Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon 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 locations might be an effective method of curbing emissions of CO2.

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

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

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

Seeds of change

Jatropha curcas is a plant that originated in Central America and is extremely well adapted to extreme 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 revealed that one hectare of jatropha could capture as much as 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. The researchers based their 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 great development, a great reaction from these plants. I feel there will be no issue attempting it on a much larger scale, for example 10 thousand hectares in the start,” he stated.

According to the researchers a plantation that would cover three percent of the Arabian desert would take in all the CO2 produced by automobiles and trucks in Germany over a 20 year period.

The scientists say that a crucial element of the plan would be the accessibility of desalination facilities. This suggests that initially, any plantations would be confined to coastal locations.

They are hoping to establish bigger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other schemes that simply balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be an excellent, brief term service to environment change.

“I believe it is a good idea since we are actually drawing out co2 from the environment – and it is completely different between extracting and avoiding.”

According to the scientist’s computations the costs of curbing 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 countries are currently trialling this technology, external however it has yet to be released commercially.

Growing jatropha not only absorbs CO2 however has other benefits. The plants would help to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be harvested for biofuel state the researchers, supplying a financial return.

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

But other professionals in this area are not encouraged. They indicate the reality that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, especially in Africa. But numerous of these endeavors 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 states that while jatropha was when viewed as the terrific, 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 individuals who require minimal land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that area – we would not class the land as limited.”

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

“It is still someone else’s land. Why enter and grow these huge plantations to deal with a problem these people didn’t really trigger?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related web links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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