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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 efficient way of suppressing emissions of CO2.
Dubbed “carbon farming”, scientists say the idea is economically competitive with modern carbon capture and storage projects.
But critics say the idea might be have unpredicted, negative effects consisting of increasing food costs.
The research study has actually been released, in the journal Earth System Dynamics.
Seeds of change
Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from Central America and is extremely well 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 scientists showed that a person hectare of jatropha could catch up to 25 tonnes of co2 from the environment 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 overwhelming,” said Prof Klaus Becker, from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart.
“There was excellent development, a good action from these plants. I feel there will be no issue trying 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 cars and trucks and trucks in Germany over a twenty years duration.
The researchers say that an important aspect of the plan would be the schedule of desalination facilities. This suggests that at first, any plantations would be restricted to coastal locations.
They are intending to establish larger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other plans that just balance out the carbon that individuals produce, the planting of jatropha might be an excellent, short-term option to climate change.
“I think it is an excellent concept due to the fact that we are truly drawing out co2 from the atmosphere – and it is entirely various between extracting and preventing.”
According to the researcher’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 methods, such as the more high tech carbon capture and storage, external (CCS).
A number of nations are presently trialling this innovation, external but it has yet to be released commercially.
Growing jatropha not just takes in CO2 but has other benefits. The plants would assist to make desert areas more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be gathered for biofuel say the scientists, providing 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 convinced. They indicate the truth that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, particularly in Africa. But much of these endeavors ended in tears,, external as the plants were not really effective in coping with dry conditions.
Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was once seen as the excellent, green hope the truth was really different.
“When jatropha was introduced it was seen as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or marginal land,” she stated.
“But there are often people who require limited land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location – we would not class the land as limited.”
She explained 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 massive plantations to handle a problem these people didn’t actually trigger?”
Follow Matt on Twitter, external.
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Related internet links
Universität Hohenheim
European Geosciences Union
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