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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was hugely 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 led to plantation failures nearly everywhere. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the evasive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they say, is reliant on splitting the yield problem and dealing with the harmful land-use concerns intertwined with its initial failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been attained and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this return fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds important 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 across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its promise as a sustainable source of biofuel that could be grown on deteriorated, 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 return is on.

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

Having gained from the mistakes of jatropha's previous failures, he says the oily plant could yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, lowering transportation carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are doubtful, noting that jatropha has already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach complete potential, then it is important to gain from previous errors. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not just by poor yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil operates.

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

Miracle shrub, significant bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal stemmed from its pledge as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from grasses, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several supposed virtues was an ability to flourish on degraded or "marginal" lands; thus, it was claimed it would never compete with 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 appeared incredible; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, too lots of pesticides, or too much demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not complete with food because it is toxic."

Governments, global firms, financiers and business bought into the hype, releasing initiatives 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 prepared for WWF.

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

In 2009, a Buddies of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha's high needs for land would indeed bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide review kept in mind that "cultivation surpassed both clinical understanding of the crop's potential as well as an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can prosper 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 began to stop working as expected yields declined to emerge. Jatropha could grow on degraded lands and tolerate dry spell conditions, as claimed, however yields stayed bad.

"In my viewpoint, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under fairly poorer conditions, produced a really huge 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 difficulties, say experts. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural locations were reported.

Studies discovered that land-use change for jatropha in nations 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 involved forest loss ranged between two and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon financial obligation may never ever be recuperated." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, however the usage of fertilizers led to 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 located on minimal land, however the concept of limited land is really evasive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the nation over several years, and discovered that a lax definition of "limited" suggested 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 reality that ... currently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming does not mean that no one is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a great deal of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite images."

Learning from jatropha

There are crucial lessons to be learned from the experience with jatropha, say analysts, which need to be heeded when considering 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 teacher in the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014, as the jatropha buzz was unwinding, Muys and coworkers released a paper citing essential lessons.

Fundamentally, he discusses, there was an absence of knowledge about the plant itself and its requirements. This vital requirement for in advance research study might be used to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for instance, his group launched a paper evaluating the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel pledge.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and marginal land. But Muys's research study showed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a significant and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary data could prevent 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 producer," Muys states. "We desired to prevent [them going] in the very same instructions of premature buzz and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos highlights crucial requirements that should be met before moving ahead with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set 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 almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so strange."

How biofuel lands are acquired is likewise crucial, states Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were bought for production, authorities need to ensure that "guidelines are put in location to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to lower some of the issues we observed."

A jatropha return?

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

"I think jatropha has some possible, but it requires to be the right product, grown in the best location, 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 manner in which Qatar might minimize airline company carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its use as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% decrease of "cradle to tomb" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is conducting ongoing field studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he envisages a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The implementation of the green belt can really boost the soil and farming lands, and safeguard them versus any additional deterioration brought on by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar job's success still depends upon many elements, not least the capability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another essential step, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production innovation that uses the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.

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 development have actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were lacking more than a years ago.

"We had the ability to quicken the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and improve the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he mentions, 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 taking a look at. The fruit and its by-products 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 transport sector that still beckons as the ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has once again resumed with the energy shift drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the look for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."

A total jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be finished, however he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected 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 air travel," he says. "We think any such expansion will take place, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [enabling] no competition with food crops, nor in any way threatening food security of any nation."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can genuinely be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends upon complex aspects, including where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state professionals. Then there's the unpleasant issue 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 national biofuels push that has stirred dispute over potential effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep difficulty, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many previous plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which became problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often unfavorable in the majority of the jatropha sites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he describes.

Other scientists chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain doubtful of the environmental viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it potentially ends up being so effective, 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. trainee with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has actually carried out research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega mentions past land-use issues connected with expansion of numerous crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not deal with the private sector doing whatever they want, in terms of producing environmental problems."

Researchers in Mexico are currently checking out jatropha-based livestock feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well fit to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains worried about potential ecological costs.

He suggests limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it only in really bad soils in requirement of repair. "Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in extremely sterile wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated problems are higher than the potential advantages."

Jatropha's worldwide future remains unsure. And its prospective as a tool in the battle versus environment modification can just be opened, say many professionals, by preventing the litany of troubles associated with its first boom.

Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian thinks its function as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" 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 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 impacts

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