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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree native to Central America, it was extremely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on degraded lands throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia.
A jatropha rush took place, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields caused plantation failures nearly everywhere. The consequences of the jatropha crash was polluted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the incredibly elusive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, depends on splitting the yield problem and attending to the hazardous land-use problems linked with its initial failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated ranges have been achieved and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this return fails, 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 native to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its promise 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 remaining 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 failed, embraced a plug-and-play design of scouting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to advertise 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 discovered from the mistakes of jatropha's past failures, he says the oily plant could yet play a crucial role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, lowering transportation carbon emissions at the worldwide level. A brand-new boom might bring extra benefits, with jatropha likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are doubtful, keeping in mind that jatropha has actually already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach complete capacity, then it is vital to discover from previous mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not only by bad yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social problems in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.

Experts also suggest that jatropha's tale provides lessons for scientists and business owners checking out appealing brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, major bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal originated from its guarantee as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from grasses, trees and other plants not originated from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its multiple purported virtues was a capability to grow on degraded or "marginal" lands; hence, it was declared it would never ever take on food crops, so the theory went.

At that time, jatropha ticked all the boxes, 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 numerous pesticides, or too much need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food because it is harmful."

Governments, global firms, investors and business bought into the buzz, launching initiatives to plant, or promise 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 got ready for WWF.

It didn't take long for the mirage of the miraculous biofuel tree to fade.

In 2009, a Buddies of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) warned that jatropha's high needs for land would certainly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation kept in mind that "growing surpassed both scientific understanding of the crop's capacity as well as an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can prosper 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 stop working as anticipated yields refused to emerge. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as claimed, but yields remained bad.

"In my opinion, this mix of speculative investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under relatively poorer conditions, produced an extremely 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 plagued by environmental, social and economic difficulties, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural locations were reported.

Studies discovered that land-use modification 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 between 2 and 14 years, and "in some circumstances, the carbon debt may never ever 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 look at most of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was situated on marginal land, but the idea of marginal land is extremely evasive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha curcas plantations in the country over several years, and discovered that a lax meaning of "minimal" implied 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 ... currently no one is using [land] for farming does not suggest that nobody is using it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you might not necessarily see from satellite imagery."

Learning from jatropha

There are key lessons to be learned from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which ought to be followed when considering other auspicious second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in financial investment], however unfortunately not of research, and action was taken based upon supposed benefits of jatropha curcas," states Bart Muys, a professor in the Division of Forest, Nature and Landscape at the University of Leuven, Belgium. In 2014, as the jatropha buzz was unwinding, Muys and associates released a paper citing essential lessons.

Fundamentally, he describes, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This important requirement for in advance research study might be used to other possible biofuel crops, he says. In 2015, for example, his team launched a paper examining 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 marginal land. But Muys's research revealed yields to be highly variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a considerable and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing understanding spaces." Use of such cautionary information could avoid wasteful financial speculation and reckless land conversion for brand-new biofuels.

"There are other very appealing trees or plants that might function as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys states. "We wished to prevent [them going] in the exact same instructions of premature buzz and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos underlines essential requirements that must be fulfilled before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields should be opened, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a prepared market should be readily available.

"Basically, the crop requires to be domesticated, or [clinical understanding] at a level that we know how it is grown," Gasparatos says. Jatropha "was almost undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so strange."

How biofuel lands are obtained is likewise crucial, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were acquired for production, authorities must make sure that "standards are put in location to inspect how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to reduce some of the issues we observed."

A jatropha return?

Despite all these challenges, some researchers still believe that under the right conditions, jatropha could be a valuable biofuel service - particularly for the sector "accountable for roughly one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I believe jatropha has some potential, however it needs to be the right material, grown in the ideal 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 method that Qatar might reduce airline carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its usage as a jet fuel could result in about a 40% reduction of "cradle to grave" emissions.

Alherbawi's team is performing ongoing field research studies to increase jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added advantage, he envisages a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (nearly 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can really improve the soil and farming lands, and protect them against any additional wear and tear triggered by dust storms," he says.

But the Qatar job's success still depends upon lots of aspects, not least the capability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another vital action, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the entirety 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 explains that years of research study and advancement have resulted in varieties of jatropha that can now accomplish the high yields that were doing not have more than a years earlier.

"We were able to speed up the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and improve the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian states. In essence, he specifies, the tree is now domesticated. "Our 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 substitute (crucial 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 as soon as again resumed with the energy transition drive for oil companies and bio-refiners - [driven by] the look for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."

A complete jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be completed, however he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions connected to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 elements - that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he states. "Our company believe any such growth will happen, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [allowing] no competition with food crops, nor in any method threatening food security of any nation."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can genuinely be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends upon intricate elements, including where and how it's grown - whether, for instance, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, say specialists. Then there's the nagging issue 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 national biofuels push that has stirred debate over prospective repercussions. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep difficulty, having been heavily deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, converted dry savanna woodland, which ended up being bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often 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 discusses.

Other scientists chronicle the "potential of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists stay skeptical of the ecological viability of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it perhaps ends up being so effective, that we will have a lot 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 conducted research on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega points out previous land-use issues associated with expansion of numerous crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not handle the private 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 may be well suited to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays concerned about potential ecological expenses.

He suggests restricting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it just in genuinely bad 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 issues are higher than the prospective benefits."

Jatropha's global future stays uncertain. And its prospective as a tool in the fight against environment modification can only be unlocked, state lots of experts, by preventing the litany of difficulties associated with its 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 "impending" which the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he states, "to collaborate 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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