Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2
Desert ‘carbon farming’ to suppress CO2
1 August 2013
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By Matt McGrath
Environment reporter, BBC News
Scientists say that planting great deals of jatropha trees in desert locations might be a reliable way of suppressing emissions of CO2.
Dubbed “carbon farming”, scientists say the concept is economically competitive with modern carbon capture and storage jobs.
But critics state the concept could be have unpredicted, unfavorable impacts including driving up food costs.
The research study has actually been released, external in the journal Earth System Dynamics.
Seeds of modification
Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from in Central America and is effectively adapted to severe conditions including incredibly dry deserts.
It is already grown as a biofuel, external in some parts of the world because its seeds can produce oil.
In this research study, German scientists showed that one hectare of jatropha might record as much as 25 tonnes of co2 from the atmosphere 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 great growth, a good response from these plants. I feel there will be no problem trying it on a much larger scale, for example 10 thousand hectares in the start,” he said.
According to the researchers a plantation that would cover 3 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 researchers say that an important component of the strategy would be the availability of desalination facilities. This implies that initially, any would be confined to coastal locations.
They are wishing to develop bigger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other schemes that simply offset the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be a good, short-term option to environment change.
“I think it is a great concept because we are really extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – and it is entirely different between extracting and preventing.”
According to the researcher’s computations the expenses of curbing carbon dioxide by means of the planting of trees would be in between 42 and 63 euros per tonne. This makes it competitive with other techniques, such as the more high tech carbon capture and storage, external (CCS).
A number of nations are currently trialling this technology, external but it has yet to be released commercially.
Growing jatropha not just absorbs CO2 however has other advantages. The plants would assist to make desert areas more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be collected for biofuel state the scientists, offering an economic return.
“Jatropha is perfect to be become biokerosene – it is even much better than biodiesel,” said Prof Becker.
But other experts in this area are not encouraged. They indicate the fact that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, specifically in Africa. But a number of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely effective in dealing with dry conditions.
Lucy Hurn is the biofuels project manager for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was once viewed as the great, green hope the reality was really different.
“When jatropha was presented it was viewed as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or limited land,” she said.
“But there are typically individuals who require limited 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 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 idea.
“It is still someone else’s land. Why go in and grow these massive plantations to handle a problem these people didn’t actually trigger?”
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Related web links
Universität Hohenheim
European Geosciences Union
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