Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ 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 could be an effective way of curbing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed “carbon farming”, scientists state the concept is financially competitive with modern carbon capture and storage tasks.

But critics say the concept might be have unexpected, negative impacts consisting of driving up food prices.

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

Seeds of modification

Jatropha curcas is a plant that stemmed in Central America and is extremely well adapted to extreme conditions including very arid deserts.

It is currently grown as a biofuel, external in some parts of the world due to the fact that its seeds can produce oil.

In this research study, German researchers showed that a person hectare of jatropha might catch up to 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the environment every year. The researchers based their estimates 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 development, a great response from these plants. I feel there will be no problem trying it on a much larger 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 absorb all the CO2 produced by cars and trucks in Germany over a twenty years duration.

The researchers state that a crucial component of the plan would be the availability of desalination centers. This implies that at first, any plantations would be confined to seaside areas.

They are wanting to establish larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other plans that just offset the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be an excellent, short-term service to climate change.

“I believe it is a great concept since we are truly extracting carbon dioxide from the environment – and it is entirely various between extracting and avoiding.”

According to the researcher’s computations the expenses of suppressing carbon dioxide by means of the planting of trees would be 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 variety of countries are presently trialling this innovation, external however it has yet to be deployed commercially.

Growing jatropha not just soaks up CO2 but has other benefits. The plants would help to make desert areas more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be for biofuel state the researchers, supplying an economic 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 convinced. They point to the truth that in 2007 and 2008 large numbers of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, particularly in Africa. But much of these endeavors ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely successful in coping with dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was once seen 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 marginal land,” she said.

“But there are frequently individuals who need limited land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location – we wouldn’t class the land as limited.”

She explained that jatropha is highly harmful and can contaminate 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 go in and grow these massive plantations to handle a problem these people didn’t in fact trigger?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related web links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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