Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ to suppress 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 », scientists say the concept is financially competitive with state-of-the-art carbon capture and storage jobs.

But critics state the idea might be have unpredicted, negative impacts including driving up food prices.

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

Seeds of modification

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

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

In this research study, German scientists showed that a person hectare of jatropha could capture as much as 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. The scientists based their price quotes on trees presently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the Negev desert.

« The results are overwhelming, » said Prof Klaus Becker, from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart.

« There was excellent growth, a great response from these plants. I feel there will be no issue trying it on a much bigger scale, for example 10 thousand hectares in the start, » he said.

According to the researchers a plantation that would cover three percent of the Arabian desert would soak up all the CO2 produced by automobiles and trucks in Germany over a twenty years period.

The scientists say that a crucial aspect of the plan would be the schedule of desalination facilities. This indicates that at first, any plantations would be restricted to coastal areas.

They are intending to establish bigger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other plans that just offset the carbon that people produce, the planting of could be an excellent, short term option to environment modification.

« I believe it is a good concept since we are actually drawing out co2 from the environment – and it is entirely different between drawing out and preventing. »

According to the scientist’s estimations the costs of curbing 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 countries are presently trialling this technology, external however it has yet to be released 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 state the scientists, supplying an economic return.

« Jatropha is perfect to be developed into biokerosene – it is even much better than biodiesel, » said Prof Becker.

But other specialists in this area are not encouraged. 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 endeavors ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely effective in managing dry conditions.

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

« When jatropha was introduced it was seen as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or minimal land, » she stated.

« But there are often people who require limited land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location – we would not class the land as minimal. »

She pointed out that jatropha is highly hazardous and can contaminate the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she likewise had issues about the fairness of the concept.

« It is still someone else’s land. Why enter and grow these enormous plantations to deal with an issue these people didn’t in fact cause? »

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related web links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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