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 big numbers of jatropha trees in desert locations might be an effective way of suppressing emissions of CO2.

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

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

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

Seeds of modification

Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from Central America and is extremely well adjusted to severe conditions consisting of exceptionally 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 study, German researchers showed that one hectare of jatropha could catch 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 growth, 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 soak up all the CO2 produced by cars and trucks in Germany over a twenty years period.

The scientists say that a crucial component of the strategy would be the schedule of desalination centers. This means that initially, any plantations would be confined to coastal areas.

They are wishing to establish bigger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other that just balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be a good, brief term option to climate change.

“I believe it is a great idea since we are actually drawing out carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – and it is entirely different between extracting and avoiding.”

According to the scientist’s estimations the expenses of curbing carbon dioxide via the planting of trees would be in 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 number of countries are presently trialling this innovation, external but it has yet to be deployed commercially.

Growing jatropha not just soaks up CO2 however has other advantages. The plants would help to make desert areas more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be gathered for biofuel state the scientists, supplying an economic return.

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

But other professionals in this area are not persuaded. They indicate the reality that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, particularly in Africa. But much of these endeavors ended in tears,, external as the plants were not very effective in coping with dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels project supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She says that while jatropha was when seen as the great, green hope the reality was extremely various.

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

“But there are typically people who require minimal land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that area – we wouldn’t class the land as limited.”

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

“It is still someone else’s land. Why go in and grow these massive plantations to deal with an issue these people didn’t actually trigger?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related web links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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