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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 say that planting great deals of jatropha trees in desert areas might be an efficient way of suppressing emissions of CO2.
Dubbed “carbon farming”, scientists say the idea is economically competitive with modern and storage projects.
But critics say the concept could be have unanticipated, negative impacts including driving up food costs.
The research study has actually been released, external in the journal Earth System Dynamics.
Seeds of change
Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from Central America and is effectively adjusted to extreme conditions including extremely dry deserts.
It is currently 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 co2 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 results 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 problem trying it on a much larger scale, for example ten thousand hectares in the start,” he said.
According to the scientists a plantation that would cover 3 percent of the Arabian desert would absorb all the CO2 produced by vehicles and trucks in Germany over a 20 year duration.
The researchers say that a critical element of the strategy would be the availability of desalination centers. This implies that initially, any plantations would be confined to coastal areas.
They are wanting to establish larger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other plans that simply offset the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be a great, brief term service to environment modification.
“I think it is an excellent idea since we are really extracting co2 from the atmosphere – and it is totally various in between extracting and avoiding.”
According to the scientist’s estimations the expenses of suppressing co2 via the planting of trees would be in 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 number of countries are currently trialling this innovation, external but it has yet to be released commercially.
Growing jatropha not just absorbs CO2 but has other benefits. The plants would help to make desert areas more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be harvested for biofuel say the scientists, offering an economic return.
“Jatropha is ideal to be developed into biokerosene – it is even much better than biodiesel,” stated Prof Becker.
But other professionals in this area are not convinced. They indicate the truth that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, especially in Africa. But numerous of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not very effective in coping with dry conditions.
Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was when viewed as the terrific, green hope the truth was really different.
“When jatropha was introduced it was viewed as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or minimal land,” she stated.
“But there are typically individuals who require marginal land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location – we wouldn’t class the land as minimal.”
She pointed out that jatropha is highly poisonous 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 somebody else’s land. Why go in and grow these enormous plantations to deal with an issue these people 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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