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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was hugely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on degraded lands across 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 nearly all over. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was polluted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the incredibly elusive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they say, is reliant on splitting the yield issue and resolving the harmful land-use concerns intertwined with its initial failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds crucial lessons for any appealing 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 pledge as a sustainable source of biofuel that could be grown on broken down, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields fell flat.

Now, after years of research and development, the sole staying big plantation focused on growing jatropha remains 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 varieties of jatropha curcas. But to commercialize it, you require to domesticate it. This is a part of the procedure that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.

Having learned from the errors of jatropha curcas's past failures, he states the oily plant could yet play a crucial role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, lowering transport carbon emissions at the global level. A new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are skeptical, keeping in mind 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 vital to gain from past mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not only by poor yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in countries where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts also suggest 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 lawns, trees and other plants not stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its multiple purported virtues was an ability to prosper on abject or "marginal" lands; thus, it was declared it would never compete 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 excessive fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food due to the fact that it is harmful."

Governments, global companies, investors and business purchased into the buzz, releasing 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 study got ready for WWF.

It didn't take wish 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 needs for land would certainly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide review noted that "growing outmatched both clinical understanding of the crop's potential in addition to 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, only 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations began to fail as anticipated yields declined to emerge. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as declared, but yields remained bad.

"In my opinion, this mix of speculative investment, export-oriented potential, and possible to grow under relatively poorer conditions, developed a really big problem," leading to "underestimated 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 specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural areas were reported.

Studies discovered that land-use modification for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss ranged in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon financial obligation might never be recuperated." In India, production showed carbon benefits, however making use of fertilizers led to increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was positioned on marginal land, however the idea of marginal land is extremely evasive," explains Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over several years, and discovered that a lax definition of "minimal" implied that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was often illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The fact that ... currently no one is using [land] for farming does not indicate that no one is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you may not necessarily see from satellite imagery."

Learning from jatropha

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

"There was a boom [in financial investment], however unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based upon supposed advantages of jatropha," says Bart Muys, a professor in the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014, as the jatropha hype was unwinding, Muys and associates published a paper citing essential lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This essential requirement for in advance research might be applied to other possible biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for example, his team launched a paper evaluating the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel guarantee.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and limited land. But Muys's research study revealed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a substantial and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary data could avoid inefficient financial speculation and negligent land conversion for new biofuels.

"There are other really promising trees or plants that could serve as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys says. "We desired to prevent [them going] in the very same direction of premature buzz and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos highlights vital requirements that must be met before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields must be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and an all set market must be 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 acquired is also crucial, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities should guarantee that "standards are put in location to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to reduce a few of the problems we observed."

A jatropha resurgence?

Despite all these obstacles, some scientists still believe that under the right conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel solution - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "accountable for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I believe jatropha has some possible, but it needs to be the right product, grown in the best 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 manner in which Qatar might minimize airline company carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.

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

But the Qatar task's success still depends upon many aspects, not least the ability to get quality yields from the tree. Another essential step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that utilizes the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.

Back in Ghana, jOil is presently handling 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 led to varieties of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade earlier.

"We were able to speed up the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and improve the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. "Our first task is to expand our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."

Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is taking a look at. The fruit and its byproducts could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal alternative (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 actually as soon as 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 complete 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 2 aspects - that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "Our company believe any such expansion will take location, [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 genuinely be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially accountable depends upon complex elements, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, 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 objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has actually stirred dispute over possible consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep problem, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which became problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically negative in most of the jatropha sites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he discusses.

Other scientists chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically 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," says Daniel Itzamna Avila-Ortega, co-founder of the Mexican Center of Industrial Ecology and a Ph.D. student with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has actually carried out research study on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega cites previous land-use issues associated with expansion of numerous crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not manage the personal sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of producing environmental problems."

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

He recommends restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in truly bad soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in very sterile wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are higher than the prospective benefits."

Jatropha's worldwide future stays unsure. And its prospective as a tool in the battle against environment change can just be unlocked, say numerous professionals, by preventing the list of difficulties associated with its first boom.

Will jatropha projects 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" and that the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry 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 through Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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

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