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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "wonder" 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 occurred, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields resulted in plantation failures almost everywhere. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha curcas. A comeback, they state, depends on cracking the yield problem and dealing with the harmful land-use issues intertwined with its original failure.
The sole staying large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been accomplished and a new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds crucial lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning 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 promise as a sustainable source of biofuel that could be grown on degraded, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields failed.

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

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

Having gained from the mistakes of jatropha's past failures, he states the oily plant could yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transportation carbon emissions at the global level. A brand-new boom might bring extra advantages, with jatropha also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are hesitant, keeping in mind that jatropha has already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach full potential, then it is important to gain from previous mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not just by poor yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in countries where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil operates.

Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale provides lessons for researchers and entrepreneurs exploring promising brand-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 stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its multiple supposed virtues was an ability to grow on degraded or "marginal" lands; hence, it was claimed it would never ever take on 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 appeared miraculous; 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 compete with food since it is harmful."

Governments, international agencies, investors 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 amazing biofuel tree to fade.

In 2009, a Pals of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high demands for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation noted that "cultivation surpassed 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 thrive on limited lands."

Projections approximated 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 could grow on abject lands and tolerate dry spell conditions, as declared, however yields stayed bad.

"In my opinion, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, developed a really huge issue," resulting in "ignored yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.

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

Studies found that land-use modification for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss ranged in between two and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon debt might never be recuperated." In India, production showed carbon benefits, but the use of fertilizers led to increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was located on marginal land, but the idea of limited land is very elusive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over several years, and discovered that a lax meaning of "limited" suggested that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying unblemished and unused was frequently illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The fact that ... presently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming does not imply that nobody is using it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you might not always see from satellite imagery."

Learning from jatropha

There are key lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which ought to be followed when considering other auspicious second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in financial investment], but unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based upon alleged advantages of jatropha," says Bart Muys, a teacher 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 coworkers released a paper mentioning essential lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This crucial requirement for in advance research might be used to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for example, his team launched 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 team concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a significant and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary information could prevent inefficient monetary speculation and careless land conversion for new biofuels.

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

Gasparatos underlines essential requirements that should be met before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields must be opened, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a prepared market should be available.

"Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos states. Jatropha "was virtually 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 purchased for production, authorities need to ensure that "guidelines are put in location to inspect how massive land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to minimize some of the problems we observed."

A jatropha comeback?

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

"I believe jatropha has some potential, but it requires to be the best product, grown in the right 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 method that Qatar might lower airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% decrease of "cradle to grave" emissions.

Alherbawi's team is performing continuous field research studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The implementation of the green belt can truly boost the soil and agricultural lands, and protect them against any additional degeneration brought on by dust storms," he states.

But the Qatar task's success still hinges on numerous factors, not least the ability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another vital action, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production innovation that uses the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.

Back in Ghana, jOil is presently 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 explains that years of research study and advancement have actually led to ranges of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade ago.

"We had the ability to hasten the yield cycle, improve the yield range and improve the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he specifies, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first task is to expand our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."

Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is looking at. The fruit and its byproducts might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal substitute (essential in Africa where much wood is still burned for cooking), and even bioplastics.

But it is the transport sector that still beckons as the perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually when 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, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two aspects - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it an extremely strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "We believe any such growth will happen, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [enabling] 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, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends on complicated aspects, including where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production design 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 government revealed its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has stirred dispute over prospective consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep difficulty, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many previous plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which ended up being bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently unfavorable in many of the jatropha websites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha curcas can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he discusses.

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

Avila-Ortega points out previous land-use issues connected with growth of numerous crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not manage the private sector doing whatever they want, in terms of developing ecological issues."

Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based animals feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well matched to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains concerned about possible environmental costs.

He suggests restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in genuinely bad soils in need of repair. "jatropha curcas could be among those plants that can grow in very sterile wastelands," he describes. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated issues are higher than the potential benefits."

Jatropha's international future remains uncertain. And its potential as a tool in the fight versus climate modification can just be opened, say many specialists, by preventing the litany of problems associated with its first boom.

Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? its role as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" and that the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he states, "to collaborate 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 primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts

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