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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 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 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 evasive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they state, depends on cracking the yield problem and dealing with the damaging land-use problems linked with its original failure.
The sole remaining large jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start 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 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 fell flat.

Now, after years of research and development, the sole remaining large plantation concentrated on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha return is on.

"All those business that failed, embraced a plug-and-play design of scouting for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to advertise it, you require to domesticate it. This is a part of the process that was missed [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.

Having gained from the mistakes of jatropha's past failures, he says the oily plant could yet play an essential function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transportation carbon emissions at the global level. A brand-new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are doubtful, keeping in mind that jatropha has already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach complete capacity, then it is vital to gain from past errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by poor yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in countries where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts likewise recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for researchers and business owners checking out appealing new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, significant bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal originated from its promise 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 multiple supposed virtues was a capability to grow on abject or "limited" lands; therefore, it was claimed it would never ever complete with food crops, so the theory went.

Back then, jatropha ticked all packages, 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, too lots of pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food due to the fact that it is dangerous."

Governments, global agencies, investors and companies purchased into the buzz, introducing initiatives to plant, or pledge 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 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 indeed bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation kept in mind that "cultivation exceeded 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 grow on marginal 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 started to stop working as anticipated 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 combination of speculative investment, export-oriented capacity, and possible to grow under fairly poorer conditions, developed a really big problem," leading to "ignored yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also pestered by environmental, social and financial troubles, state professionals. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural locations were reported.

Studies found that land-use modification for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied in between two and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon debt might never be recovered." In India, production showed carbon advantages, however using fertilizers led to increases of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you take a look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was situated on marginal 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 ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over several years, and found that a lax meaning of "limited" indicated that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was typically illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... presently no one is using [land] for farming does not suggest that nobody is using it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you might not necessarily see from satellite images."

Learning from jatropha

There are essential lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, say experts, which need to be heeded when thinking about other advantageous second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in financial investment], but unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based upon alleged advantages 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 published a paper mentioning crucial lessons.

Fundamentally, he discusses, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This crucial requirement for upfront research study might be used to other possible crops, he states. Last year, for instance, his group 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 marginal land. But Muys's research showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a substantial and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary data could prevent wasteful financial speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

"There are other extremely promising trees or plants that might function as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys says. "We wished to prevent [them going] in the same direction of premature buzz and stop working, like jatropha."

Gasparatos highlights 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 needs to be 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 weird."

How biofuel lands are gotten is likewise key, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were purchased for production, authorities must ensure that "standards are put in place to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to lower some of the problems we observed."

A jatropha resurgence?

Despite all these difficulties, some researchers still think that under the ideal conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel service - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "responsible for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I believe jatropha has some potential, but it needs to be the right product, grown in the right 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 method that Qatar may minimize airline company 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 team is conducting continuous field research studies to increase jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The application of the green belt can really improve the soil and farming lands, and safeguard them against any more deterioration brought on by dust storms," he states.

But the Qatar job's success still depends upon numerous elements, not least the ability to obtain quality yields from the tree. Another important action, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the entirety of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.

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 describes that years of research and development have resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were doing not have more than a years earlier.

"We had the ability to hasten 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 project 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 substitute (essential 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 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, but he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it an extremely strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he states. "Our company believe any such expansion will happen, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [permitting] no competitors 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 accountable depends upon complex factors, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say professionals. Then there's the unpleasant issue of attaining high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government announced its intention to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has actually stirred dispute over prospective consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep difficulty, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which became troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently negative in the majority of the jatropha websites, due to the fact that 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 environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers stay doubtful of the ecological viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it perhaps becomes so effective, that we will have a great deal 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 conducted research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega cites previous land-use issues related to growth of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not deal with the personal sector doing whatever they want, in regards to producing environmental issues."

Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based animals feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages might be well fit to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays concerned about possible ecological costs.

He recommends restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it only in really bad soils in need of remediation. "Jatropha might be among 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 recovery technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are greater than the possible benefits."

Jatropha's global future remains unpredictable. And its potential as a tool in the battle against environment change can only be opened, say lots of 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 again? Subramanian thinks its function as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" which the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he says, "to work together 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 by means of Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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

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