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Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ to suppress CO2

1 August 2013

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By Matt McGrath

Environment reporter, BBC News

Scientists say that planting big numbers of jatropha trees in desert areas might be a reliable method of suppressing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed “carbon farming”, scientists say the concept is financially competitive with high-tech carbon capture and storage projects.

But critics state the concept might be have unpredicted, negative impacts consisting of increasing food rates.

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

Seeds of modification

Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from Central America and is very well adapted to harsh conditions consisting of exceptionally arid deserts.

It is already grown as a biofuel, external in some parts of the world since its seeds can produce oil.

In this study, German scientists revealed that a person hectare of jatropha might catch approximately 25 tonnes of co2 from the environment 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 good growth, a great reaction from these plants. I feel there will be no problem trying it on a much bigger scale, for instance ten thousand hectares in the start,” he said.

According to the researchers a plantation that would cover three percent of the Arabian desert would take in all the CO2 produced by vehicles and trucks in Germany over a twenty years duration.

The researchers state that a vital element of the plan would be the accessibility of desalination centers. This indicates that at first, any plantations would be restricted to seaside locations.

They are wishing to establish larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other plans that simply balance out the carbon that individuals produce, the planting of jatropha could be an excellent, short term solution to environment modification.

“I believe it is an excellent concept due to the fact that we are truly drawing out carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – and it is entirely different between extracting and preventing.”

According to the scientist’s computations the costs of suppressing co2 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 number of nations are currently trialling this technology, external but it has yet to be deployed commercially.

Growing jatropha not only takes in CO2 but has other benefits. The plants would assist to make desert areas more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be harvested for biofuel say the scientists, providing a financial return.

“Jatropha is ideal to be turned into biokerosene – it is even much better than biodiesel,” stated Prof Becker.

But other experts in this location are not encouraged. They point to the reality that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, especially in Africa. But many of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not extremely effective in managing dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels project manager for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was once viewed as the fantastic, green hope the truth was extremely different.

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

“But there are typically individuals who require limited land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location – we wouldn’t 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 deal with a problem these individuals didn’t in fact trigger?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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