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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could 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 all over. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was polluted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they state, is on breaking the yield issue and addressing the harmful land-use problems linked with its original failure.
The sole remaining large jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated varieties have been attained and a new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds important lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming 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 might be grown on degraded, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields fell flat.

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

"All those business that failed, embraced a plug-and-play model of hunting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you require to domesticate it. This belongs of the procedure that was missed [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.

Having discovered from the errors of jatropha's past failures, he says the oily plant might yet play a crucial function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transport carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha likewise a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are doubtful, noting that jatropha has actually currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach complete capacity, then it is necessary to learn from previous errors. During the very first boom, jatropha curcas plantations were hampered not just by bad yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale offers lessons for scientists and entrepreneurs exploring promising brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, significant 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 obtained from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several supposed virtues was a capability to thrive on degraded or "marginal" lands; thus, it was declared it would never ever contend with food crops, so the theory went.

At that time, jatropha ticked all the boxes, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that seemed amazing; 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 poisonous."

Governments, international agencies, financiers and business bought into the buzz, releasing 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 prepared for WWF.

It didn't take wish 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 needs for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation kept in mind that "cultivation outmatched both clinical understanding of the crop's capacity 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 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, only 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations began to stop working as anticipated yields declined to materialize. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and endure dry spell conditions, as declared, but yields remained bad.

"In my opinion, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and potential to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, developed a really big problem," resulting in "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.

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

Studies found that land-use change for jatropha in countries 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 associated forest loss ranged between 2 and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon debt may never ever be recovered." In India, production showed carbon advantages, however the usage of fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was located on limited land, however the concept of limited land is extremely evasive," explains Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over a number of years, and discovered that a lax meaning of "limited" meant that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying unblemished and unused was typically illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... currently nobody is using [land] for farming doesn't mean that nobody is using it [for other purposes] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not necessarily see from satellite images."

Learning from jatropha

There are crucial lessons to be gained 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], but unfortunately not of research, and action was taken based upon supposed advantages 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 hype was winding down, Muys and colleagues released a paper citing essential lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its requirements. This important requirement for upfront research study might be applied to other potential biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for example, 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 abject and limited 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 considered a considerable and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary data might avoid wasteful financial speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

"There are other very appealing trees or plants that might work as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We wanted to avoid [them going] in the exact same instructions of premature buzz and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos underlines essential 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 prepared market must 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 almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so weird."

How biofuel lands are acquired is likewise key, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were acquired for production, authorities must make sure that "standards are put in place to inspect how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to reduce some of the problems we observed."

A jatropha resurgence?

Despite all these difficulties, some researchers still think that under the right conditions, jatropha might be an important biofuel service - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I think jatropha has some prospective, however it needs to be the best product, 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 way that Qatar may minimize airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its use as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.

Alherbawi's team is carrying out ongoing field studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can truly improve the soil and agricultural lands, and secure them against any more degeneration brought on by dust storms," he states.

But the Qatar project's success still hinges on many elements, not least the ability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another vital action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that utilizes the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.

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) dealing with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian describes that years of research study and advancement have actually led to ranges of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade earlier.

"We were able to quicken the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. 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 alternative (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 as soon as 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 complete jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be finished, but he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two 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 take location, [by clarifying] the definition of abject land, [allowing] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method threatening food security of any nation."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can genuinely be carbon neutral, environment-friendly and socially responsible depends upon complex aspects, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state professionals. Then there's the nagging problem of attaining high yields.

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

Many previous plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which became problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often unfavorable in the majority of the jatropha websites, because 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 stay skeptical of the environmental 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 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 actually conducted research study on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega cites past land-use issues related to expansion of numerous crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not manage the economic sector doing whatever they desire, in regards to producing ecological problems."

Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well fit to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains concerned about prospective ecological expenses.

He recommends restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it only in truly poor soils in requirement of repair. "Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in really sterile wastelands," he explains. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing method for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are greater than the potential advantages."

Jatropha's worldwide future remains unsure. And its prospective as a tool in the fight against climate change can just be unlocked, state numerous experts, by preventing the litany of difficulties connected with its first boom.

Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its role as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" which the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he says, "to team up 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 guide: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world effects

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