Desert 'carbon farming' to suppress CO2

1 August 2013

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By Matt McGrath

Environment correspondent, BBC News

Scientists state that planting great deals of jatropha trees in desert areas could be an efficient way of suppressing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed "carbon farming", researchers state the concept is financially competitive with state-of-the-art carbon capture and storage jobs.

But critics state the idea could be have unexpected, negative effects including increasing food costs.

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

Seeds of change

is a plant that came from in Central America and is extremely well adjusted to extreme conditions consisting of incredibly arid deserts.

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

In this study, German scientists revealed that a person hectare of jatropha could catch up to 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 overwhelming," said Prof Klaus Becker, from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart.

"There was excellent development, a great reaction from these plants. I feel there will be no problem trying it on a much bigger scale, for example ten thousand hectares in the beginning," 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 automobiles and trucks in Germany over a twenty years duration.

The scientists state that an important aspect of the plan would be the accessibility of desalination centers. This suggests that initially, any plantations would be confined to seaside areas.

They are hoping to establish bigger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other schemes that simply offset the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha might be an excellent, brief term option to climate modification.

"I believe it is an excellent concept because we are actually drawing out carbon dioxide from the atmosphere - and it is entirely various in between drawing out and preventing."

According to the researcher's calculations the costs of suppressing co2 by means of the planting of trees would be 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 nations are presently trialling this technology, external however it has yet to be released commercially.

Growing jatropha not only takes in CO2 but has other benefits. The plants would assist to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant's seeds can be harvested for biofuel state the researchers, offering an economic return.

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

But other specialists in this area are not convinced. They indicate the reality that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, especially in Africa. But numerous of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not really effective in managing dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign manager for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was as soon as viewed as the terrific, green hope the truth was very different.

"When jatropha was introduced it was seen as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or minimal land," she stated.

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

She pointed out that jatropha is extremely harmful 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 deal with a problem these people didn't actually cause?"

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related web links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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