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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree native to Central America, it was hugely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on abject 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 almost all over. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was polluted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the incredibly elusive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they state, is reliant on splitting the yield issue and attending to the harmful land-use issues intertwined with its initial failure.
The sole remaining large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback fails, the world's experience of jatropha curcas holds essential 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 throughout 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 fell flat.

Now, after years of research study and advancement, the sole remaining big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha comeback is on.

"All those business that stopped working, embraced a plug-and-play model of hunting for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to advertise it, you require to domesticate it. This is a part of the process that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.

Having discovered from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he says the oily plant could yet play a crucial role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transport carbon emissions at the international level. A new boom might bring additional advantages, with jatropha also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are doubtful, keeping in mind that jatropha has actually already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach full potential, then it is vital to discover from previous errors. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not only by bad yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in countries where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil operates.

Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for researchers and business owners exploring appealing 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 multiple purported virtues was an ability to grow on abject or "marginal" lands; therefore, it was declared it would never complete with food crops, so the theory went.

Back then, 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 incredible; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not complete with food because it is dangerous."

Governments, global agencies, investors and companies bought into the buzz, introducing 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 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) cautioned that jatropha's high demands for land would indeed bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide evaluation noted that "growing outpaced both scientific understanding of the crop's capacity along with an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can grow 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, only 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations started to stop working as expected yields refused to emerge. Jatropha might grow on degraded lands and endure drought conditions, as declared, but yields stayed bad.

"In my opinion, this combination of speculative investment, export-oriented capacity, and potential to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, created an extremely huge issue," leading to "undervalued yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise afflicted by ecological, social and financial problems, 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 countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico found the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied in between two and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon financial obligation may never be recuperated." In India, production revealed carbon benefits, however making use of fertilizers led to boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you take a look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was situated on limited land, however the concept of marginal land is extremely evasive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the nation over numerous years, and found that a lax meaning of "limited" suggested that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying unblemished and unused was typically illusory.

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

Learning from jatropha

There are essential lessons to be found out from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which must be followed 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 upon alleged 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 buzz was winding down, Muys and coworkers published a paper mentioning crucial lessons.

Fundamentally, he discusses, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its requirements. This vital requirement for upfront research could be applied to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for instance, his team released a paper examining the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species" with biofuel promise.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and marginal 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 stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting knowledge gaps." Use of such cautionary data might prevent wasteful financial speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

"There are other very promising trees or plants that might function as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys says. "We wished to prevent [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 brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields should be opened, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a ready market needs to be 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 essential, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were acquired for production, authorities should make sure that "guidelines are put in location to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to decrease a few of the issues we observed."

A jatropha resurgence?

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

"I believe jatropha has some prospective, but it needs to be the ideal product, grown in the best location, and so on," Muys stated.

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 method that Qatar may lower airline carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its use as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is performing ongoing field studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can actually boost the soil and farming lands, and safeguard them against any more deterioration triggered by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar job's success still hinges on many elements, not least the ability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another important action, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production technology that uses the whole of the 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 describes that years of research and development have actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were doing not have more than a years earlier.

"We had the ability to quicken the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and boost the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he specifies, the tree is now domesticated. "Our first project 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 (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 actually when again reopened with the energy transition drive for oil companies and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."

A total jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be finished, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two elements - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "We believe any such growth will take place, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [permitting] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method threatening food security of any nation."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environment-friendly and socially accountable depends on complicated factors, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say specialists. Then there's the nagging issue of accomplishing high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government announced its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels push that has stirred dispute over prospective consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep trouble, having actually been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many previous plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which ended up being bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often unfavorable in most of the jatropha sites, since 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 ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain skeptical of the ecological viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it perhaps ends up being 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. trainee with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has actually performed research study on the possibilities of jatropha curcas adding to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega cites previous land-use problems related to growth of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not deal with the personal sector doing whatever they want, in terms of creating environmental problems."

Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as a low-priced and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well matched to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains concerned about possible environmental costs.

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

Jatropha's international future remains unsure. And its potential as a tool in the battle against climate change can just be opened, state numerous professionals, by avoiding the litany of troubles 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 function as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" and that the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he says, "to team up 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 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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

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