Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ to suppress CO2

1 August 2013

Share

close panel

Share page

Copy link

About sharing

By Matt McGrath

Environment reporter, BBC News

Scientists say that planting great deals of jatropha trees in desert areas might be an efficient method of curbing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed « carbon farming », scientists say the idea is financially competitive with modern carbon capture and storage projects.

But critics say the idea could be have unforeseen, negative impacts including increasing food costs.

The research study has actually 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 extremely well adapted to extreme conditions consisting of extremely arid 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 revealed that a person hectare of jatropha might catch up to 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the environment every year. The researchers based their estimates on trees currently 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 development, a good action from these plants. I feel there will be no issue trying it on a much bigger scale, for instance 10 thousand hectares in the beginning, » he stated.

According to the scientists a plantation that would cover 3 percent of the Arabian desert would soak up all the CO2 produced by automobiles and trucks in Germany over a twenty years duration.

The scientists state that a crucial element of the strategy would be the availability of desalination facilities. This means that at first, any plantations would be restricted to seaside locations.

They are wishing to establish bigger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other plans that just balance out the carbon that individuals produce, the planting of jatropha could be a good, short term solution to environment change.

« I think it is a good concept because we are really drawing out co2 from the atmosphere – and it is completely various between extracting and preventing. »

According to the scientist’s estimations the costs of suppressing carbon dioxide via the planting of trees would be in between 42 and 63 euros per tonne. This makes it with other methods, such as the more high tech carbon capture and storage, external (CCS).

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

Growing jatropha not only takes in CO2 but has other benefits. The plants would assist to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be collected for biofuel state the researchers, offering an economic return.

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

But other experts in this location are not persuaded. They indicate the truth that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, especially in Africa. But a lot of these endeavors ended in tears,, external as the plants were not really effective in managing dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels project supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She says that while jatropha was as soon as viewed as the great, green hope the reality was very various.

« When jatropha was presented it was seen as a wonder crop, it would grow on scrubland or minimal land, » she stated.

« But there are often individuals who need limited land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that area – we wouldn’t class the land as limited. »

She pointed out that jatropha is highly harmful and can pollute 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 enter and grow these huge plantations to handle an issue these individuals didn’t in fact trigger? »

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

More on this story

‘Carpets of seaweed’ grown for fuel. Video, 00:03:05’Carpets of seaweed’ grown for fuel

1 July 2013

Biofuels are ‘unreasonable technique’

Published

15 April 2013

Related web links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

The BBC is not responsible for the material of external sites.