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 native to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on degraded 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 nearly all over. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was polluted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.

Today, some researchers continue pursuing the evasive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they state, depends on breaking the yield problem and attending to the harmful land-use concerns intertwined with its original failure.

The sole staying big jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner claims 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 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 throughout the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its guarantee 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 fell flat.

Now, after years of research study and advancement, the sole staying large plantation concentrated on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha return is on.

“All those companies that stopped working, embraced a plug-and-play design of scouting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to advertise it, you need 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 gained from the errors of jatropha’s past failures, he says the oily plant could yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transport carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A brand-new boom might bring additional advantages, with jatropha also 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 potential, then it is important to gain from past mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hindered not only by bad yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.

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

Miracle shrub, significant bust

Jatropha‘s early 21st-century appeal stemmed from its pledge as a “second-generation” biofuel, which are sourced from turfs, trees and other plants not obtained from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its multiple supposed virtues was a capability to flourish on abject or “minimal” lands; thus, it was declared it would never take on food crops, so the theory went.

At that time, jatropha ticked all packages, 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, a lot of pesticides, or too much demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not contend with food since it is dangerous.”

Governments, international firms, financiers and companies bought into the hype, releasing initiatives to plant, or pledge to plant, millions of 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 prepared for WWF.

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

In 2009, a Buddies of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha’s high demands for land would indeed bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international review kept in mind that “growing exceeded both scientific understanding of the crop’s capacity as well as an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can prosper 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 emerge. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as declared, however yields remained bad.

“In my opinion, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and potential to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, created a huge problem,” leading to “undervalued yields that were going to be produced,” Gasparatos states.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also pestered by ecological, social and economic difficulties, 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 resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the “carbon repayment” of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss ranged between two and 14 years, and “in some circumstances, the carbon debt may never ever be recovered.” In India, production revealed carbon advantages, however using fertilizers resulted in increases of soil and water “acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication.”

“If you look at many of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was located on minimal land, however the idea of marginal land is really evasive,” explains Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over numerous years, and discovered that a lax meaning of “marginal” meant that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was typically illusory.

“Marginal to whom?” he asks. “The reality that … presently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming does not imply that no one 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 imagery.”

Learning from jatropha

There are key lessons to be discovered from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which should be hearkened when thinking about other advantageous second-generation biofuels.

“There was a boom [in investment], however unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based upon alleged advantages of jatropha,” states 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 winding down, Muys and colleagues released a paper mentioning key lessons.

Fundamentally, he discusses, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This vital requirement for in advance research could be used to other potential biofuel crops, he says. Last year, for instance, his team 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 abject and marginal land. But Muys’s research revealed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that “pongamia still can not be considered a substantial and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding spaces.” Use of such cautionary data might prevent inefficient monetary speculation and careless land conversion for new biofuels.

“There are other very appealing trees or plants that could serve as a fuel or a biomass producer,” Muys says. “We desired to prevent [them going] in the exact same direction of premature hype and fail, like jatropha.”

Gasparatos highlights important requirements that need to be satisfied before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a prepared market must be offered.

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

How biofuel lands are gotten is likewise key, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities need to guarantee that “standards are put in place to inspect how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to minimize some of the issues we observed.”

A jatropha resurgence?

Despite all these difficulties, some researchers still think that under the right conditions, jatropha might be a valuable biofuel service – particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector “responsible for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.”

“I believe jatropha has some possible, however it needs to be the right product, grown in the best place, 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 manner in which Qatar might lower airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its use as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% decrease of “cradle to tomb” emissions.

Alherbawi’s team is conducting ongoing field studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he envisages a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. “The execution of the green belt can truly improve the soil and farming lands, and secure them against any more wear and tear caused by dust storms,” he states.

But the Qatar project’s success still depends upon numerous aspects, not least the ability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another crucial step, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production innovation that uses the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.

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) dealing with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian describes that years of research study and development have led to varieties of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were lacking more than a years ago.

“We were able to quicken the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and improve the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree,” Subramanian says. In essence, he states, 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 by-products could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal replacement (important 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 resumed with the energy shift drive for oil companies 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, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be “competitive … These 2 elements – that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration – makes it an extremely strong prospect for adoption for … sustainable aviation,” he states. “Our company believe any such expansion will take location, [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, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends upon complex factors, including where and how it’s grown – whether, for example, its design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state experts. Then there’s the nagging problem of achieving high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian government revealed its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels press that has stirred debate over possible effects. The Gran Chaco’s dry forest biome is already in deep trouble, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many previous plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which became troublesome for carbon accounting. “The net carbon was frequently negative in most 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 explains.

Other scientists chronicle the “potential of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock” in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain uncertain of the ecological practicality of second-generation biofuels. “If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it potentially ends up being so effective, that we will have a lot 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 actually conducted research study on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega points out past land-use issues associated with expansion of numerous crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: “Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not deal with the economic sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of developing ecological issues.”

Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as an affordable and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well matched to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays worried about potential ecological costs.

He recommends limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a “crop that dominates land,” growing it just in genuinely poor soils in requirement of repair. “Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in really sterile wastelands,” he describes. “That’s the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico – as part of a forest recovery strategy for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved issues are higher than the potential advantages.”

Jatropha’s international future stays unsure. And its possible as a tool in the battle against climate change can only be unlocked, state lots of professionals, by avoiding the list of troubles connected with its very first boom.

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

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

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