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 say that planting big numbers of jatropha trees in desert areas could be an efficient way of curbing emissions of CO2.

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

But critics state the idea might be have unpredicted, negative impacts including increasing food prices.

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

Seeds of change

Jatropha curcas is a plant that originated in Central America and is effectively adjusted to harsh conditions consisting of very 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, showed that a person hectare of jatropha could record approximately 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. The scientists based their price quotes 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 good development, a great response from these plants. I feel there will be no problem attempting it on a much bigger scale, for instance ten thousand hectares in the start,” he said.

According to the scientists a plantation that would cover three percent of the Arabian desert would absorb 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 confined to seaside locations.

They are hoping to establish larger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other schemes that simply balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be a good, brief term solution to climate modification.

“I believe it is a great concept because we are actually extracting co2 from the atmosphere – and it is entirely various between extracting and avoiding.”

According to the scientist’s calculations the expenses of suppressing carbon dioxide through the planting of trees would be 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 technology, external but it has yet to be released commercially.

Growing jatropha not only soaks up CO2 but has other advantages. The plants would help 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 ideal to be become biokerosene – it is even better than biodiesel,” stated Prof Becker.

But other experts in this area are not convinced. They indicate the reality that in 2007 and 2008 big numbers of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, especially in Africa. But much of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely successful in dealing with dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels project manager for the charity, Actionaid. She says that while jatropha was when seen as the terrific, green hope the reality was really different.

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

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

She mentioned 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 concept.

“It is still somebody else’s land. Why go in and grow these enormous plantations to handle an issue these people didn’t actually cause?”

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 ‘irrational technique’

Published

15 April 2013

Related internet links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

The BBC is not accountable for the material of external websites.