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 locations could be an effective way of curbing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed "carbon farming", scientists say the idea is financially competitive with high-tech carbon capture and storage jobs.

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

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

Seeds of modification

Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from in Central America and is effectively adjusted to harsh conditions consisting of exceptionally 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, German researchers showed that a person hectare of jatropha could capture up to 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the environment every year. The scientists based their price quotes on trees presently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the .

"The results are frustrating," said Prof Klaus Becker, from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart.

"There was good development, a good reaction 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 stated.

According to the scientists a plantation that would cover 3 percent of the Arabian desert would soak up all the CO2 produced by cars and trucks and trucks in Germany over a twenty years duration.

The researchers say that a crucial element of the plan would be the availability of desalination facilities. This suggests that initially, any plantations would be confined to seaside locations.

They are wishing to develop bigger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other plans that just balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha might be a good, brief term option to environment modification.

"I think it is a good concept because we are really drawing out co2 from the environment - and it is entirely various in between extracting and avoiding."

According to the researcher's computations the expenses of suppressing carbon dioxide via the planting of trees would be in between 42 and 63 euros per tonne. This makes it competitive with other techniques, such as the more high tech carbon capture and storage, external (CCS).

A number of countries are currently trialling this innovation, external but it has yet to be deployed commercially.

Growing jatropha not only absorbs 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 say the researchers, supplying an economic return.

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

But other professionals in this location are not persuaded. They indicate the fact that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, specifically in Africa. But much of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not very successful in handling dry conditions.

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

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

"But there are typically people who need marginal land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that location - we would not class the land as marginal."

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

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

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related internet links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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