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 state that planting great deals of jatropha trees in desert areas could be an effective way of curbing emissions of CO2.

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

But critics state the idea could be have unexpected, unfavorable impacts including driving up food costs.

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

Seeds of change

Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from Central America and is very well adapted to extreme conditions consisting of incredibly 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 researchers revealed that one hectare of jatropha might capture as much as 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. The researchers based their estimates on trees presently 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 great development, an excellent response from these plants. I feel there will be no issue attempting it on a much larger scale, for example ten thousand hectares in the start,” he said.

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 period.

The scientists state that a crucial component of the plan would be the availability of desalination facilities. This suggests that initially, any plantations would be confined to seaside areas.

They are hoping to establish larger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other schemes that just offset the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be an excellent, brief term service to environment change.

“I believe it is an excellent idea because we are really extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – and it is totally different between drawing out and preventing.”

According to the researcher’s estimations 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 methods, such as the more high tech carbon capture and storage, external (CCS).

A variety of nations 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, supplying an economic return.

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

But other experts in this area are not persuaded. They indicate the truth that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, specifically 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 project manager for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was when viewed as the fantastic, green hope the truth was extremely various.

“When jatropha was presented it was seen as a wonder crop, it would grow on scrubland or limited land,” she said.

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

She mentioned that jatropha is extremely poisonous and can pollute the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she likewise had concerns about the fairness of the concept.

“It is still somebody else’s land. Why go in and grow these huge plantations to handle a problem these individuals 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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