Jatropha: the Biofuel that Bombed Seeks a Course To Redemption

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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a “miracle” biofuel. A simple shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on degraded 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 led to plantation failures almost all over. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.

Today, some researchers continue pursuing the evasive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they say, depends on splitting the yield issue and addressing the damaging land-use concerns intertwined with its initial failure.

The sole staying large jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated ranges have been attained and a new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback falters, 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, an unassuming 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 could 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 study and advancement, the sole staying big plantation focused on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha comeback is on.

“All those business that failed, embraced a plug-and-play model of hunting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to advertise it, you need to domesticate it. This is a part of the process that was missed [during the boom],” jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.

Having discovered from the errors of jatropha’s previous failures, he states the oily plant could yet play a crucial function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transport carbon emissions at the international level. A new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are doubtful, 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 discover from past mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by poor yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil operates.

Experts also suggest that jatropha’s tale offers lessons for scientists and entrepreneurs checking out promising brand-new sources for liquid biofuels – which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, major bust

Jatropha’s early 21st-century appeal originated from its guarantee 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 several purported virtues was a capability to flourish on abject or “minimal” lands; hence, it was declared it would never ever take on 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 seemed amazing; that can grow without too much fertilizer, too lots of pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food because it is toxic.”

Governments, international companies, financiers and companies purchased into the buzz, releasing 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 got ready for WWF.

It didn’t take long for the mirage of the amazing 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 needs for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, a global evaluation kept in mind that “cultivation exceeded both scientific understanding of the crop’s capacity along with 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 expected yields refused to emerge. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as declared, however yields stayed bad.

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

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise afflicted by ecological, social and economic troubles, say experts. 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 caused a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the “carbon payback” of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss ranged between two and 14 years, and “in some scenarios, the carbon debt may never be recuperated.” In India, production revealed carbon benefits, but 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 positioned on minimal land, but the concept of limited land is very elusive,” discusses 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 “minimal” meant that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying unblemished and unused was often illusory.

“Marginal to whom?” he asks. “The fact that … presently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming doesn’t suggest that no one is using it [for other functions] 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 essential lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, say experts, which must be observed when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.

“There was a boom [in investment], however sadly not of research study, and action was taken based upon alleged benefits 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 buzz was unwinding, Muys and colleagues released a paper pointing out key lessons.

Fundamentally, he discusses, 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 launched a paper examining 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 limited land. But Muys’s research revealed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that “pongamia still can not be thought about a significant and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding spaces.” Use of such cautionary information might avoid wasteful financial speculation and careless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

“There are other really appealing trees or plants that might work as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer,” Muys states. “We wished to prevent [them going] in the exact same instructions of premature hype and fail, like jatropha.”

Gasparatos highlights important requirements that should be met before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields should be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a prepared market needs to be readily available.

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

How biofuel lands are gotten is likewise essential, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities need to make sure that “guidelines are put in location to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to lower some of the issues we observed.”

A jatropha comeback?

Despite all these difficulties, some scientists still think that under the right conditions, jatropha might be an important biofuel service – especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector “responsible for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.”

“I think jatropha has some prospective, but it requires to be the best product, 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 method that Qatar may decrease airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its usage as a jet fuel could result in about a 40% decrease of “cradle to tomb” emissions.

Alherbawi’s group is carrying out ongoing field research studies to improve jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. “The application of the green belt can truly boost the soil and agricultural lands, and protect them versus any additional wear and tear triggered by dust storms,” he states.

But the Qatar task’s success still hinges on many elements, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another crucial action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the entirety 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) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian explains that years of research and development have resulted in varieties of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were lacking more than a years ago.

“We had the ability to quicken the yield cycle, improve the yield range and boost the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree,” Subramanian says. In essence, he specifies, 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 by-products might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal replacement (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 ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. “The biofuels story has once again reopened with the energy shift drive for oil companies and bio-refiners – [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly.”

A complete 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 2 aspects – that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration – makes it an extremely strong candidate for adoption for … sustainable air travel,” he states. “We think any such expansion will take place, [by clarifying] the definition of abject land, [allowing] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method threatening food security of any country.”

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environment-friendly and socially accountable depends on intricate elements, consisting of where and how it’s grown – whether, for example, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say experts. Then there’s the bothersome issue of attaining high yields.

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

Many previous plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which became bothersome for carbon accounting. “The net carbon was frequently negative in the majority of the jatropha sites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree,” he explains.

Other scientists chronicle the “capacity 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 possibly becomes 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 conducted research on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega points out previous land-use issues associated with expansion of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: “Our police is so weak that it can not handle the economic sector doing whatever they desire, in regards to creating environmental issues.”

Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based animals feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well matched to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays concerned about potential environmental expenses.

He suggests restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a “crop that conquers land,” growing it only in really poor soils in requirement of remediation. “Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in really sterilized 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 greater than the possible advantages.”

Jatropha’s international future remains unsure. And its potential as a tool in the battle against environment modification can only be opened, state numerous experts, by avoiding the list of troubles connected with its first boom.

Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a stop 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 says, “to team up 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 by means of Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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

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