Jatropha: The Biofuel That Bombed Seeks A Course To Redemption

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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was extremely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on abject lands across 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 all over. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was polluted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.

Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive pledge of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, depends on cracking the yield problem and addressing the damaging land-use problems intertwined with its initial failure.

The sole staying large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have been attained and a new boom is at hand. But even if this return falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds important lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.


At the start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, an unassuming shrub-like tree native to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its pledge as a sustainable source of biofuel that might be grown on broken down, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields failed.


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


"All those companies that stopped working, embraced a plug-and-play design of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This is a part of the procedure that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.


Having gained from the mistakes of jatropha's past failures, he says the oily plant could yet play a crucial function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, lowering transport carbon emissions at the global level. A brand-new boom might bring fringe benefits, with jatropha likewise a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.


But some researchers are doubtful, noting that jatropha has actually already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They caution that if the plant is to reach full potential, then it is necessary to find out from past mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha curcas plantations were obstructed not just by poor yields, however by land grabbing, logging, and social problems in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil runs.


Experts also recommend that jatropha's tale uses lessons for researchers and business owners checking out promising new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.


Miracle shrub, significant bust


Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal stemmed from its promise as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from yards, trees and other plants not stemmed from edible crops such as maize, soy or oil palm. Among its several supposed virtues was an ability to prosper on abject or "minimal" 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 miraculous; that can grow without too much fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or too much need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not complete with food because it is toxic."


Governments, worldwide companies, investors and business purchased into the hype, launching initiatives 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 study got ready for WWF.


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


In 2009, a Pals of the Earth report from Eswatini (still understood at the time as Swaziland) cautioned that jatropha's high demands for land would indeed bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation kept in mind that "growing exceeded both clinical 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 marginal 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 expected yields refused to emerge. Jatropha could grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as declared, but yields remained bad.


"In my opinion, this combination of speculative investment, export-oriented capacity, and possible to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, developed a huge problem," resulting in "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.


As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise pestered by environmental, social and financial difficulties, state professionals. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and clearing of natural areas were reported.


Studies found that land-use change for jatropha in nations 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 ranged in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon financial obligation might 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 look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was located on marginal land, however the concept of limited land is extremely evasive," explains Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the nation over several years, and found that a lax definition of "limited" suggested that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying unblemished and unused was often illusory.


"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The reality that ... currently nobody is using [land] for farming does not imply that nobody is using it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not always 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 thinking about other advantageous second-generation biofuels.


"There was a boom [in investment], but unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based on supposed benefits of jatropha," states 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 unwinding, Muys and coworkers published a paper mentioning essential lessons.


Fundamentally, he discusses, there was an absence of knowledge about the plant itself and its needs. This important requirement for upfront research 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 curcas, pongamia can be grown on degraded and minimal land. But Muys's research revealed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a significant and stable source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting knowledge spaces." Use of such cautionary data might avoid wasteful monetary speculation and careless land conversion for new biofuels.


"There are other extremely promising trees or plants that could function as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We wished to avoid [them going] in the very same direction of early buzz and stop working, like jatropha."


Gasparatos underlines vital requirements that should be fulfilled before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields should be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields understood, and a ready market should be available.


"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 strange."


How biofuel lands are gotten is also essential, says Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities must ensure that "guidelines are put in location to examine how large-scale land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to lower a few of the issues we observed."


A jatropha curcas comeback?


Despite all these obstacles, some researchers still think that under the ideal conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel option - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."


"I think jatropha has some possible, but it requires to be the ideal product, grown in the right location, 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 way that Qatar may minimize airline company carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its use as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% decrease of "cradle to tomb" emissions.


Alherbawi's group is performing continuous field studies to boost jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt covering 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can truly boost the soil and farming lands, and safeguard them versus any additional deterioration triggered by dust storms," he says.


But the Qatar job's success still hinges on numerous elements, not least the ability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another important step, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production innovation that uses the entirety of the jatropha fruit to increase processing performance.


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) working with more than 400 farmers. Subramanian describes that years of research and development have actually resulted in varieties of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were doing not have more than a decade ago.


"We were able to accelerate the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and improve the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he states, the tree is now domesticated. "Our first task 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 (essential in Africa where much wood is still burned for cooking), and even bioplastics.


But it is the transport sector that still beckons as the perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually when again resumed with the energy transition drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."


A total 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 suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he says. "Our company believe any such expansion will take location, [by clarifying] the definition of abject land, [permitting] no competition with food crops, nor in any way threatening food security of any country."


Where next for jatropha?


Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially responsible depends upon complex elements, consisting of where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production design is based in smallholder farms versus industrial-scale plantations, state specialists. Then there's the nagging problem of attaining high yields.


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


Many previous plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, transformed dry savanna forest, which became bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically unfavorable in the majority of the jatropha websites, because the carbon sequestration of jatropha can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he describes.


Other researchers chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists stay uncertain of the environmental 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 effective, that we will have a lot of associated land-use change," says Daniel Itzamna Avila-Ortega, co-founder of the Mexican Center of Industrial and a Ph.D. student with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has actually conducted research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.


Avila-Ortega cites previous land-use issues related to growth of numerous crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not manage the personal sector doing whatever they desire, in terms of creating ecological issues."


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


He suggests restricting jatropha curcas expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in truly poor soils in requirement of restoration. "Jatropha could be among those plants that can grow in extremely sterilized wastelands," he explains. "That's the only way I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest healing method for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are higher than the potential benefits."


Jatropha's worldwide future remains unpredictable. And its prospective as a tool in the fight against environment change can just be unlocked, state many professionals, by avoiding the list of problems related to its first boom.


Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a stop in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian believes its function as a sustainable biofuel is "impending" which the return 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).


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