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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might 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 consequences of the jatropha crash was polluted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the evasive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they say, depends on splitting the yield problem and attending to the problems linked with its initial failure.
The sole staying big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been accomplished and a 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 belonging to Central America, was planted throughout the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its guarantee 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 failed.

Now, after years of research and development, the sole staying big plantation focused on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.

"All those business that stopped working, adopted a plug-and-play design of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to advertise it, you need to domesticate it. This belongs of the process that was missed [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.

Having gained from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he states the oily plant might yet play an essential role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transport carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A new boom could bring additional benefits, with jatropha likewise a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some scientists are hesitant, noting 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 vital to discover from previous errors. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not only by bad yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in countries where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil operates.

Experts likewise suggest that jatropha's tale offers lessons for researchers and entrepreneurs checking out appealing new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, significant bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal came from its guarantee as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from turfs, trees and other plants not stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several purported virtues was an ability to prosper on degraded 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, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that seemed incredible; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, too lots of pesticides, or too much 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 agencies, financiers and business bought into the buzz, 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 got ready for WWF.

It didn't take long for the mirage of the incredible 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 demands for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, a global evaluation noted that "cultivation surpassed 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 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 expected yields declined to materialize. Jatropha could grow on degraded lands and endure drought conditions, as claimed, but yields stayed bad.

"In my viewpoint, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, created a huge problem," leading to "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were also afflicted by environmental, social and financial difficulties, say experts. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural areas were reported.

Studies found that land-use modification for jatropha in countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania led to a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico found the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied in between two and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon debt may never ever be recuperated." In India, production showed carbon benefits, but using fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."

"If you look at most of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was positioned on minimal land, however the concept of limited land is extremely elusive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over several years, and found that a lax definition of "limited" implied that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying untouched and unused was typically illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The fact that ... currently no one is utilizing [land] for farming does not suggest that no one is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you might not necessarily see from satellite images."

Learning from jatropha

There are crucial lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, say analysts, which must be heeded when considering other auspicious second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in financial investment], but regrettably not of research, 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 unwinding, Muys and associates released a paper citing key lessons.

Fundamentally, he discusses, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This essential requirement for upfront research study might be used to other prospective biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for instance, his group released a paper evaluating the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel pledge.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and minimal land. But Muys's research showed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a considerable and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting understanding gaps." Use of such cautionary data might avoid inefficient financial speculation and negligent land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

"There are other really appealing trees or plants that might serve as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We desired to avoid [them going] in the very same instructions of early buzz and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos highlights essential requirements that should be fulfilled before moving ahead with new biofuel plantations: high yields should be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and an all set market must be available.

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

How biofuel lands are acquired is also essential, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were bought for production, authorities must guarantee that "guidelines are put in location to check how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to reduce a few of the issues we observed."

A jatropha return?

Despite all these difficulties, some researchers still think that under the right conditions, jatropha might be a valuable 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, however it needs to be the ideal material, grown in the best location, 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 manner in which Qatar may decrease airline carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its usage as a jet fuel could result in about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is performing ongoing field studies to increase 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 really improve the soil and farming lands, and secure them against any additional wear and tear brought on by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar task's success still depends upon lots of aspects, not least the ability to get quality yields from the tree. Another essential action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that uses the totality of the jatropha fruit to increase processing efficiency.

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 ranges of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were lacking more than a decade back.

"We had the ability to quicken the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and improve the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he specifies, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first project is to broaden our jatropha plantation to 20,000 hectares."

Biofuels aren't the only application JOil is looking at. The fruit and its byproducts could be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal alternative (important 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 when again resumed with the energy shift 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 finished, but he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions associated with the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two aspects - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a really strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "We think any such expansion will happen, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [enabling] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any country."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can genuinely be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially accountable depends upon complex aspects, consisting of 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 irritating problem of achieving high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government announced its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels press that has stirred dispute over potential repercussions. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep difficulty, having been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which became bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often negative in the majority of the jatropha sites, 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 ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists remain skeptical of the ecological viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it potentially ends up being so successful, 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 carried out research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

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

Researchers in Mexico are currently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as a low-priced and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well fit to local contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he remains worried about possible environmental expenses.

He recommends limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in really poor soils in requirement of remediation. "Jatropha could 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 recovery method for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are greater than the possible advantages."

Jatropha's global future remains unpredictable. And its potential as a tool in the fight against environment modification can just be unlocked, say lots of specialists, by avoiding the litany of difficulties connected with its first boom.

Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian believes its function as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" which the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry now," he states, "to work together 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).

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