Jatropha: The Biofuel That Bombed Seeks A Path To Redemption
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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree belonging to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might grow on abject 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 after-effects of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon reduction claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A return, they state, is dependent on cracking the yield problem and attending to the hazardous land-use concerns intertwined with its original failure.
The sole staying large jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have actually been attained and a brand-new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence fails, 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, a simple shrub-like tree native to Central America, was planted throughout the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its promise as a sustainable source of biofuel that might 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 development, the sole staying large plantation focused on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha resurgence is on.
"All those companies that stopped working, embraced a plug-and-play model of searching for the wild ranges of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This is a part of the process that was missed [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 might yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom might bring additional benefits, with jatropha likewise a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are doubtful, 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 necessary to discover from previous mistakes. During the first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not just by poor yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social problems in countries 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, significant bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal stemmed from its promise as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from lawns, 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 flourish on abject or "limited" lands; therefore, it was declared it would never take on food crops, so the theory went.
Back then, jatropha ticked all packages, says Alexandros Gasparatos, now at the University of Tokyo's Institute for Future Initiatives. "We had a crop that appeared incredible; that can grow without too much fertilizer, too numerous 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 poisonous."
Governments, worldwide companies, investors and companies purchased into the buzz, launching initiatives to plant, or guarantee 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 research study prepared for WWF.
It didn't take long for the mirage of the amazing biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Pals of the Earth report from Eswatini (still known at the time as Swaziland) alerted that jatropha's high demands for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct dispute with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation kept in mind that "growing surpassed both clinical understanding of the crop's potential as well as an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can thrive 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, just 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations started to stop working as anticipated yields refused to emerge. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and tolerate drought conditions, as declared, however yields stayed poor.
"In my viewpoint, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, produced a huge issue," leading to "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos states.
As jatropha curcas plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise afflicted by environmental, social and financial difficulties, state specialists. Accusations of land grabs, the conversion of food crop lands, and cleaning of natural areas were reported.
Studies found that land-use modification for jatropha in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico discovered the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss varied between two and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon debt might never be recovered." In India, production showed carbon benefits, however making use of fertilizers resulted in boosts of soil and water "acidification, ecotoxicity, eutrophication."
"If you look at the majority of the plantations in Ghana, they claim that the jatropha produced was situated on marginal land, however the concept of minimal land is really evasive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a lecturer at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the implications of jatropha plantations in the country over several years, and discovered that a lax definition of "limited" meant that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying unblemished and unused was frequently illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The fact that ... currently no one is utilizing [land] for farming doesn't indicate that nobody is utilizing it [for other functions] There are a lot of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you might not always see from satellite images."
Learning from jatropha
There are to be gained from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which must be followed when considering other auspicious second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], however regrettably not of research study, and action was taken based on supposed advantages 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 winding down, Muys and colleagues released a paper mentioning key lessons.
Fundamentally, he describes, there was an absence of knowledge about the plant itself and its requirements. This crucial requirement for upfront research could be applied to other prospective biofuel crops, he states. 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 pledge.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on abject and limited land. But Muys's research showed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The group concluded that "pongamia still can not be considered a significant and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to continuing knowledge spaces." Use of such cautionary information might avoid inefficient monetary speculation and negligent land conversion for new biofuels.
"There are other really promising trees or plants that could serve as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys says. "We wanted to prevent [them going] in the very same direction of premature buzz and stop working, like jatropha."
Gasparatos highlights essential requirements that need to be met before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be opened, inputs to reach those yields understood, and an all set market needs to be readily available.
"Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [scientific understanding] at a level that we understand how it is grown," Gasparatos states. Jatropha "was virtually undomesticated when it was promoted, which was so unusual."
How biofuel lands are obtained is likewise key, states Ahmed. Based on experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities need to ensure that "standards are put in place to check how massive land acquisitions will be done and documented in order to minimize a few of the issues we observed."
A jatropha comeback?
Despite all these obstacles, some researchers still think that under the ideal conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel option - particularly for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "accountable for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I believe jatropha has some possible, but it requires to be the right product, grown in the right 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 way that Qatar might reduce airline carbon emissions. According to his quotes, its usage as a jet fuel might result in about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.
Alherbawi's group is conducting continuous field studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an included advantage, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The execution of the green belt can really improve the soil and farming lands, and secure them versus any more deterioration brought on by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar job's success still hinges on many elements, not least the ability to get quality yields from the tree. Another vital step, Alherbawi explains, is scaling up production innovation that uses the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing efficiency.
Back in Ghana, jOil is currently managing 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 explains that years of research and development have actually resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were lacking more than a decade back.
"We were able to hasten the yield cycle, improve the yield variety and enhance the fruit-bearing capability of the tree," Subramanian says. 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 by-products 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 perfect biofuels application, according to Subramanian. "The biofuels story has actually once again reopened 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 curcas life-cycle evaluation has yet to be finished, 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 an extremely strong prospect for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "Our company believe any such growth will occur, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [allowing] no competitors with food crops, nor in any method endangering food security of any country."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially accountable depends upon complex factors, including where and how it's grown - whether, for example, its production model 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 government announced its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels press that has stirred debate over prospective repercussions. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep problem, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many previous plantations in Ghana, alerts Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which ended up being bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was often negative in most of the jatropha sites, since the carbon sequestration of jatropha curcas can not be compared to that of a shea tree," he explains.
Other scientists chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an ecologically benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other researchers remain skeptical of the environmental practicality of second-generation biofuels. "If Mexico promotes biofuels, such as the exploitation of jatropha, the rebound is that it potentially becomes so successful, that we will have a great deal 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 conducted research on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega points out previous land-use issues related to expansion of numerous crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our police is so weak that it can not manage the economic sector doing whatever they want, in terms of producing environmental issues."
Researchers in Mexico are presently checking out jatropha-based animals feed as a low-priced and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses may be well suited to local contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains worried about prospective ecological expenses.
He suggests restricting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in truly poor soils in need of restoration. "Jatropha might be among those plants that can grow in really sterilized wastelands," he describes. "That's the only method I would ever promote it in Mexico - as part of a forest recovery technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the involved problems are higher than the potential benefits."
Jatropha's worldwide future stays unpredictable. And its possible as a tool in the fight against environment change can only be opened, state lots of professionals, by avoiding the list of problems related to its very first boom.
Will jatropha projects that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up again? Subramanian thinks its role as a sustainable biofuel is "imminent" which the resurgence is on. "We have strong interest from the energy industry 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 by means of Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
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