Jatropha: the Biofuel that Bombed Seeks a Course To Redemption

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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a «wonder» biofuel. An unassuming 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 everywhere. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.

Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, is reliant on cracking the yield issue and attending to the hazardous land-use issues intertwined with its initial failure.

The sole staying large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have actually been accomplished and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence falters, the world’s experience of jatropha holds essential 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 throughout the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its pledge as a sustainable source of biofuel that might 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 development, the sole remaining big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.

«All those companies that failed, adopted a plug-and-play model of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you require to domesticate it. This is a part of the procedure that was missed out on [during the boom],» jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.

Having gained from the errors of jatropha‘s past failures, he says the oily plant might yet play a key function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transport carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom might bring extra benefits, with jatropha likewise a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists 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 full capacity, then it is vital to gain from previous mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not just by bad yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in countries where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil operates.

Experts likewise recommend that jatropha’s tale provides lessons for researchers and business owners exploring promising new sources for liquid biofuels – which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, significant bust

Jatropha’s early 21st-century appeal originated from its pledge 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 several supposed virtues was an ability to thrive on abject or «minimal» lands; thus, it was claimed it would never take on food crops, so the theory went.

At that time, jatropha ticked all packages, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo’s Institute for Future Initiatives. «We had a crop that seemed miraculous; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or excessive demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not complete with food because it is harmful.»

Governments, worldwide companies, financiers and business bought into the hype, launching efforts to plant, or guarantee 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 miraculous biofuel tree to fade.

In 2009, a Buddies of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) warned that jatropha’s high demands for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, a global review kept in mind that «cultivation outpaced both clinical understanding of the crop’s capacity in addition to an understanding of how the crop suits 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 stop working as expected yields refused to materialize. Jatropha might grow on degraded lands and endure dry spell conditions, as declared, however yields remained poor.

«In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under fairly poorer conditions, produced a huge problem,» leading to «underestimated yields that were going to be produced,» Gasparatos states.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also afflicted by ecological, 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 change for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A 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 financial obligation may never be recuperated.» In India, production showed carbon advantages, however making 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 very evasive,» describes Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the nation over numerous years, and discovered that a lax definition 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 imply that no one is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based incomes 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, state experts, which ought to be heeded when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.

«There was a boom [in financial investment], but unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based on supposed advantages 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 hype was winding down, Muys and associates released a paper mentioning crucial lessons.

Fundamentally, he explains, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This vital requirement for in advance research study might be applied to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for instance, his group released a paper analyzing the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a «fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types» with biofuel promise.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and limited land. But Muys’s research showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that «pongamia still can not be considered a substantial and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting knowledge spaces.» Use of such cautionary data might avoid inefficient financial speculation and negligent land conversion for new biofuels.

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

Gasparatos underlines vital requirements that must be fulfilled before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields must be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set market needs to be offered.

«Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown,» Gasparatos says. Jatropha «was virtually undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so unusual.»

How biofuel lands are obtained is likewise essential, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were acquired for production, authorities must guarantee that «guidelines are put in place to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to decrease a few of the issues we observed.»

A jatropha return?

Despite all these difficulties, some researchers still think that under the ideal conditions, jatropha could be a valuable biofuel solution – particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector «accountable for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.»

«I believe jatropha has some potential, however it needs 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 way that Qatar might reduce airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% reduction of «cradle to tomb» emissions.

Alherbawi’s team is carrying out 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 implementation of the green belt can truly improve the soil and agricultural lands, and safeguard them against any more degeneration triggered by dust storms,» he states.

But the Qatar project’s success still depends upon many elements, not least the capability to get quality yields from the tree. Another important action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.

Back in Ghana, jOil is presently 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 actually resulted in varieties of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were doing not have more than a years back.

«We were able to speed up the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and enhance the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree,» Subramanian says. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. «Our 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 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 as soon as again reopened with the energy shift drive for oil companies and bio-refiners – [driven by] the look for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly.»

A total jatropha life-cycle evaluation has yet to be finished, however he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be «competitive … These two aspects – that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration – makes it an extremely strong prospect for adoption for … sustainable aviation,» he states. «We think any such growth will happen, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [allowing] no competition with food crops, nor in any method threatening food security of any nation.»

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends upon complex factors, consisting of where and how it’s grown – whether, for instance, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state experts. Then there’s the bothersome problem of accomplishing high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels push that has stirred debate over potential effects. 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, transformed dry savanna woodland, which became bothersome for carbon accounting. «The net carbon was typically unfavorable in most of the jatropha sites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree,» he explains.

Other the «potential of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock» in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists stay doubtful of the environmental viability 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,» 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 contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega cites previous land-use issues connected with expansion of different crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: «Our police is so weak that it can not manage the personal sector doing whatever they want, in regards to creating ecological problems.»

Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages may be well matched to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains concerned about possible ecological expenses.

He recommends limiting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a «crop that conquers land,» growing it only in truly bad soils in requirement of remediation. «Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in extremely sterilized wastelands,» he describes. «That’s the only method 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 global future stays unsure. And its prospective as a tool in the battle against climate modification can only be unlocked, state lots of experts, by avoiding the list of problems associated with its very first boom.

Will jatropha jobs that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its role as a sustainable biofuel is «imminent» which the resurgence is on. «We have strong interest from the energy market now,» he states, «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).

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

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