Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ to curb CO2

1 August 2013

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By Matt McGrath

Environment reporter, BBC News

Scientists say that planting great deals of jatropha trees in desert areas could be a reliable way of curbing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed “carbon farming”, researchers say the concept is financially competitive with modern carbon capture and storage tasks.

But critics state the concept might be have unpredicted, unfavorable impacts consisting of driving up food prices.

The research study has been released, 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 to extreme conditions consisting of very dry deserts.

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

In this study, German scientists showed that one hectare of jatropha might record up to 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the environment every year. The scientists based their estimates 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 growth, an excellent response from these plants. I feel there will be no issue attempting it on a much larger scale, for example 10 thousand hectares in the beginning,” he said.

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

The scientists state that an important component of the plan would be the schedule of desalination centers. This implies that initially, any plantations would be restricted to coastal areas.

They are wishing to develop bigger 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 might be an excellent, short-term service to climate change.

“I believe it is a great concept due to the fact that we are really extracting co2 from the atmosphere – and it is entirely different between extracting and avoiding.”

According to the scientist’s calculations the expenses of suppressing co2 via 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 variety of countries are presently trialling this innovation, external but it has yet to be deployed commercially.

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

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

But other experts in this location are not convinced. They point to the reality that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, particularly in Africa. But a lot of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely successful in dealing with dry conditions.

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

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

“But there are often individuals who need limited land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location – we would not class the land as minimal.”

She explained that jatropha is extremely harmful and can contaminate 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 go in and grow these massive plantations to handle an issue 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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