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 large numbers of jatropha trees in desert areas might be an effective way of suppressing 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 say the concept might be have unanticipated, unfavorable effects consisting of driving up food costs.

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

Seeds of modification

Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from Central America and is effectively adjusted to severe conditions consisting of exceptionally 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 study, German researchers showed that a person hectare of jatropha could record approximately 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. The researchers based their estimates on trees presently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the Negev desert.

"The results 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 issue attempting it on a much bigger scale, for instance 10 thousand hectares in the start," he stated.

According to the scientists a plantation that would cover three percent of the Arabian desert would take in all the CO2 produced by automobiles 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 implies that at first, any plantations would be confined to coastal locations.

They are wishing to develop larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other schemes that just balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be a great, short-term solution to climate change.

"I think it is an excellent idea because we are really extracting co2 from the atmosphere - and it is entirely various in between extracting and avoiding."

According to the scientist's computations the expenses of curbing co2 through the planting of trees would be in 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 variety of countries are currently trialling this innovation, external but it has yet to be released commercially.

Growing jatropha not just takes in 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 state the researchers, offering a financial return.

"Jatropha is ideal to be developed into biokerosene - it is even much better than biodiesel," said Prof Becker.

But other experts in this location are not encouraged. They indicate the truth that in 2007 and 2008 big numbers of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, specifically in Africa. But a number of these endeavors ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely 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 seen as the terrific, green hope the reality was really various.

"When jatropha was presented it was seen as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or minimal land," she said.

"But there are frequently people who require minimal land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location - we wouldn't class the land as minimal."

She mentioned that jatropha is highly poisonous and can pollute the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she likewise had concerns about the fairness of the concept.

"It is still somebody else's land. Why go in and grow these huge plantations to handle a problem these individuals didn't actually trigger?"

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