Jatropha: the Biofuel that Bombed Seeks a Path To Redemption

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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 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 all over. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was polluted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.

Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, depends on splitting the yield issue and dealing with 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 attained and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return fails, the world’s experience of jatropha holds essential 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 across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its guarantee 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 fell flat.

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

«All those companies that failed, adopted a plug-and-play model of scouting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need 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 gained from the mistakes of jatropha’s previous failures, he states the oily plant could yet play a key function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transport carbon emissions at the global level. A brand-new boom might bring additional benefits, with jatropha likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are doubtful, keeping in mind that jatropha has actually currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach full capacity, then it is necessary to gain from past mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by bad yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social problems in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil operates.

Experts also recommend that jatropha’s tale offers lessons for scientists and entrepreneurs checking out appealing brand-new sources for liquid biofuels – which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, major 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 stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several purported virtues was an ability to grow on abject or «marginal» lands; therefore, it was claimed it would never take on food crops, so the theory went.

At that time, jatropha ticked all packages, says 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, too numerous pesticides, or too much demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food because it is harmful.»

Governments, global firms, investors and business bought into the buzz, launching efforts to plant, or promise 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 incredible biofuel tree to fade.

In 2009, a Friends of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha’s high needs for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide review kept in mind that «growing surpassed both clinical understanding of the crop’s potential in addition to 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, just 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations started to stop working as anticipated yields declined to materialize. Jatropha could grow on degraded lands and tolerate drought conditions, as declared, but yields stayed bad.

«In my opinion, this mix of speculative investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under fairly poorer conditions, developed a huge issue,» resulting in «undervalued yields that were going to be produced,» Gasparatos says.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also afflicted by ecological, social and financial difficulties, say specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural areas were reported.

Studies found that land-use modification for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania led to a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the «carbon repayment» of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss ranged in between two and 14 years, and «in some situations, the carbon financial obligation may never ever be recuperated.» In India, showed carbon advantages, however the usage of fertilizers resulted in 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 situated on limited land, however the idea of limited land is really evasive,» describes Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over numerous years, and discovered that a lax definition of «marginal» implied 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 fact that … currently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming does not imply that nobody is using it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not necessarily see from satellite images.»

Learning from jatropha

There are key lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which must be hearkened when thinking about other advantageous second-generation biofuels.

«There was a boom [in financial investment], however 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 buzz was winding down, Muys and coworkers published a paper citing crucial lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This vital requirement for in advance research could be applied to other possible biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for instance, his team launched a paper evaluating 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 minimal land. But Muys’s research study revealed 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 financial speculation and careless land conversion for new biofuels.

«There are other very promising trees or plants that might work as a fuel or a biomass producer,» Muys states. «We wished to prevent [them going] in the very same direction of early hype and fail, like jatropha.»

Gasparatos underlines important requirements that must be fulfilled before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields must be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set market needs to be offered.

«Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [scientific understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown,» Gasparatos says. Jatropha «was practically undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so odd.»

How biofuel lands are acquired is likewise essential, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were bought for production, authorities must make sure that «guidelines are put in place to inspect how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to lower a few of the issues we observed.»

A jatropha resurgence?

Despite all these obstacles, some researchers still believe that under the ideal conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel solution – especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector «accountable for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.»

«I believe jatropha has some prospective, but it requires to be the best material, grown in the ideal location, 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 method that Qatar may minimize airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its use as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% decrease of «cradle to tomb» emissions.

Alherbawi’s team is conducting continuous field research studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. «The implementation of the green belt can really improve the soil and agricultural lands, and protect them versus any additional deterioration triggered by dust storms,» he states.

But the Qatar task’s success still depends upon many elements, not least the ability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another vital step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that utilizes 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) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian explains that years of research and development have actually resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were lacking more than a decade earlier.

«We had the ability to quicken the yield cycle, enhance the yield variety and improve the fruit-bearing capability of the tree,» Subramanian says. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. «Our first task 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 could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal substitute (important 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 once again reopened 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 evaluation has yet to be completed, but he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be «competitive … These two elements – that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration – makes it an extremely strong candidate for adoption for … sustainable air travel,» he says. «Our company believe any such expansion will take place, [by clarifying] the definition of abject land, [permitting] no competitors with food crops, nor in any way threatening food security of any nation.»

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially accountable depends upon intricate factors, including where and how it’s grown – whether, for example, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state experts. Then there’s the unpleasant issue of achieving high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels press that has actually stirred dispute over prospective consequences. The Gran Chaco’s dry forest biome is already in deep problem, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many previous plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which ended up being problematic for carbon accounting. «The net carbon was typically unfavorable in the majority of the jatropha sites, 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 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 perhaps becomes so effective, that we will have a lot of associated land-use change,» 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 carried out research study on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega mentions past land-use problems related to expansion of different 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 creating environmental issues.»

Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well matched to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains concerned about possible ecological expenses.

He suggests limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a «crop that conquers land,» growing it only in truly poor soils in need of remediation. «Jatropha might be one of 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 technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated problems are greater than the possible benefits.»

Jatropha’s international future remains unpredictable. And its potential as a tool in the battle against environment change can just be unlocked, say lots of specialists, by preventing the list of problems connected with its very first boom.

Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its function as a sustainable biofuel is «imminent» which the resurgence is on. «We have strong interest from the energy market now,» he says, «to collaborate 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 by means of Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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

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