Jatropha: The Biofuel That Bombed Seeks A Path To Redemption
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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was extremely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on degraded lands across Latin America, Africa and Asia.
A jatropha curcas rush ensued, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields caused plantation failures almost everywhere. The after-effects of the jatropha crash was polluted 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, is dependent on splitting the yield problem and addressing the harmful land-use problems intertwined with its original failure.
The sole staying large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have actually been attained and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds crucial lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start 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 failed.
Now, after years of research study and development, the sole remaining big plantation focused on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha return is on.
"All those companies that failed, embraced a plug-and-play model of hunting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to advertise it, you require to domesticate it. This belongs of the process that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.
Having discovered from the errors of jatropha's past failures, he states the oily plant might yet play an essential role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, minimizing transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom could bring additional benefits, with jatropha likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some researchers are skeptical, keeping in mind that jatropha has already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach full capacity, then it is vital to find out from previous errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by bad yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil operates.
Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for scientists and entrepreneurs exploring appealing new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, major 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 several purported virtues was an ability to grow on degraded or "limited" lands; hence, it was claimed it would never ever take on food crops, so the theory went.
Back then, jatropha curcas ticked all the boxes, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that appeared amazing; that can grow without too much fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not compete with food due to the fact that it is harmful."
Governments, international firms, financiers and companies purchased into the hype, 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 wish 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) alerted that jatropha curcas's high needs for land would indeed bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international review noted that "cultivation outmatched both clinical 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 flourish on minimal 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 fail as expected yields refused to emerge. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and endure drought conditions, as claimed, but yields remained poor.
"In my opinion, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under relatively poorer conditions, produced a very big issue," leading to "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 economic troubles, state professionals. 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 countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico found the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon financial obligation might never ever be recovered." In India, production showed carbon benefits, but the use of fertilizers led to boosts 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 marginal land, however the concept of limited land is really evasive," explains Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha curcas plantations in the nation over several years, and found that a lax meaning of "minimal" indicated that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was frequently illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The fact that ... presently no one is using [land] for farming does not imply that nobody is using it [for other functions] There are a great deal of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you might not necessarily see from satellite images."
Learning from jatropha
There are key lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which ought to be followed when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in financial investment], however unfortunately not of research, and action was taken based upon supposed advantages 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 associates published a paper citing essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he describes, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This vital requirement for upfront research study might be applied to other prospective biofuel crops, he states. Last year, for example, his group launched a paper analyzing 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 limited land. But Muys's research study 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 continuing understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary information could avoid inefficient financial speculation and negligent land conversion for brand-new biofuels.
"There are other very promising trees or plants that could work as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We wished to avoid [them going] in the same instructions of early buzz and fail, like jatropha."
Gasparatos highlights essential requirements that need to be fulfilled before moving ahead with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market must be offered.
"Basically, the crop needs 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 strange."
How biofuel lands are obtained is also key, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were purchased for production, authorities should make sure that "standards are put in location to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to lower some of the problems we observed."
A jatropha curcas return?
Despite all these challenges, some researchers still think that under the ideal conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel service - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I think jatropha has some prospective, but it requires to be the ideal product, grown in the best place, and so on," Muys said.
Mohammad Alherbawi, a postdoctoral research fellow at Qatar's Hamad Bin Khalifa University, continues holding out hope for jatropha. He sees it as a manner in which Qatar might lower airline carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its usage as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.
Alherbawi's group is carrying out continuous field research studies to enhance 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 implementation of the green belt can truly boost the soil and farming lands, and protect them versus any additional wear and tear triggered by dust storms," he states.
But the Qatar job's success still depends upon lots of elements, not least the ability to get quality yields from the tree. Another essential action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that uses the entirety of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.
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) dealing with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian explains that years of research study and development have actually resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were lacking more than a decade back.
"We were able to quicken the yield cycle, improve the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he mentions, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first job is to expand our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."
Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is looking at. The fruit and its byproducts might 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 transportation sector that still beckons as the ideal biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually 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 completed, however he believes 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 prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "Our company believe any such expansion will take place, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [permitting] no competition with food crops, nor in any method threatening food security of any country."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can genuinely be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends on intricate aspects, including where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say specialists. Then there's the unpleasant problem of attaining high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed 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 trouble, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many past plantations in Ghana, cautions Ahmed, converted dry savanna woodland, which ended up being troublesome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically unfavorable in the majority of the jatropha sites, because the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he describes.
Other researchers 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 environmental practicality of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it potentially becomes so successful, that we will have a lot of associated land-use change," says 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 actually conducted research study on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega mentions past land-use issues associated with growth of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not deal with the economic sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of creating environmental problems."
Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based animals feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well suited to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays concerned about potential environmental expenses.
He recommends limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in really poor soils in need of repair. "Jatropha might be one of those plants that can grow in extremely sterile wastelands," he explains. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are greater than the potential advantages."
Jatropha's worldwide future remains unpredictable. And its potential as a tool in the battle versus climate change can just be unlocked, say numerous experts, by avoiding the litany of problems connected with its very first boom.
Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its function as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" and that the comeback is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he says, "to work together with us to develop 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).
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