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 locations could be an effective method of suppressing emissions of CO2.
Dubbed “carbon farming”, researchers say the idea is economically competitive with high-tech carbon capture and storage projects.
But critics state the idea might be have unexpected, unfavorable effects consisting of driving up food rates.
The research study 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 extremely well adjusted to severe conditions including incredibly 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 scientists revealed that one hectare of jatropha could capture approximately 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. The researchers based their price quotes on trees currently 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 great development, a good response from these plants. I feel there will be no problem trying it on a much bigger scale, for instance 10 thousand hectares in the beginning,” he said.
According to the researchers a plantation that would cover three percent of the Arabian desert would soak up all the CO2 produced by automobiles and trucks in Germany over a 20 year period.
The scientists say that a critical component of the plan would be the schedule of desalination facilities. This implies that at first, any plantations would be restricted 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 an excellent, short-term solution to climate modification.
“I believe it is a good concept because we are actually extracting carbon dioxide from the environment – and it is completely different between drawing out and avoiding.”
According to the researcher’s computations the costs of curbing co2 through the planting of trees would be 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 nations are presently trialling this technology, external however it has yet to be deployed commercially.
Growing jatropha not only absorbs CO2 but has other benefits. The plants would assist to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be harvested for biofuel state the scientists, offering a financial return.
“Jatropha is ideal to be turned into biokerosene – it is even much better than biodiesel,” said Prof Becker.
But other specialists in this area are not convinced. They point to the reality that in 2007 and 2008 big numbers 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 very effective in coping with dry conditions.
Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign manager for the charity, Actionaid. She says that while jatropha was once viewed as the fantastic, green hope the reality was extremely various.
“When jatropha was introduced it was viewed as a wonder crop, it would grow on scrubland or limited land,” she said.
“But there are typically people who need marginal land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location – we wouldn’t class the land as limited.”
She pointed out that jatropha is extremely toxic and can contaminate the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she also had concerns about the fairness of the concept.
“It is still someone else’s land. Why go in and grow these huge plantations to handle a problem these people didn’t actually trigger?”
Follow Matt on Twitter, external.
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