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 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 state the concept is economically competitive with state-of-the-art carbon capture and storage projects.

But critics say the concept could be have unforeseen, negative effects consisting of driving up food prices.

The research study has 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 very 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 catch approximately 25 tonnes of co2 from the atmosphere every year. The scientists based their price quotes on trees presently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the Negev desert.

“The results are frustrating,” stated Prof Klaus Becker, from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart.

“There was good development, an excellent reaction from these plants. I feel there will be no problem attempting 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 take in all the CO2 produced by vehicles and trucks in Germany over a twenty years duration.

The scientists state that an important element of the strategy would be the accessibility of desalination centers. This means that initially, any plantations would be restricted to coastal locations.

They are hoping to develop larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other plans that just balance out the carbon that individuals produce, the planting of jatropha might be an excellent, brief term solution to modification.

“I think it is an excellent concept since we are truly drawing out co2 from the environment – and it is totally various between drawing out and preventing.”

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

A number of countries are currently trialling this technology, external but it has yet to be deployed commercially.

Growing jatropha not just takes in 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 a financial return.

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

But other experts in this location are not encouraged. They point to the reality that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, especially in Africa. But much of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely successful in dealing with dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels project supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She says that while jatropha was when seen as the excellent, green hope the reality was extremely different.

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

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

She explained that jatropha is highly toxic 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 enter and grow these enormous plantations to handle a problem these individuals didn’t really trigger?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related internet links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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