Jatropha: the Biofuel that Bombed Seeks a Path To Redemption

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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a “wonder” biofuel. A simple shrubby tree native to Central America, it was as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on abject lands throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia.

A jatropha rush occurred, with more than 900,000 hectares (2.2 million acres) planted by 2008. But the bubble burst. Low yields resulted in plantation failures nearly everywhere. The consequences of the jatropha crash was polluted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.

Today, some researchers continue pursuing the evasive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they say, is reliant on breaking the yield issue and attending to the harmful land-use concerns intertwined with its original failure.

The sole remaining large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated ranges have 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 beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming shrub-like tree belonging to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its guarantee as a sustainable source of biofuel that could be grown on deteriorated, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields failed.

Now, after years of research and advancement, the sole remaining big plantation focused on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha comeback 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 require to domesticate it. This is a part of the procedure that was missed [during the boom],” jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.

Having gained from the errors of jatropha’s past failures, he states the oily plant might yet play a key function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transportation carbon emissions at the global level. A brand-new boom might bring extra advantages, with jatropha likewise a prospective source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are skeptical, keeping in mind that jatropha has currently gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach full capacity, then it is vital to gain from previous mistakes. 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 runs.

Experts also recommend that jatropha’s tale provides lessons for researchers and entrepreneurs exploring appealing new sources for liquid biofuels – which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, significant bust

Jatropha’s early 21st-century appeal stemmed 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 several purported virtues was an ability to prosper on abject or “marginal” lands; therefore, it was claimed it would never ever take on food crops, so the theory went.

Back then, jatropha ticked all packages, states Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo’s Institute for Future Initiatives. “We had a crop that appeared incredible; that can grow without excessive fertilizer, too many pesticides, or too much need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food due to the fact that it is dangerous.”

Governments, global firms, financiers and business bought into the hype, releasing efforts to plant, or promise 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 miraculous biofuel tree to fade.

In 2009, a Friends of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known 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, an international review kept in mind that “cultivation surpassed both clinical understanding of the crop’s potential in addition to an understanding of how the crop suits existing rural economies and the degree to which it can prosper on minimal lands.”

Projections approximated 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 might grow on abject lands and endure dry spell conditions, as declared, but yields remained bad.

“In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under relatively poorer conditions, produced a really big issue,” leading to “undervalued yields that were going to be produced,” Gasparatos says.

As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise plagued by environmental, social and economic problems, state professionals. 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 resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the “carbon repayment” of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss ranged between 2 and 14 years, and “in some circumstances, the carbon debt might never ever be recuperated.” In India, production revealed carbon benefits, but using fertilizers resulted in 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 located on minimal land, but the concept of marginal land is very elusive,” describes 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 found that a lax meaning of “minimal” suggested 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 fact that … currently no one is using [land] for farming doesn’t indicate that nobody is using it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you might not always see from satellite imagery.”

Learning from jatropha

There are essential lessons to be found out from the experience with jatropha, state analysts, which must be hearkened when thinking about other auspicious second-generation biofuels.

“There was a boom [in financial investment], however regrettably not of research study, and action was taken based on supposed advantages of jatropha,” says 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 published a paper pointing out key lessons.

Fundamentally, he describes, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This essential requirement for upfront research study might be applied to other possible biofuel crops, he states. In 2015, for example, his group released a paper evaluating 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 minimal land. But Muys’s research showed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that “pongamia still can not be thought about a substantial and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge gaps.” Use of such cautionary information could prevent inefficient monetary speculation and reckless land conversion for new biofuels.

“There are other very appealing trees or plants that could function as a fuel or a biomass producer,” Muys states. “We wanted to avoid [them going] in the very same instructions of premature hype and stop working, like jatropha.”

Gasparatos underlines crucial requirements that must be fulfilled before moving ahead with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields must be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market should be available.

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

How biofuel lands are gotten is also essential, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally used lands were purchased for production, authorities need to guarantee that “standards are put in location to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to minimize some of the issues we observed.”

A jatropha return?

Despite all these challenges, some scientists still believe 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 believe jatropha has some possible, but it requires to be the ideal material, 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 method that Qatar might decrease airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its use as a jet fuel could result in about a 40% reduction of “cradle to tomb” emissions.

Alherbawi’s team is conducting ongoing field studies to enhance 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 application of the green belt can truly improve the soil and farming lands, and protect them against any more deterioration triggered by dust storms,” he says.

But the Qatar project’s success still depends upon lots of aspects, not least the capability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another important step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that uses the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.

Back in Ghana, jOil is currently 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 and advancement have actually resulted in varieties of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were lacking more than a years ago.

“We had the ability to accelerate the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and improve the fruit-bearing capability of the tree,” Subramanian states. In essence, he specifies, 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 taking a look at. The fruit and its byproducts might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal replacement (crucial 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 as soon as 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, but he thinks that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be “competitive … These 2 aspects – that it is technically appropriate, and the carbon sequestration – makes it an extremely strong prospect for adoption for … sustainable aviation,” he says. “Our company believe any such growth will happen, [by clarifying] the meaning of degraded land, [enabling] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method threatening food security of any nation.”

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can really be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially responsible depends on complex elements, including where and how it’s grown – whether, for example, its production model is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state professionals. Then there’s the unpleasant problem of attaining high yields.

Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government announced its intention to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a national biofuels push that has actually stirred dispute over potential repercussions. The Gran Chaco’s dry forest biome is currently in deep problem, having been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many previous plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which became problematic for carbon accounting. “The net carbon was frequently negative in the majority of the jatropha sites, because the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree,” he discusses.

Other researchers chronicle the “potential of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock” in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers stay doubtful of the eco-friendly 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 successful, 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 actually conducted research study on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega cites previous land-use issues connected with growth of numerous crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: “Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not handle the private sector doing whatever they desire, in regards to creating ecological problems.”

Researchers in Mexico are presently exploring jatropha-based livestock feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well fit to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he stays worried about prospective ecological expenses.

He suggests limiting jatropha growth in Mexico to make it a “crop that dominates land,” growing it just in truly poor soils in need of remediation. “Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in very sterile wastelands,” he discusses. “That’s the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico – as part of a forest healing method for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated problems are higher than the possible benefits.”

Jatropha’s international future remains unsure. And its possible as a tool in the fight versus environment change can just be opened, say many specialists, by preventing the litany 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 function 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 establish and broaden the supply chain of jatropha.”

Banner image: Jatropha curcas trees in Hawai’i. Image by Forest and Kim Starr via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

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