Desert 'carbon Farming' To Curb CO2
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Desert 'carbon farming' to suppress 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 efficient way of suppressing emissions of CO2.
Dubbed "carbon farming", scientists state the concept is economically competitive with state-of-the-art carbon capture and storage jobs.
But critics state the idea might be have unanticipated, negative impacts food prices.
The research has been published, external in the journal Earth System Dynamics.
Seeds of change
Jatropha curcas is a plant that originated in Central America and is effectively adjusted to severe conditions including incredibly arid deserts.
It is currently grown as a biofuel, external in some parts of the world since its seeds can produce oil.
In this study, German researchers showed that a person hectare of jatropha might capture approximately 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the environment every year. The scientists based their estimates on trees currently 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 excellent development, an excellent reaction 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 researchers a plantation that would cover three percent of the Arabian desert would absorb all the CO2 produced by automobiles and trucks in Germany over a twenty years duration.
The researchers say that a crucial component of the plan would be the schedule of desalination facilities. This implies that initially, any plantations would be confined to seaside locations.
They are wishing to develop larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other schemes that just offset the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha might be a good, short-term solution to climate change.
"I believe it is a good concept since we are actually extracting co2 from the environment - and it is completely different between extracting and avoiding."
According to the scientist's calculations 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 variety of countries are presently trialling this technology, external but it has yet to be deployed commercially.
Growing jatropha not only absorbs CO2 however has other benefits. The plants would assist to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant's seeds can be harvested for biofuel state the scientists, supplying an economic return.
"Jatropha is ideal to be become biokerosene - it is even much better than biodiesel," stated Prof Becker.
But other experts in this area are not persuaded. They point to the truth that in 2007 and 2008 big numbers of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, especially in Africa. But numerous of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not really successful in managing dry conditions.
Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She says that while jatropha was as soon as seen as the fantastic, green hope the truth was really different.
"When jatropha was presented it was viewed as a wonder crop, it would grow on scrubland or limited land," she stated.
"But there are typically people who need limited land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that area - we wouldn't class the land as limited."
She explained that jatropha is highly hazardous and can pollute the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she also had concerns about the fairness of the idea.
"It is still someone else's land. Why go in and grow these massive plantations to handle a problem these individuals 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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