If you liked this story, share it with other individuals.
Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. A simple shrubby tree native to Central America, it was hugely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that might 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 led to plantation failures nearly all over. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was tainted by accusations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some scientists continue pursuing the evasive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they say, depends on breaking the yield issue and attending to the damaging land-use issues linked with its original failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation remains in Ghana. The plantation owner claims high-yield domesticated ranges have actually been achieved and a new boom is at hand. But even if this resurgence falters, the world's experience of jatropha holds essential lessons for any promising up-and-coming biofuel.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, a simple 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 might be grown on deteriorated, unfertile lands so as not to displace food crops. But inflated claims of high yields fell flat.
Now, after years of research and advancement, the sole remaining big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha comeback is on.
"All those companies that failed, adopted a plug-and-play model of hunting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to commercialize it, you need to domesticate it. This is a part of the process that was missed out on [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian told Mongabay in an interview.
Having gained from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he says the oily plant could yet play a key function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transportation carbon emissions at the international level. A brand-new boom might bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a possible source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.
But some scientists are skeptical, noting that jatropha has already gone through one hype-and-fizzle cycle. They warn that if the plant is to reach full potential, then it is vital to gain from past errors. During the very first boom, jatropha curcas plantations were hindered not just by bad yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social issues in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts likewise recommend that jatropha's tale provides lessons for scientists and business owners exploring appealing brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.
Miracle shrub, major bust
Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal originated 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 multiple purported virtues was a capability to thrive on abject or "limited" lands; hence, it was declared it would never contend with 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 appeared amazing; 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 due to the fact that it is toxic."
Governments, global firms, investors and business bought into the hype, launching efforts to plant, or pledge 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 incredible biofuel tree to fade.
In 2009, a Buddies 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, a global evaluation noted that "growing outmatched both scientific understanding of the crop's potential along with an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can grow on limited 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 declined to emerge. Jatropha might grow on abject lands and tolerate dry spell conditions, as claimed, however yields remained bad.
"In my opinion, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and prospective to grow under fairly poorer conditions, developed an extremely big problem," leading to "underestimated yields that were going to be produced," Gasparatos says.
As jatropha plantations went from boom to bust, they were likewise afflicted by ecological, social and financial troubles, say professionals. 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 curcas in nations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania caused a loss of biodiversity. A research study from Mexico discovered the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to associated forest loss ranged between two and 14 years, and "in some scenarios, the carbon financial obligation might never ever be recuperated." In India, production showed carbon benefits, however using fertilizers led to increases 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 curcas produced was located on minimal land, but the idea 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 nation over several years, and discovered that a lax definition of "minimal" suggested that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched and unused was frequently illusory.
"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... presently no one is using [land] for farming does not indicate that no one is using it [for other functions] There are a great deal of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite imagery."
Learning from jatropha
There are key lessons to be found out from the experience with jatropha, say experts, which need to be hearkened when considering other auspicious second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in investment], however regrettably not of research, and action was taken based upon alleged benefits of jatropha," says 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 coworkers published a paper mentioning essential lessons.
Fundamentally, he explains, there was a lack of understanding about the plant itself and its needs. This essential requirement for in advance research might be applied to other prospective biofuel crops, he states. In 2015, for instance, his team released a paper examining the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree species" with biofuel promise.
Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and minimal land. But Muys's research study revealed yields to be extremely variable, contrary to other reports. The team concluded that "pongamia still can not be thought about a considerable and steady source of biofuel feedstock due to persisting knowledge spaces." Use of such cautionary information could prevent wasteful monetary speculation and careless land conversion for new biofuels.
"There are other extremely appealing trees or plants that might work as a fuel or a biomass producer," Muys says. "We wished to prevent [them going] in the same direction of premature hype and fail, like jatropha."
Gasparatos highlights vital requirements that must be met before continuing with brand-new biofuel plantations: high yields need to be unlocked, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and a prepared market should be readily available.
"Basically, the crop needs to be domesticated, or [clinical 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 also key, states Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities should guarantee that "guidelines are put in location to check how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to decrease some of the issues we observed."
A jatropha return?
Despite all these difficulties, some scientists still believe that under the right conditions, jatropha could be an important biofuel solution - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transport sector "responsible for around one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."
"I think jatropha has some prospective, but it requires to be the best product, grown in the best 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 method that Qatar may lower airline company carbon emissions. According to his price quotes, its use as a jet fuel might lead to about a 40% decrease of "cradle to grave" emissions.
Alherbawi's team is carrying out continuous field research studies to improve jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added benefit, he imagines a jatropha green belt spanning 20,000 hectares (almost 50,000 acres) in Qatar. "The implementation of the green belt can really improve the soil and agricultural lands, and secure them against any additional wear and tear caused by dust storms," he says.
But the Qatar project's success still hinges on numerous aspects, not least the ability to get quality yields from the tree. Another essential action, Alherbawi describes, is scaling up production technology that uses the whole of the jatropha fruit to increase processing effectiveness.
Back in Ghana, jOil is presently 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 describes that years of research and advancement have resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now attain the high yields that were lacking more than a decade back.
"We were able to speed up the yield cycle, improve the yield range and enhance the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he mentions, 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 looking at. The fruit and its by-products might be a source of fertilizer, bio-candle wax, a charcoal substitute (essential 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 actually as soon as again reopened with the energy transition drive for oil business and bio-refiners - [driven by] the look for alternative fuels that would be emission friendly."
A total jatropha life-cycle assessment has yet to be finished, however he believes that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These 2 aspects - that it is technically ideal, and the carbon sequestration - makes it an extremely strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable air travel," he says. "We believe any such growth will occur, [by clarifying] the definition of degraded land, [permitting] no competitors with food crops, nor in any way endangering food security of any country."
Where next for jatropha?
Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, eco-friendly and socially accountable depends on complex factors, consisting of 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 bothersome issue of achieving high yields.
Earlier this year, the Bolivian federal government revealed its objective to pursue jatropha plantations in the Gran Chaco biome, part of a nationwide biofuels push that has actually stirred dispute over prospective consequences. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is currently in deep trouble, having actually been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.
Many previous plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, converted dry savanna forest, which became bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was typically unfavorable in many of the jatropha sites, because the carbon sequestration of jatropha 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 uncertain 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 great deal of associated land-use change," 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 on the possibilities of jatropha adding to a circular economy in Mexico.
Avila-Ortega cites previous land-use problems associated with growth of numerous crops, consisting of oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not manage the economic sector doing whatever they want, in terms of creating ecological issues."
Researchers in Mexico are currently checking out jatropha-based livestock feed as a low-cost and sustainable replacement for grain. Such usages might be well fit to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega agrees, though he remains worried about potential environmental costs.
He recommends limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that dominates land," growing it only in really poor soils in need of repair. "Jatropha could be one of those plants that can grow in extremely sterile wastelands," he discusses. "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 worldwide future stays unpredictable. And its prospective as a tool in the battle against environment modification can only be opened, state many experts, by preventing the list of difficulties related to its very first boom.
Will jatropha tasks that sputtered to a halt in the early 2000s be fired back up once again? Subramanian believes 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 team up 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 via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).
A liquid biofuels primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts
Citations:
Wahl, N., Hildebrandt, T., Moser, C., Lüdeke-Freund, F., Averdunk, K., Bailis, R., ... Zelt, T. (2012 ). Insights into jatropha jobs worldwide - Key truths & figures from a worldwide study. Centre for Sustainability Management (CSM), Leuphana Universität Lüneburg. doi:10.2139/ ssrn.2254823
Romijn, H., Heijnen, S., Colthoff, J. R., De Jong, B., & Van Eijck, J. (2014 ). Economic and social sustainability performance of jatropha curcas jobs: Results from field studies in Mozambique, Tanzania and Mali. Sustainability, 6( 9 ), 6203-6235. doi:10.3390/ su6096203
Trebbin, A. (2021 ). Land grabbing and jatropha in India: An analysis of 'hyped' discourse on the topic. Land, 10( 10 ), 1063. doi:10.3390/ land10101063
Van Eijck, J., Romijn, H., Balkema, A., & Faaij, A. (2014 ). Global experience with jatropha growing for bioenergy: An evaluation of socio-economic and environmental aspects. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 32, 869-889. doi:10.1016/ j.rser.2014.01.028
Skutsch, M., De los Rios, E., Solis, S., Riegelhaupt, E., Hinojosa, D., Gerfert, S., ... Masera, O. (2011 ). Jatropha in Mexico: environmental and social impacts of an incipient biofuel program. Ecology and Society, 16( 4 ). doi:10.5751/ ES-04448-160411
Gmünder, S., Singh, R., Pfister, S., Adheloya, A., & Zah, R. (2012 ). Environmental impacts of Jatropha curcas biodiesel in India. Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology, 2012. doi:10.1155/ 2012/623070
Ahmed, A., Jarzebski, M. P., & Gasparatos, A. (2018 ). Using the ecosystem service method to figure out whether jatropha projects were found in limited lands in Ghana: Implications for website selection. Biomass and Bioenergy, 114, 112-124. doi:10.1016/ j.biombioe.2017.07.020
Achten, W. M., Sharma, N., Muys, B., Mathijs, E., & Vantomme, P. (2014 ). Opportunities and constraints of promoting new tree crops - Lessons found out from jatropha curcas. Sustainability, 6( 6 ), 3213-3231. doi:10.3390/ su6063213
Alherbawi, M., McKay, G., Govindan, R., Haji, M., & Al-Ansari, T. (2022 ). A novel approach on the delineation of a multipurpose energy-greenbelt to produce biofuel and combat desertification in deserts. Journal of Environmental Management, 323, 116223. doi:10.1016/ j.jenvman.2022.116223
Riayatsyah, T. M. I., Sebayang, A. H., Silitonga, A. S., Padli, Y., Fattah, I. M. R., Kusumo, F., ... Mahlia, T. M. I. (2022 ). Current development of Jatropha curcas commoditisation as biodiesel feedstock: An extensive review. Frontiers in Energy Research, 9, 1019. doi:10.3389/ fenrg.2021.815416
Mokhtar, E. S., Akhir, N. M., Zaki, N. A. M., Muharam, F. M., Pradhan, B., & Lay, U. S. (2021 ). Land viability for possible jatropha plantation in Malaysia. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 620( 1 ), 012002. doi:10.1088/ 1755-1315/620/ 1/012002
Chamola, R., Kumar, N., & Jain, S. (2022 ). Jatropha: A sustainable source of transportation fuel in India. In Advancement in Materials, Manufacturing and Energy Engineering, Vol. II: Select Proceedings of ICAMME 2021 (pp. 395-408). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. doi:10.1007/ 978-981-16-8341-1_32
Peralta, H., Avila-Ortega, D. I., & García-Flores, J. C. (2022 ). Jatropha farm: A circular economy proposition for the non-toxic physic nut crop in Mexico. Environmental Sciences Proceedings, 15( 1 ), 10. doi:10.3390/ environsciproc2022015010
Hao, M., Qian, Y., Xie, X., Chen, S., Ding, F., & Ma, T. (2022 ). Global marginal land accessibility of Jatropha curcas L.-based biodiesel development. Journal of Cleaner Production, 364, 132655. doi:10.1016/ j.jclepro.2022.132655
FEEDBACK: Use this kind to send a message to the author of this post. If you wish to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.
