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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was extremely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might 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 led to plantation failures almost all over. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the incredibly elusive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they say, is dependent on cracking the yield problem and attending to the hazardous land-use issues linked with its original failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have actually been attained and a new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds important lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming 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 might 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 focused on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha comeback is on.
"All those business that failed, adopted a plug-and-play model of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This belongs of the process that was missed out on [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.
Having gained from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he says the oily plant could yet play a key function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transport carbon emissions at the global level. A new boom might bring additional advantages, with jatropha likewise a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are hesitant, keeping in mind that jatropha has actually already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach complete capacity, then it is important to gain from previous mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not only by bad yields, but by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts also suggest that jatropha's tale uses lessons for scientists and entrepreneurs 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 turfs, trees and other plants not obtained from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its multiple purported virtues was a capability to prosper on degraded or "marginal" lands; hence, it was declared it would never complete with food crops, so the theory went.
At that time, jatropha ticked all the boxes, says Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that appeared amazing; that can grow without too much fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not complete with food due to the fact that it is harmful."
Governments, international agencies, investors and companies purchased into the buzz, launching initiatives to plant, or promise 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 study prepared for WWF.
It didn't take wish 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 global evaluation noted that "growing outmatched 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 prosper 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, only 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations began to stop working as expected yields declined to materialize. Jatropha might grow on degraded lands and endure dry spell conditions, as declared, but yields remained bad.
"In my opinion, this mix of speculative investment, export-oriented capacity, and possible to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, developed a huge problem," leading to "ignored yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also plagued by environmental, social and financial difficulties, say professionals. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural areas were reported.
Studies found that land-use change for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss ranged between two and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon debt may never be recuperated." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, however making use 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 limited land, however the idea of limited land is really elusive," describes 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 discovered that a lax definition of "minimal" implied that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was typically illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... currently nobody is using [land] for farming does not imply that no one is using it [for other functions] There are a great deal of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you might not necessarily see from satellite imagery."
Learning from jatropha
There are crucial lessons to be found out from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which must be heeded when considering other auspicious second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in financial investment], however sadly not of research study, and action was taken based upon supposed benefits 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 unwinding, Muys and colleagues released a paper pointing out essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he discusses, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This crucial requirement for upfront research could be used to other potential 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 pledge.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and limited land. But Muys's research revealed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a significant and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary data could prevent wasteful monetary speculation and negligent land conversion for new biofuels.
"There are other very promising trees or plants that could function as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys states. "We wished to prevent [them going] in the same instructions of premature buzz and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos highlights crucial requirements that should be satisfied before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a prepared 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 almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so unusual."
How biofuel lands are obtained is also crucial, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were bought for production, authorities must guarantee that "standards are put in place to check how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to minimize a few of the issues we observed."
A jatropha comeback?
Despite all these challenges, some scientists still think that under the right conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel option - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "responsible for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I think jatropha has some prospective, however it requires to be the right 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 way that Qatar may minimize airline company carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel could result in about a 40% decrease of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is carrying out ongoing field research studies to improve jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can truly enhance the soil and agricultural lands, and protect them against any further deterioration brought on by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar job's success still hinges on numerous factors, not least the ability to get 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 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) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian discusses that years of research and advancement have resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were lacking more than a years ago.
"We had the ability to speed up the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and boost the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian states. 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 looking at. The fruit and its by-products could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal substitute (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 once again reopened with the energy transition drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the look for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."
A total 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 2 aspects - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "Our company believe any such growth will happen, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [permitting] no competition with food crops, nor in any way threatening food security of any country."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends upon intricate aspects, including where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say professionals. Then there's the irritating problem of accomplishing high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its intent to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels press that has stirred debate over potential effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep problem, having been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, converted dry savanna woodland, which ended up being problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently unfavorable in the majority of the jatropha websites, 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 ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain doubtful of the environmental practicality 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 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 actually performed research study on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega points out previous land-use issues associated with growth of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not handle the economic sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of developing ecological issues."
Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based animals feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well suited to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays concerned about potential environmental expenses.
He recommends limiting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it only in genuinely bad soils in requirement of remediation. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in very sterile wastelands," he explains. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are greater than the possible advantages."
Jatropha's global future stays unpredictable. And its prospective as a tool in the fight versus climate change can only be unlocked, say lots of experts, by preventing the list of troubles connected with its first boom.
Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian believes its role as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he states, "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 through Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
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