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 extremely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on abject lands throughout 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 consequences of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.

Today, some scientists continue pursuing the incredibly elusive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they state, depends on cracking the yield issue and resolving the damaging land-use issues intertwined with its initial failure.

The sole staying large jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated varieties have actually been accomplished and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds important lessons for any promising 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 guarantee as a sustainable source of biofuel that might be grown on broken down, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields failed.


Now, after years of research and advancement, 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 stopped working, adopted a plug-and-play model of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This belongs of the procedure that was missed [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.


Having found out from the errors of jatropha's past failures, he says the oily plant could yet play an essential function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transport carbon emissions at the international level. A new boom could bring additional advantages, with jatropha also a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.


But some scientists are skeptical, noting that jatropha has currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach complete capacity, then it is vital to discover from previous errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by poor yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in countries where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.


Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale offers lessons for scientists and business owners exploring appealing new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.


Miracle shrub, significant bust


Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal stemmed from its promise as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from lawns, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its numerous supposed virtues was a capability to thrive on abject or "limited" lands; therefore, it was declared it would never ever take on 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 miraculous; that can grow without too much fertilizer, too many pesticides, or too much need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food because it is harmful."


Governments, worldwide agencies, investors and business purchased into the hype, 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 study got ready for WWF.


It didn't take wish for the mirage of the incredible biofuel tree to fade.


In 2009, a Pals of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high needs for land would indeed bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, a worldwide evaluation kept in mind that "cultivation outmatched both clinical understanding of the crop's capacity in addition to 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 fail as anticipated yields declined to materialize. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and endure drought conditions, as claimed, but yields stayed bad.


"In my opinion, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and potential to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, produced a really huge issue," leading to "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.


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


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


"If you take a look at most of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was positioned on marginal land, however the idea of limited land is extremely elusive," explains Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the nation over several years, and found that a lax definition of "minimal" meant that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was frequently illusory.


"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... currently no one is using [land] for farming doesn't suggest that nobody is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite images."


Learning from jatropha


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


"There was a boom [in financial investment], however unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based on supposed benefits of jatropha," states 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 winding down, Muys and coworkers published a paper citing key lessons.


Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of knowledge about the plant itself and its requirements. This important requirement for upfront research might be used to other potential biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for example, his team released a paper evaluating the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species" with biofuel pledge.


Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and minimal land. But Muys's research showed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a significant and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting knowledge gaps." Use of such cautionary data could avoid wasteful monetary speculation and reckless land conversion for new biofuels.


"There are other really appealing trees or plants that could work as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys says. "We wanted to prevent [them going] in the exact same instructions of premature buzz and fail, like jatropha."


Gasparatos underlines vital requirements that need to be met before moving ahead 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 requires to be domesticated, or [scientific understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos states. Jatropha "was almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so weird."


How biofuel lands are acquired is likewise key, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were acquired for production, authorities must ensure that "standards are put in location to check how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to lower a few of the issues we observed."


A jatropha return?


Despite all these challenges, some scientists still believe that under the best conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel option - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "responsible for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."


"I believe jatropha has some potential, however it needs to be the ideal material, grown in the best 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 method that Qatar may minimize airline company carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its use 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 boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added advantage, he envisages a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can really boost the soil and farming lands, and safeguard them against any more deterioration triggered by dust storms," he says.


But the Qatar task's success still hinges on lots of aspects, not least the ability to acquire 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 currently managing more than 1,300 hectares (1,830 acres) of jatropha, and growing a pilot plot on 300 hectares (740 acres) dealing with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian discusses that years of research and advancement have actually led to varieties of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade ago.


"We had the ability to hasten the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and enhance the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he specifies, 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 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 actually when 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 assessment has yet to be completed, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 elements - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he says. "Our company believe any such growth will take place, [by clarifying] the meaning 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 genuinely be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially accountable depends on complex aspects, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say professionals. Then there's the nagging problem of achieving high yields.


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


Many previous plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, converted dry savanna woodland, which ended up being problematic for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically negative in most of the jatropha websites, because 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 doubtful of the ecological practicality of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it potentially 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 study on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.


Avila-Ortega points out previous land-use problems connected with growth of various crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not manage the private sector doing whatever they want, in regards to developing ecological problems."


Researchers in Mexico are currently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well suited to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays concerned about potential environmental costs.


He suggests limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in genuinely poor soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in really sterilized wastelands," he explains. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated issues are greater than the potential benefits."


Jatropha's international future remains unsure. And its possible as a tool in the fight against climate change can just be unlocked, say lots of professionals, by preventing the list of difficulties related to its very first boom.


Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian believes its function as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" and that the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he states, "to team up 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 through Flickr (CC BY 2.0).


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