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 great deals of jatropha trees in desert areas might 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 idea could be have unexpected, negative effects including driving up food rates.

The research 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 extremely well adjusted to severe conditions including exceptionally dry deserts.

It is already 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 catch up to 25 tonnes of co2 from the atmosphere every year. The scientists based their price quotes on trees currently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the Negev desert.

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

„There was good development, a great action 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 three percent of the Arabian desert would soak up all the CO2 produced by vehicles and trucks in Germany over a 20 year period.

The researchers state that an important component of the strategy would be the accessibility of desalination centers. This means that at first, any plantations would be restricted to seaside areas.

They are wishing to establish larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other plans that simply balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be a good, short-term solution to environment modification.

„I believe it is a great idea since we are really extracting co2 from the atmosphere – and it is totally various in between drawing out and avoiding.”

According to the researcher’s estimations 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 variety of countries are presently trialling this technology, external however it has yet to be deployed commercially.

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

„Jatropha is ideal to be become biokerosene – it is even much better than biodiesel,” said Prof Becker.

But other professionals in this location are not encouraged. They indicate the fact that in 2007 and 2008 big numbers 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 really effective in coping with .

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

„When jatropha was introduced it was viewed as a wonder crop, it would grow on scrubland or marginal land,” she stated.

„But there are typically individuals who require minimal 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 extremely hazardous and can pollute 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 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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