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 efficient method of suppressing emissions of CO2.
Dubbed "carbon farming", researchers state the idea is financially competitive with modern carbon capture and storage jobs.
But critics say the idea might be have unexpected, unfavorable effects consisting of increasing food costs.
The research study has actually been published, external in the journal Earth System Dynamics.
Seeds of change
Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from Central America and is very well adapted to harsh conditions consisting of incredibly arid deserts.
It is currently grown as a biofuel, external in some parts of the world because its seeds can produce oil.
In this study, German scientists revealed that a person hectare of jatropha might catch as much as 25 tonnes of co2 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 outcomes are overwhelming," stated Prof Klaus Becker, from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart.
"There was great growth, an excellent action from these plants. I feel there will be no problem attempting it on a much larger scale, for instance 10 thousand hectares in the start," he said.
According to the researchers a plantation that would cover three percent of the Arabian desert would absorb all the CO2 produced by cars and trucks and trucks in Germany over a 20 year period.
The researchers state that an important aspect of the plan would be the accessibility of desalination centers. This means that initially, any plantations would be confined to coastal areas.
They are wanting to trials in desert locations 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 a good, brief term option to environment change.
"I believe it is a great idea since we are actually drawing out carbon dioxide from the atmosphere - and it is totally various between extracting and avoiding."
According to the researcher's calculations the costs of curbing carbon dioxide by means of 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 number of countries are presently trialling this innovation, external but it has yet to be deployed commercially.
Growing jatropha not just soaks up CO2 but has other advantages. The plants would help to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant's seeds can be collected for biofuel state the scientists, offering a financial return.
"Jatropha is perfect to be developed into biokerosene - it is even much better than biodiesel," said Prof Becker.
But other specialists in this location are not encouraged. They indicate the fact that in 2007 and 2008 big numbers of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, particularly in Africa. But much of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not very successful in dealing with dry conditions.
Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was once viewed as the terrific, green hope the truth was extremely various.
"When jatropha was introduced it was viewed as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or limited land," she stated.
"But there are frequently people who require marginal 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 extremely toxic and can pollute the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she also had issues about the fairness of the idea.
"It is still someone else's land. Why go in and grow these enormous plantations to handle a problem these individuals 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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Desert 'carbon Farming' To Curb CO2
jaimieworsnop3 edited this page 2025-01-12 02:50:03 +03:00