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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree native to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on degraded lands across Latin America, Africa and Asia.
A jatropha rush ensued, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields resulted in plantation failures nearly everywhere. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they say, depends on splitting the yield issue and addressing the damaging land-use concerns linked with its original failure.
The sole remaining large jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been accomplished and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this return falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, a simple shrub-like tree native to Central America, was planted throughout the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its guarantee as a sustainable source of biofuel that might 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 and advancement, the sole staying big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha curcas is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha return is on.

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

Having found out from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he states the oily plant might yet play a crucial function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transportation carbon emissions at the global level. A new boom could bring additional benefits, with jatropha likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are skeptical, 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 capacity, then it is vital to find out from past errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by bad yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social problems in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.

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

Miracle shrub, significant bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal originated from its pledge as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from turfs, 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 flourish on abject or "marginal" lands; thus, it was claimed it would never ever take on food crops, so the theory went.

At that time, jatropha ticked all packages, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that seemed miraculous; that can grow without too much fertilizer, too numerous pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not complete with food because it is harmful."

Governments, international agencies, financiers and companies bought into the hype, launching 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 got ready for WWF.

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

In 2009, a Pals of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha's high demands for land would certainly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide review noted that "cultivation outmatched both scientific understanding of the crop's potential as well as an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can grow on minimal lands."

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 fail as anticipated yields declined to emerge. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as declared, but yields remained poor.

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

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

Studies discovered that land-use modification for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania led to a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss varied between 2 and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon debt may never ever be recovered." In India, production revealed carbon benefits, however using fertilizers led to 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, but the idea of limited land is extremely evasive," explains Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the nation over a number of years, and found that a lax definition of "minimal" indicated that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was frequently illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... currently no one is using [land] for farming does not indicate that nobody is using it [for other functions] 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 learned from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which ought to be followed when thinking about other auspicious second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in investment], however regrettably not of research, and action was taken based on 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 hype was winding down, Muys and colleagues released a paper pointing out crucial lessons.

Fundamentally, he describes, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This essential requirement for upfront research could be applied to other potential biofuel crops, he states. 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 guarantee.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and marginal land. But Muys's research showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a considerable and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary data might avoid wasteful monetary speculation and negligent land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

"There are other extremely promising trees or plants that might work as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys states. "We desired to avoid [them going] in the same instructions of early hype and stop working, like jatropha."

Gasparatos underlines crucial requirements that must be satisfied before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields must be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market needs to be readily available.

"Basically, the crop requires 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 weird."

How biofuel lands are gotten is likewise crucial, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities must ensure that "standards are put in location to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to decrease some of the issues we observed."

A jatropha return?

Despite all these obstacles, some scientists still think that under the best conditions, jatropha might be a valuable biofuel option - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "responsible for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I believe jatropha has some prospective, 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 way that Qatar may lower airline company carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is conducting continuous field research studies to improve jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can actually enhance the soil and agricultural lands, and protect them against any additional wear and tear brought on by dust storms," he states.

But the Qatar job's success still hinges on numerous elements, not least the ability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another vital step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that uses the whole 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) dealing with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian discusses that years of research and advancement have led to ranges of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were lacking more than a years earlier.

"We were able to hasten the yield cycle, enhance the yield variety and improve the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he specifies, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first project 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 might 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 perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually once again reopened with the energy shift drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."

A total jatropha life-cycle evaluation has yet to be completed, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a really strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he says. "Our company believe any such expansion will take place, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [enabling] no competitors with food crops, nor in any way threatening food security of any nation."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, environment-friendly and socially accountable depends upon complex elements, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say experts. Then there's the bothersome problem of achieving high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government revealed its intention to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has actually stirred argument over potential consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep difficulty, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which became problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently negative in many of the jatropha sites, because the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he describes.

Other researchers chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers stay skeptical of the eco-friendly practicality 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 on the possibilities of jatropha curcas contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega points out past land-use issues connected with expansion of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not cope with the economic sector doing whatever they want, in terms of producing ecological issues."

Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as a low-priced and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well matched to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains concerned about prospective environmental expenses.

He suggests restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in really poor soils in need of repair. "Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in really sterilized wastelands," he describes. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated problems are higher than the possible benefits."

Jatropha's worldwide future remains uncertain. And its possible as a tool in the battle versus climate modification can only be unlocked, say numerous experts, by preventing the list of problems associated with its very first boom.

Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its role as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the resurgence 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 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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

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