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 locations might be an effective method of curbing emissions of CO2.

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

But critics say the idea might be have unpredicted, unfavorable effects including driving up food prices.

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

Seeds of change

Jatropha curcas is a plant that stemmed in Central America and is very well adjusted to severe conditions including extremely 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 record approximately 25 tonnes of co2 from the environment every year. The their price quotes on trees presently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the Negev desert.

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

“There was excellent growth, a great action from these plants. I feel there will be no problem trying it on a much bigger scale, for example ten 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 researchers say that a critical element of the plan would be the schedule of desalination facilities. This means that at first, any plantations would be confined to seaside areas.

They are wanting to develop larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other plans that simply offset the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha might be a good, short-term service to environment change.

“I think it is a good concept due to the fact that we are really drawing out co2 from the environment – and it is totally various between extracting and preventing.”

According to the researcher’s estimations the costs of curbing carbon dioxide through the planting of trees would be in between 42 and 63 euros per tonne. This makes it competitive with other techniques, 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 released commercially.

Growing jatropha not just soaks up CO2 but 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, offering a financial return.

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

But other experts 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, particularly in Africa. But much of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely effective in coping with dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She says that while jatropha was once viewed as the excellent, green hope the reality was very various.

“When jatropha was introduced it was viewed as a wonder crop, it would grow on scrubland or minimal land,” she said.

“But there are frequently individuals who require minimal land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that area – we would not class the land as marginal.”

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

“It is still somebody else’s land. Why enter and grow these enormous plantations to handle a problem these people didn’t actually cause?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related web links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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