Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ to suppress CO2

1 August 2013

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By Matt McGrath

Environment correspondent, BBC News

Scientists state that planting large numbers of jatropha trees in desert areas might be a reliable method of curbing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed “carbon farming”, researchers say the concept is financially competitive with modern carbon capture and storage jobs.

But critics state the idea might be have unexpected, negative impacts increasing 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 extremely well adapted to extreme conditions including exceptionally arid 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 showed that a person hectare of jatropha might capture approximately 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 excellent development, a good response 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 stated.

According to the researchers a plantation that would cover 3 percent of the Arabian desert would soak up all the CO2 produced by vehicles and trucks in Germany over a 20 year period.

The researchers state that a critical component of the strategy would be the schedule of desalination facilities. This suggests that initially, any plantations would be confined to coastal locations.

They are hoping to develop bigger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other schemes that simply offset the carbon that individuals produce, the planting of jatropha might be an excellent, short-term service to environment modification.

“I think it is a great idea because we are actually extracting co2 from the environment – and it is entirely different between drawing out and avoiding.”

According to the scientist’s computations the costs of suppressing co2 through the planting of trees would be in between 42 and 63 euros per tonne. This makes it competitive with other strategies, such as the more high tech carbon capture and storage, external (CCS).

A variety of nations are presently trialling this innovation, external however 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 researchers, supplying a financial return.

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

But other professionals in this area are not persuaded. They point to the fact that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, specifically in Africa. But much of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely successful in managing dry conditions.

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

“When jatropha was introduced it was viewed as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or limited land,” she said.

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

She explained that jatropha is highly poisonous 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 enter and grow these huge plantations to handle an issue these individuals didn’t in fact trigger?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related web links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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