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Earlier this century, jatropha was hailed as a "miracle" biofuel. An unassuming shrubby tree native to Central America, it was extremely promoted as a high-yielding, drought-tolerant biofuel feedstock that could grow on degraded 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 almost all over. The consequences of the jatropha crash was tainted by allegations of land grabbing, mismanagement, and overblown carbon decrease claims.
Today, some researchers continue pursuing the evasive guarantee of high-yielding jatropha. A resurgence, they state, depends on splitting the yield issue and dealing with the damaging land-use issues intertwined with its initial failure.
The sole staying large jatropha plantation is in Ghana. The plantation owner declares high-yield domesticated varieties have actually been attained and a new boom is at hand. But even if this comeback fails, the world's experience of jatropha holds important lessons for any appealing up-and-coming biofuel.
At the start of the 21st century, Jatropha curcas, a simple shrub-like tree native to Central America, was planted across the world. The rush to jatropha was driven by its promise as a sustainable source of biofuel that could 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 study and advancement, the sole remaining big plantation concentrated on growing jatropha is in Ghana. And Singapore-based jOil, which owns that plantation, declares the jatropha comeback is on.
"All those companies that stopped working, adopted a plug-and-play design of scouting for the wild varieties of jatropha curcas. But to advertise it, you require to domesticate it. This is a part of the process that was missed out on [throughout the boom]," jOil CEO Vasanth Subramanian informed Mongabay in an interview.
Having gained from the errors of jatropha curcas's previous failures, he says the oily plant might yet play an essential function as a liquid biofuel feedstock, reducing transportation carbon emissions at the global level. A new boom could bring fringe benefits, with jatropha also a possible 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 complete potential, then it is necessary to gain from past mistakes. During the very first boom, jatropha plantations were obstructed not only by bad yields, but by land grabbing, logging, and social issues in nations where it was planted, consisting of Ghana, where jOil runs.
Experts also suggest that jatropha's tale offers 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 stemmed from its pledge 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 multiple purported virtues was an ability to prosper on degraded or "minimal" lands; hence, it was claimed it would never take on food crops, so the theory went.
Back then, jatropha ticked all the boxes, 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, too numerous pesticides, or too much demand for water, that can be exported [as fuel] abroad, and does not take on food because it is toxic."
Governments, worldwide firms, financiers and companies bought into the hype, releasing initiatives 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 research study got ready for WWF.
It didn't take wish for the mirage of the amazing 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 needs for land would undoubtedly bring it into direct conflict with food crops. By 2011, a global evaluation noted that "growing exceeded both scientific understanding of the crop's capacity as well as an understanding of how the crop fits into existing rural economies and the degree to which it can thrive 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, just 1.19 million hectares (2.94 million acres) were growing by 2011. Projects and plantations began to stop working as expected yields declined to emerge. Jatropha might grow on degraded lands and tolerate drought conditions, as claimed, but yields stayed poor.
"In my viewpoint, this combination of speculative financial investment, export-oriented capacity, and possible to grow under reasonably poorer conditions, created 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 also plagued by environmental, social and economic troubles, say 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 countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Tanzania resulted in a loss of biodiversity. A study from Mexico found the "carbon repayment" of jatropha plantations due to involved forest loss varied 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 increases 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 minimal land, but the concept of minimal land is very evasive," discusses Abubakari Ahmed, a speaker at the University for Development Studies, Ghana. He studied the ramifications of jatropha plantations in the country over numerous years, and discovered that a lax definition of "minimal" implied that assumptions that the land co-opted for jatropha plantations had been lying untouched 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 utilizing it [for other purposes] There are a great deal of nature-based livelihoods on those landscapes that you may not necessarily see from satellite imagery."
Learning from jatropha curcas
There are crucial lessons to be gained from the experience with jatropha, state experts, which ought to be hearkened when considering other advantageous second-generation biofuels.
"There was a boom [in financial investment], however unfortunately not of research study, and action was taken based upon supposed 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 unwinding, Muys and coworkers published a paper citing crucial lessons.
Fundamentally, he discusses, there was an absence of understanding about the plant itself and its requirements. This crucial requirement for upfront research could be applied to other possible biofuel crops, he states.