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 state that planting large numbers of jatropha trees in desert locations might be an effective way of suppressing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed “carbon farming”, researchers say the idea is economically competitive with modern carbon capture and storage tasks.

But critics say the idea could be have unanticipated, negative effects including driving up food prices.

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

Seeds of change

Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from in Central America and is extremely well adapted to extreme 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 study, German researchers revealed that a person hectare of jatropha could capture approximately 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. The scientists based their on trees currently 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 development, an excellent response from these plants. I feel there will be no problem trying it on a much bigger 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 absorb all the CO2 produced by cars and trucks and trucks in Germany over a 20 year duration.

The researchers state that a vital component of the strategy would be the schedule of desalination centers. This indicates that initially, any plantations would be restricted to coastal areas.

They are intending to develop larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other schemes that just balance out the carbon that individuals produce, the planting of jatropha could be a good, short-term service to environment modification.

“I think it is a good concept because we are truly drawing out carbon dioxide from the environment – and it is totally various between extracting and avoiding.”

According to the researcher’s calculations the expenses of suppressing carbon dioxide by means of 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 currently trialling this technology, external but it has yet to be released commercially.

Growing jatropha not only takes in CO2 but has other benefits. The plants would assist to make desert areas more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be collected for biofuel say the researchers, supplying a financial return.

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

But other specialists in this location are not persuaded. They point to the fact that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, particularly in Africa. But a number of these endeavors ended in tears,, external as the plants were not really effective in handling dry conditions.

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 really various.

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

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

She mentioned that jatropha is highly poisonous and can pollute the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she also had issues 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 individuals 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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