Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ to curb CO2

1 August 2013

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By Matt McGrath

Environment correspondent, BBC News

Scientists say that planting great deals of jatropha trees in desert areas might be an effective way of suppressing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed “carbon farming”, scientists say the concept is financially competitive with state-of-the-art carbon capture and storage tasks.

But critics state the idea could be have unanticipated, unfavorable impacts consisting of driving up food prices.

The research has been released, external in the journal Earth System Dynamics.

Seeds of modification

Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from in Central America and is really well adapted to extreme conditions including extremely dry deserts.

It is already grown as a biofuel, external in some parts of the world due to the fact that its seeds can produce oil.

In this study, German scientists showed that one hectare of jatropha might capture up to 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the environment every year. The their quotes on trees currently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the Negev desert.

“The outcomes are overwhelming,” stated Prof Klaus Becker, from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart.

“There was excellent development, an excellent action from these plants. I feel there will be no problem attempting it on a much bigger scale, for instance 10 thousand hectares in the start,” he stated.

According to the scientists a plantation that would cover 3 percent of the Arabian desert would absorb all the CO2 produced by automobiles and trucks in Germany over a 20 year duration.

The researchers say that an important aspect of the plan would be the schedule of desalination centers. This indicates that initially, any plantations would be restricted to seaside locations.

They are wanting to establish larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other plans that simply balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be an excellent, short term option to environment modification.

“I believe it is a good concept because we are truly extracting carbon dioxide from the environment – and it is completely various in between extracting and avoiding.”

According to the researcher’s estimations the costs of suppressing co2 by means of the planting of trees would be in between 42 and 63 euros per tonne. This makes it competitive with other strategies, such as the more high tech carbon capture and storage, external (CCS).

A number of nations are presently trialling this technology, external however it has yet to be released commercially.

Growing jatropha not only takes in CO2 but has other benefits. The plants would help to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be harvested for biofuel say the scientists, providing an economic return.

“Jatropha is perfect to be developed into biokerosene – it is even better than biodiesel,” stated Prof Becker.

But other professionals in this area are not persuaded. They indicate the truth that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, specifically in Africa. But a number of these endeavors ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely successful in coping with dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels project supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She says that while jatropha was once viewed as the fantastic, green hope the truth was extremely various.

“When jatropha was presented it was seen as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or limited land,” she stated.

“But there are frequently individuals who require limited land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location – we wouldn’t class the land as limited.”

She mentioned that jatropha is highly toxic and can pollute the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she also had concerns about the fairness of the concept.

“It is still somebody else’s land. Why enter and grow these massive plantations to handle a problem these individuals didn’t really trigger?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related internet links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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