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Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ to suppress CO2

1 August 2013

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By Matt McGrath

Environment correspondent, BBC News

Scientists state that planting great deals of jatropha trees in desert locations could be an effective way of suppressing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed “carbon farming”, scientists say the idea is economically competitive with capture and storage projects.

But critics say the concept might be have unexpected, unfavorable effects consisting of driving up food costs.

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

Seeds of change

Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from in Central America and is effectively adjusted to extreme conditions consisting of exceptionally arid deserts.

It is already 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 scientists revealed that a person hectare of jatropha might catch as much as 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. The scientists based their quotes 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 great growth, a great response from these plants. I feel there will be no issue trying it on a much bigger scale, for example 10 thousand hectares in the start,” he said.

According to the scientists a plantation that would cover 3 percent of the Arabian desert would take in all the CO2 produced by automobiles and trucks in Germany over a 20 year duration.

The scientists say that a critical aspect of the plan would be the accessibility of desalination facilities. This means that at first, any plantations would be confined to seaside areas.

They are wishing to establish larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other schemes that just balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be an excellent, short-term solution to environment modification.

“I think it is an excellent concept due to the fact that we are really extracting carbon dioxide from the environment – and it is totally various in between extracting and preventing.”

According to the scientist’s estimations the expenses of suppressing co2 via 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 innovation, external but it has yet to be released 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 collected for biofuel say the researchers, offering an economic return.

“Jatropha is perfect to be become biokerosene – it is even better than biodiesel,” said Prof Becker.

But other professionals in this area are not encouraged. They point to the fact that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, specifically in Africa. But a number of these endeavors 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 once viewed as the excellent, green hope the truth was really different.

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

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

She pointed out that jatropha is highly hazardous and can contaminate the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she also had concerns about the fairness of the concept.

“It is still someone else’s land. Why enter and grow these huge plantations to deal with a problem these people didn’t in fact trigger?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.