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 large numbers of jatropha trees in desert locations could be a reliable way of curbing emissions of CO2.

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

But critics say the idea could be have unforeseen, negative impacts consisting of increasing food rates.

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

Seeds of change

Jatropha curcas is a plant that stemmed in Central America and is extremely well adapted to severe conditions consisting of exceptionally arid deserts.

It is currently 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 record as much as 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. The researchers based their price quotes on trees presently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the Negev desert.

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

“There was good growth, a good action from these plants. I feel there will be no problem attempting it on a much bigger scale, for example ten thousand hectares in the beginning,” he said.

According to the researchers 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 twenty years duration.

The scientists say that a critical element of the would be the accessibility of desalination centers. This implies that at first, any plantations would be restricted to seaside locations.

They are wanting to establish larger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other schemes that just balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha might be a great, short-term service to environment modification.

“I think it is a great idea due to the fact that we are really drawing out co2 from the environment – and it is totally different in between drawing out and avoiding.”

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

A number of countries are presently trialling this innovation, external however it has yet to be deployed commercially.

Growing jatropha not only soaks up CO2 however has other advantages. The plants would assist to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be collected for biofuel state the researchers, providing an economic return.

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

But other specialists in this location are not encouraged. They point to the fact that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, especially in Africa. But a number of these endeavors ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely successful in dealing with dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was when viewed as the excellent, green hope the truth was extremely 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 typically people who need limited land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location – we wouldn’t class the land as minimal.”

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

“It is still someone else’s land. Why enter and grow these huge plantations to deal with a problem 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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