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Jatropha: the Biofuel that Bombed Seeks a Path To Redemption

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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 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 caused plantation failures almost all over. The aftermath 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. A resurgence, they state, is dependent on breaking the yield issue and addressing the hazardous land-use problems intertwined with its original failure.

The sole staying big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback falters, the world’s experience of jatropha holds important lessons for any appealing 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 pledge 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 remaining big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.

“All those business that stopped working, embraced a plug-and-play design 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 [during the boom],” jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.

Having gained from the errors of jatropha’s past failures, he states the oily plant might yet play an essential function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom might bring additional benefits, with jatropha curcas also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are hesitant, noting that jatropha curcas has currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach complete potential, then it is vital to learn from past errors. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by poor yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social problems in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.

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

Miracle shrub, major bust

Jatropha’s early 21st-century appeal came 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 several purported virtues was an ability to thrive on abject or “minimal” lands; thus, it was declared it would never ever take on food crops, so the theory went.

At that time, jatropha curcas ticked all packages, says Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo’s Institute for Future Initiatives. “We had a crop that seemed 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 take on food since it is harmful.”

Governments, global agencies, investors and business purchased into the buzz, introducing initiatives 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 research 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) warned that jatropha’s high demands for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide review noted that “cultivation outpaced both clinical understanding of the crop’s capacity as well as an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can flourish 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, only 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 might grow on abject lands and endure dry spell conditions, as declared, but yields stayed poor.

“In my opinion, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under relatively poorer conditions, developed a huge issue,” resulting in “underestimated yields that were going to be produced,” Gasparatos states.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise plagued by ecological, social and financial problems, state experts. 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 caused a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico found the “carbon payback” of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss ranged between 2 and 14 years, and “in some scenarios, the carbon financial obligation may never be recovered.” In India, production revealed carbon benefits, however making use of fertilizers resulted in increases of soil and water “acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication.”

“If you look at most of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was positioned on limited land, but the concept of minimal 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 country over several years, and found that a lax definition of “limited” implied 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 fact that … currently nobody is using [land] for farming does not suggest that no one is utilizing it [for other purposes] There are a lot of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you might not always see from satellite imagery.”

Learning from jatropha

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

“There was a boom [in investment], but unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based upon supposed advantages of jatropha,” states Bart Muys, a teacher in the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014, as the jatropha buzz was unwinding, Muys and associates published a paper pointing out key lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was an absence of knowledge about the plant itself and its requirements. This crucial requirement for upfront research could be applied to other possible biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for example, his group launched a paper analyzing the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a “fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species” with biofuel guarantee.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and marginal 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 stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting knowledge spaces.” Use of such cautionary data could prevent inefficient monetary speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

“There are other really promising trees or plants that might serve as a fuel or a biomass producer,” Muys says. “We wished to avoid [them going] in the exact same instructions of early buzz and stop working, like jatropha.”

Gasparatos highlights crucial requirements that should be satisfied before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set market needs to be readily available.

“Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown,” Gasparatos states. Jatropha “was practically undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so odd.”

How biofuel lands are obtained is also essential, states Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were purchased for production, authorities must guarantee that “standards are put in location to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to reduce some of the issues we observed.”

A jatropha resurgence?

Despite all these challenges, some researchers still believe that under the ideal 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 believe jatropha has some potential, but it requires to be the ideal material, grown in the best place, and so on,” Muys stated.

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 manner in which Qatar might decrease airline carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its use as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% decrease of “cradle to grave” emissions.

Alherbawi’s group is conducting continuous field research studies to improve jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included advantage, he envisages a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. “The implementation of the green belt can truly boost the soil and agricultural lands, and protect them against any further wear and tear brought on by dust storms,” he states.

But the Qatar job’s success still depends upon numerous aspects, not least the capability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another crucial action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.

Back in Ghana, jOil is currently 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 discusses that years of research study and development have actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were doing not have more than a years earlier.

“We were able to accelerate the yield cycle, enhance the yield variety and boost the fruit-bearing capability of the tree,” Subramanian says. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. “Our very first task 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 byproducts might 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 transport sector that still beckons as the perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. “The biofuels story has actually once again resumed with the energy shift drive for oil business and bio-refiners – [driven by] the search 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 related to 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 aviation,” he says. “Our company believe any such expansion will occur, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [allowing] no competition with food crops, nor in any way threatening food security of any nation.”

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends upon complex aspects, 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 irritating problem of achieving high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal 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 possible effects. The Gran Chaco’s dry forest biome is currently in deep trouble, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which became problematic for carbon accounting. “The net carbon was typically negative in the majority of the jatropha websites, since 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 ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock” in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists stay skeptical of the ecological 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 successful, 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 on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

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

Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based livestock feed as a low-priced and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well fit to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains worried about possible environmental expenses.

He recommends limiting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a “crop that conquers land,” growing it just in really bad soils in requirement of repair. “Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in extremely sterile wastelands,” he discusses. “That’s the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico – as part of a forest recovery method for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are greater than the prospective advantages.”

Jatropha’s worldwide future remains uncertain. And its prospective as a tool in the battle versus climate change can just be unlocked, say many specialists, by preventing the litany of problems associated with its first boom.

Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian thinks its function as a sustainable biofuel is “impending” and that the return is on. “We have strong interest from the energy market now,” he says, “to work together with us to establish and broaden the supply chain of jatropha.”

Banner image: Jatropha curcas trees in Hawai’i. Image by Forest and Kim Starr via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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

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