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 big numbers of jatropha trees in desert locations might be an efficient way of curbing emissions of CO2.
Dubbed “carbon farming”, scientists say the idea is economically competitive with modern carbon capture and storage jobs.
But critics state the concept might be have unforeseen, negative impacts including driving up food prices.
The research has been released, external in the journal Earth System Dynamics.
Seeds of modification
Jatropha curcas is a plant that originated in Central America and is really well adapted to severe conditions including extremely dry deserts.
It is currently grown as a biofuel, external in some parts of the world due to the fact that its seeds can produce oil.
In this research study, German scientists revealed that one hectare of jatropha might capture approximately 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide 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 development, a good response from these plants. I feel there will be no issue attempting it on a much larger scale, for instance ten thousand hectares in the beginning,” he stated.
According to the researchers a plantation that would cover 3 percent of the Arabian desert would absorb all the CO2 produced by automobiles and trucks in Germany over a 20 year period.
The researchers state that an important component of the strategy would be the availability of desalination centers. This suggests that at first, any plantations would be confined to coastal locations.
They are intending to establish bigger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other schemes that simply offset the carbon that individuals produce, the planting of jatropha could be a great, short-term option to climate change.
“I think it is an excellent concept due to the fact that we are actually extracting co2 from the atmosphere – and it is totally different in between extracting and avoiding.”
According to the researcher’s computations the costs of curbing co2 by means of the of trees would be 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 number of countries are currently trialling this innovation, external however it has yet to be released commercially.
Growing jatropha not only soaks up CO2 but has other advantages. The plants would assist to make desert areas more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be gathered for biofuel say the scientists, offering an economic return.
“Jatropha is perfect to be developed into biokerosene – it is even much better than biodiesel,” said Prof Becker.
But other professionals in this location are not persuaded. They point to the fact that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, particularly in Africa. But a lot of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely successful in handling dry conditions.
Lucy Hurn is the biofuels project supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She says that while jatropha was once viewed as the terrific, green hope the reality was extremely different.
“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 require limited land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that area – we wouldn’t 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 issues about the fairness of the idea.
“It is still someone else’s land. Why go in and grow these enormous plantations to deal with an issue these people didn’t really cause?”
Follow Matt on Twitter, external.
‘Carpets of seaweed’ grown for fuel. Video, 00:03:05’Carpets of seaweed’ grown for fuel
1 July 2013
Biofuels are ‘irrational technique’
Published
15 April 2013
Related web links
Universität Hohenheim
European Geosciences Union
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
