Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ to curb CO2

1 August 2013

Share

close panel

Share page

Copy link

About sharing

By Matt McGrath

Environment correspondent, BBC News

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

Dubbed “carbon farming”, researchers say the concept is financially competitive with state-of-the-art carbon capture and storage tasks.

But critics state the concept might be have unpredicted, negative effects consisting of increasing food prices.

The research has been published, external in the journal Earth System Dynamics.

Seeds of change

Jatropha curcas is a plant that stemmed in Central America and is effectively adjusted to severe conditions consisting of extremely arid deserts.

It is already 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 researchers revealed that a person hectare of jatropha might capture as much as 25 tonnes of co2 from the environment every year. The researchers based their quotes on trees presently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the Negev desert.

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

“There was excellent development, an excellent reaction from these plants. I feel there will be no problem trying it on a much bigger scale, for example ten 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 cars and trucks in Germany over a 20 year duration.

The scientists state that an important aspect of the plan would be the availability of desalination facilities. This suggests that initially, any plantations would be confined to coastal areas.

They are wanting to develop bigger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other plans that simply balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be a great, short-term service to climate change.

“I think it is a great concept since we are really drawing out co2 from the environment – and it is completely various in between extracting and preventing.”

According to the researcher’s calculations the costs of curbing carbon dioxide via the planting of trees would be 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 countries are currently trialling this innovation, external but it has yet to be deployed commercially.

Growing jatropha not just absorbs CO2 but has other benefits. The plants would assist to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be gathered for biofuel state the scientists, providing a financial return.

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

But other specialists in this area are not encouraged. They point to the fact that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, especially in Africa. But a lot of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not really effective in dealing with dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign manager for the charity, Actionaid. She says that while jatropha was as soon as viewed as the terrific, green hope the truth was extremely various.

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

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

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 concept.

“It is still someone else’s land. Why go in and grow these massive plantations to deal with 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 ‘illogical method’

Published

15 April 2013

Related internet links

Universität Hohenheim

Union

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