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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 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 everywhere. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they state, depends on splitting the yield problem and dealing with the hazardous land-use problems linked with its original failure.
The sole staying large jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated varieties have actually been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return fails, 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, a simple 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 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 advancement, the sole staying big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha comeback is on.

"All those companies that failed, adopted 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 out on [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.

Having found out from the errors of jatropha's past failures, he states the oily plant might 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 likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are skeptical, keeping in mind that jatropha has actually currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach full potential, then it is necessary to find out from past mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not just 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 provides 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 grasses, 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 grow on abject or "marginal" lands; therefore, it was claimed it would never take on food crops, so the theory went.

Back then, 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 miraculous; that can grow without too much fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food since it is dangerous."

Governments, international firms, investors and business bought into the buzz, releasing 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 research study got ready 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 known at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha's high demands for land would certainly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide review kept in mind that "growing outmatched both clinical 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 thrive on marginal 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 began to stop working as anticipated yields refused to emerge. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and endure dry spell conditions, as claimed, however yields stayed bad.

"In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under relatively poorer conditions, created a huge issue," leading to "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also plagued by environmental, social and economic problems, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural locations were reported.

Studies discovered that land-use change for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania led to a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied between two and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon financial obligation might never ever be recovered." In India, production revealed carbon advantages, however using fertilizers resulted in boosts 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 positioned on minimal land, but the idea of minimal land is extremely elusive," explains Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over numerous years, and discovered that a lax meaning of "limited" suggested 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 ... presently nobody is using [land] for farming doesn't suggest that no one is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a great deal 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, state experts, which need to be followed when thinking about other auspicious second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in investment], but sadly not of research, and action was taken based on supposed benefits 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 winding down, Muys and associates published a paper mentioning key lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This important requirement for upfront research could be used to other potential biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for instance, his group released a paper examining 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 marginal 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 considerable and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge gaps." Use of such cautionary information might avoid wasteful financial speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

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

Gasparatos highlights crucial requirements that need to be met before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields should be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a ready market needs to be available.

"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 weird."

How biofuel lands are acquired is also essential, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were acquired for production, authorities should make sure that "guidelines are put in place to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to reduce a few of the problems we observed."

A jatropha comeback?

Despite all these difficulties, some scientists still believe that under the ideal conditions, jatropha might be a valuable biofuel option - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "responsible for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I believe jatropha has some possible, but it needs to be the ideal product, grown in the right place, and so on," Muys said.

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 way that Qatar might decrease airline carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its usage as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% decrease of "cradle to grave" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is conducting continuous field 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 truly enhance the soil and agricultural lands, and protect them against any more wear and tear brought on by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar task's success still depends upon many factors, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another vital action, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the totality 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 development have resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were lacking more than a years ago.

"We were able to hasten the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capacity 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 looking at. The fruit and its by-products might 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 transport sector that still beckons as the ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has when again reopened with the energy transition 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 finished, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 elements - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it an extremely strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "Our company believe any such expansion will happen, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [allowing] no competition with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any country."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, environment-friendly and socially responsible 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, say specialists. Then there's the bothersome problem of attaining high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian government announced its intention to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels press that has actually stirred argument over potential effects. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep trouble, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many previous plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which ended up being troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically negative in many of the jatropha websites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he explains.

Other scientists chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists stay doubtful of the environmental 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 successful, that we will have a great deal of associated land-use change," states 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 performed research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega mentions past land-use problems related to expansion of numerous crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not handle the economic sector doing whatever they want, in regards to producing ecological problems."

Researchers in Mexico are currently checking out jatropha-based livestock feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well fit to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains concerned about prospective environmental expenses.

He recommends limiting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in really poor soils in need of restoration. "Jatropha might be one of those plants that can grow in extremely sterile wastelands," he discusses. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are higher than the potential advantages."

Jatropha's international future stays uncertain. And its prospective as a tool in the battle versus environment change can just be unlocked, state numerous experts, by preventing the list of problems associated with its first boom.

Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its role as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" and that the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he states, "to collaborate 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 by means of Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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