Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ to suppress 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 a reliable method of curbing emissions of CO2.

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

But critics say the idea might be have unpredicted, negative impacts consisting of driving up food rates.

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

Seeds of change

Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from in Central America and is extremely well adapted to harsh conditions consisting of incredibly dry deserts.

It is currently grown as a biofuel, external in some parts of the world since its seeds can produce oil.

In this research study, German scientists showed that a person hectare of jatropha could catch up to 25 tonnes of co2 from the environment every year. The scientists based their price quotes on trees currently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the Negev desert.

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

“There was good development, an excellent response from these plants. I feel there will be no problem trying it on a much bigger scale, for example ten thousand hectares in the start,” he said.

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

The scientists state that an important component of the plan would be the accessibility of desalination facilities. This suggests that at first, any plantations would be confined to coastal locations.

They are wishing to develop larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other schemes that simply balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha might be an excellent, short-term service to climate modification.

“I think it is a great idea due to the fact that we are truly extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – and it is entirely different between drawing out and avoiding.”

According to the researcher’s estimations the expenses of suppressing co2 via the planting of trees would be 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 innovation, external but it has yet to be deployed commercially.

Growing jatropha not only takes in CO2 but has other advantages. The plants would help to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be collected for biofuel say the scientists, offering a financial return.

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

But other specialists in this area are not persuaded. They point to the truth that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, specifically in Africa. But numerous of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not very effective in managing dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels project supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was once viewed as the great, green hope the reality was extremely different.

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

“But there are typically people who require limited land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location – we would not class the land as marginal.”

She pointed out that is extremely poisonous and can contaminate the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she also had issues about the fairness of the idea.

“It is still somebody else’s land. Why go in and grow these enormous plantations to deal with a problem these people didn’t actually trigger?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related internet links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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