Jatropha: the Biofuel that Bombed Seeks a Path To Redemption

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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 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 accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.

Today, some researchers continue pursuing the evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they state, depends on breaking the yield issue and dealing with the hazardous land-use problems linked with its initial failure.

The sole remaining big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been attained 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, an unassuming shrub-like tree belonging to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its promise as a sustainable source of biofuel that might 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 study and advancement, the sole remaining large plantation concentrated 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 design of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to advertise 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 found out from the errors of jatropha’s previous failures, he says the oily plant could yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are hesitant, noting that jatropha has actually already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn 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 hampered not just by bad yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in countries where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts likewise recommend that jatropha‘s tale uses 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 originated from its pledge as a “second-generation” biofuel, which are sourced from turfs, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous purported virtues was an ability to prosper on degraded or “minimal” lands; therefore, it was claimed 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 appeared miraculous; that can grow without too much fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or too much need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not compete with food since it is harmful.”

Governments, global agencies, investors and companies purchased into the buzz, launching efforts to plant, or guarantee 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 research study prepared for WWF.

It didn’t take long for the mirage of the miraculous biofuel tree to fade.

In 2009, a Buddies of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) warned that jatropha’s high demands for land would certainly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide review noted that “cultivation 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 prosper on marginal lands.”

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 fail as expected yields declined to emerge. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as claimed, but yields stayed poor.

“In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and potential to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, created an extremely big problem,” leading to “undervalued yields that were going to be produced,” Gasparatos states.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also pestered by ecological, social and financial problems, 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 nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the “carbon repayment” of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss ranged between 2 and 14 years, and “in some scenarios, the carbon debt might never ever be recovered.” In India, production revealed carbon advantages, but the use of fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water “acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication.”

“If you take a look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was situated on marginal land, however the concept of marginal land is really evasive,” explains Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over a number of years, and found that a lax meaning of “marginal” indicated that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was typically illusory.

“Marginal to whom?” he asks. “The truth that … currently no one is utilizing [land] for farming doesn’t mean that nobody is using it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite imagery.”

Learning from jatropha

There are key lessons to be discovered from the experience with jatropha, say experts, which must be heeded when considering other auspicious second-generation biofuels.

“There was a boom [in financial investment], but sadly not of research, and action was taken based upon alleged benefits 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 released a paper pointing out key lessons.

Fundamentally, he discusses, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its requirements. This crucial requirement for upfront research study might be used to other potential biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for instance, his group released a paper analyzing 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 showed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that “pongamia still can not be considered a significant and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge spaces.” Use of such cautionary information could prevent inefficient financial speculation and careless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

“There are other extremely promising trees or plants that could function as a fuel or a biomass producer,” Muys says. “We wanted to avoid [them going] in the exact same direction of early hype and stop working, like jatropha.”

Gasparatos underlines essential requirements that should be fulfilled before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a prepared market should be offered.

“Basically, the crop requires 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 gotten is also key, states Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were purchased for production, authorities should guarantee that “standards are put in place to inspect 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 difficulties, some scientists still think that under the right conditions, jatropha could be a valuable biofuel option – particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector “responsible for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.”

“I think jatropha has some potential, but it requires to be the right product, grown in the ideal 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 could result in about a 40% reduction of “cradle to tomb” emissions.

Alherbawi’s team is carrying out ongoing field research studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. “The execution of the green belt can really boost the soil and agricultural lands, and safeguard them against any further wear and tear triggered by dust storms,” he says.

But the Qatar job’s success still depends upon numerous aspects, not least the ability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another vital step, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production innovation that uses the whole 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 advancement have actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade back.

“We had the ability to speed up the yield cycle, improve the yield range and improve the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree,” Subramanian says. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. “Our first job 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 might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal alternative (essential in Africa where much wood is still burned for cooking), and even bioplastics.

But it is the transportation sector that still beckons as the perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. “The biofuels story has actually as soon as again reopened with the energy shift drive for oil business 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, however he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be “competitive … These two aspects – that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration – makes it a really strong prospect for adoption for … sustainable aviation,” he states. “Our company believe any such expansion will take location, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [enabling] 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, environment-friendly and socially responsible depends on complicated aspects, consisting of where and how it’s grown – whether, for example, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say specialists. Then there’s the irritating problem of accomplishing high yields.

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

Many past plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, converted dry savanna woodland, which ended up being troublesome for carbon accounting. “The net carbon was frequently unfavorable in most of the jatropha sites, due to the fact that the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree,” he discusses.

Other researchers chronicle the “capacity of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock” in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists stay uncertain of the eco-friendly viability of second-generation biofuels. “If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it possibly 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 actually performed research study on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega cites previous land-use problems associated with growth of different crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: “Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not deal with the personal sector doing whatever they want, in regards to producing ecological problems.”

Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well fit to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains concerned about potential environmental costs.

He suggests limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a “crop that conquers land,” growing it just in really bad soils in need of repair. “Jatropha might 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 method for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are greater than the possible benefits.”

Jatropha’s global future remains uncertain. And its potential as a tool in the battle against environment change can just be unlocked, state lots of experts, by avoiding the litany of problems related to its first boom.

Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its function as a sustainable biofuel is “imminent” and that the resurgence is on. “We have strong interest from the energy market now,” he states, “to collaborate with us to establish and expand 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).

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

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