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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 state that planting big numbers of jatropha trees in desert locations might be a reliable way of curbing emissions of CO2.
Dubbed “carbon farming”, scientists state the concept is economically competitive with state-of-the-art carbon capture and storage tasks.
But critics say the idea could be have unforeseen, unfavorable impacts including driving up food costs.
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 Central America and is extremely well adapted to extreme 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 researchers showed that one hectare of jatropha could record approximately 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 results are frustrating,” said Prof Klaus Becker, from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart.
“There was good growth, an excellent action from these plants. I feel there will be no issue trying it on a much larger 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 absorb all the CO2 produced by automobiles and trucks in Germany over a twenty years duration.
The scientists say that an important component of the strategy would be the accessibility of desalination facilities. This indicates that initially, any plantations would be restricted to coastal locations.
They are wanting to establish larger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other schemes that just offset the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha might be an excellent, short-term option to climate modification.
“I believe it is a good concept since we are actually drawing out co2 from the atmosphere – and it is entirely different in between drawing out and preventing.”
According to the researcher’s estimations the expenses of suppressing co2 through the of trees would be in between 42 and 63 euros per tonne. This makes it competitive with other strategies, such as the more high tech carbon capture and storage, external (CCS).
A variety of nations are presently trialling this technology, external but it has yet to be released commercially.
Growing jatropha not just soaks up CO2 but has other advantages. The plants would assist to make desert areas more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be collected for biofuel state the scientists, offering an economic return.
“Jatropha is ideal to be become biokerosene – it is even much better than biodiesel,” stated Prof Becker.
But other experts in this location are not persuaded. They point to the reality that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, particularly in Africa. But a number 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 says that while jatropha was as soon as viewed as the fantastic, green hope the truth was extremely various.
“When jatropha was introduced it was seen as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or minimal land,” she stated.
“But there are typically individuals who require minimal land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that area – we would not class the land as marginal.”
She explained that jatropha is extremely harmful and can pollute the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she likewise had issues about the fairness of the concept.
“It is still somebody else’s land. Why enter and grow these enormous plantations to deal with an issue these people didn’t in fact trigger?”
Follow Matt on Twitter, external.
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Related internet links
Universität Hohenheim
European Geosciences Union
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