environment modification can only be opened, say numerous professionals, by avoiding the litany of difficulties connected with its very first boom.

Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian believes its role as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" and that the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry 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 by means of Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

A liquid biofuels guide: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts

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