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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was wildly promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on degraded 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 resulted in plantation failures almost all over. The aftermath of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the evasive promise of high-yielding jatropha. A comeback, they say, depends on splitting the yield problem and addressing the harmful land-use issues linked with its original failure.
The sole remaining big jatropha plantation is 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 resurgence fails, 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, 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 broken down, 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 staying big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha remains in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, claims the jatropha comeback is on.

"All those companies that stopped working, adopted a plug-and-play model of hunting for the wild varieties of jatropha. But to advertise it, you require to domesticate it. This belongs of the process that was missed [during the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.

Having found out from the errors of jatropha's previous failures, he states the oily plant could yet play a key role as a liquid biofuel feedstock, decreasing transport carbon emissions at the international level. A new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha likewise a potential source of fertilizers and even bioplastics.

But some researchers are doubtful, 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 essential to gain from past mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were hampered not only by poor yields, however by land grabbing, deforestation, and social problems in nations where it was planted, including Ghana, where jOil operates.

Experts likewise suggest that jatropha's tale provides lessons for researchers and entrepreneurs exploring appealing brand-new sources for liquid biofuels - which exist aplenty.

Miracle shrub, major bust

Jatropha's early 21st-century appeal came from its guarantee as a "second-generation" biofuel, which are sourced from turfs, 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 grow on degraded or "minimal" 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 amazing; that can grow without too much fertilizer, a lot of pesticides, or excessive need for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not compete with food since it is dangerous."

Governments, worldwide agencies, financiers and business purchased into the buzz, launching efforts to plant, or guarantee 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 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) warned that jatropha's high needs for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, an international evaluation noted that "growing exceeded both scientific understanding of the crop's potential 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 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 stop working as expected yields refused to emerge. Jatropha could grow on degraded lands and endure dry spell conditions, as claimed, but yields remained bad.

"In my viewpoint, this mix of speculative financial investment, export-oriented potential, and prospective to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, created a huge issue," leading to "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 problems, say specialists. 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 resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico found the "carbon payback" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss ranged in between 2 and 14 years, and "in some situations, the carbon financial obligation may never ever 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 take a look at most of the plantations in Ghana, they declare that the jatropha produced was positioned on marginal land, but the concept of marginal land is very elusive," describes Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the nation over a number of years, and found that a lax meaning of "marginal" meant that presumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had actually been lying unblemished and unused was typically illusory.

"Marginal to whom?" he asks. "The truth that ... presently nobody is utilizing [land] for farming doesn't suggest that no one is using it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based incomes on those landscapes that you may not always see from satellite images."

Learning from jatropha

There are key lessons to be found out from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which should be heeded when thinking about other advantageous second-generation biofuels.

"There was a boom [in investment], however unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based upon 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 buzz was unwinding, Muys and colleagues released a paper mentioning key lessons.

Fundamentally, he discusses, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This crucial requirement for in advance research study might be used to other prospective biofuel crops, he states. Last year, for instance, his team launched a paper analyzing the yields of pongamia (Millettia pinnata), a "fast-growing, leguminous and multipurpose tree types" with biofuel pledge.

Like jatropha, pongamia can be grown on degraded and marginal land. But Muys's research showed yields to be highly 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 persisting knowledge gaps." Use of such cautionary information could prevent inefficient monetary speculation and negligent land conversion for new biofuels.

"There are other extremely appealing trees or plants that could act as a fuel or a biomass manufacturer," Muys states. "We desired to prevent [them going] in the exact same instructions of premature hype and fail, like jatropha."

Gasparatos underlines crucial requirements that must be fulfilled before continuing with new biofuel plantations: high yields should be opened, inputs to reach those yields comprehended, and an all set market must be 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 strange."

How biofuel lands are obtained is also crucial, says Ahmed. Based upon experiences in Ghana where communally utilized lands were acquired for production, authorities should make sure that "guidelines are put in place to examine how massive land acquisitions will be done and recorded in order to lower some of the problems we observed."

A jatropha resurgence?

Despite all these obstacles, some scientists still believe that under the right conditions, jatropha might be a valuable biofuel solution - especially for the difficult-to-decarbonize transportation sector "responsible for approximately one quarter of greenhouse gas emissions."

"I believe jatropha has some prospective, however it needs to be the ideal product, grown in the ideal place, 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 method that Qatar might minimize airline company carbon emissions. According to his estimates, its use as a jet fuel could lead to about a 40% reduction of "cradle to tomb" emissions.

Alherbawi's group is performing continuous field studies to enhance jatropha yields by fertilizing crops with sewage sludge. As an added advantage, he envisages 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 protect them versus any further degeneration triggered by dust storms," he states.

But the Qatar project's success still depends upon numerous aspects, not least the capability to acquire quality yields from the tree. Another crucial action, Alherbawi discusses, is scaling up production technology that utilizes the entirety of the jatropha fruit to increase processing efficiency.

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 study and advancement have resulted in ranges of jatropha that can now achieve the high yields that were doing not have more than a years earlier.

"We were able to quicken the yield cycle, enhance the yield range and boost the fruit-bearing capacity of the tree," Subramanian says. In essence, he specifies, the tree is now domesticated. "Our very first project 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 (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 as soon as again reopened with the energy shift drive for oil companies and bio-refiners - [driven by] the search 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 related to the oily plant will be "competitive ... These two elements - that it is technically suitable, and the carbon sequestration - makes it a very strong candidate for adoption for ... sustainable aviation," he says. "Our company believe any such expansion will happen, [by clarifying] the meaning of abject land, [enabling] no competition with food crops, nor in any way endangering food security of any nation."

Where next for jatropha?

Whether jatropha can truly be carbon neutral, environmentally friendly and socially responsible 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, state specialists. Then there's the nagging problem 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 press that has stirred argument over potential repercussions. The Gran Chaco's dry forest biome is already in deep difficulty, having been greatly deforested by aggressive agribusiness practices.

Many past plantations in Ghana, warns Ahmed, transformed dry savanna woodland, which became bothersome for carbon accounting. "The net carbon was frequently unfavorable 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 scientists chronicle the "capacity of Jatropha curcas as an environmentally benign biodiesel feedstock" in Malaysia, Indonesia and India. But still other scientists remain skeptical of the environmental 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 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. trainee with the Stockholm Resilience Centre; he has carried out research on the possibilities of jatropha contributing to a circular economy in Mexico.

Avila-Ortega cites past land-use problems connected with expansion of different crops, including oil palm, sugarcane and avocado: "Our law enforcement is so weak that it can not deal with the personal sector doing whatever they want, in regards to developing ecological problems."

Researchers in Mexico are currently checking out jatropha-based livestock feed as an inexpensive and sustainable replacement for grain. Such uses might be well fit to regional contexts, Avila-Ortega concurs, though he stays concerned about prospective environmental expenses.

He recommends limiting jatropha expansion in Mexico to make it a "crop that conquers land," growing it just in truly poor soils in requirement of repair. "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 recovery technique for wastelands. Otherwise, the associated issues are greater than the possible advantages."

Jatropha's worldwide future stays unpredictable. And its possible as a tool in the fight against climate modification can only be unlocked, state lots of specialists, by preventing the litany of difficulties associated with its first boom.

Will jatropha jobs 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" and that the return is on. "We have strong interest from the energy market now," he says, "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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