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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 might be a reliable method of suppressing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed "carbon farming", scientists say the concept is economically competitive with high-tech carbon capture and storage tasks.

But critics say the idea could be have unforeseen, unfavorable effects including driving up food prices.

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

Seeds of modification

Jatropha curcas is a plant that originated in Central America and is extremely well adjusted to extreme conditions including very arid deserts.

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

In this study, German researchers showed that one hectare of jatropha could capture up to 25 tonnes of co2 from the every year. The scientists based their estimates on trees presently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the Negev desert.

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

"There was good growth, a great response 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 stated.

According to the researchers a plantation that would cover three percent of the Arabian desert would absorb all the CO2 produced by vehicles and trucks in Germany over a 20 year duration.

The scientists say that a crucial element of the strategy would be the schedule of desalination facilities. This suggests that initially, any plantations would be confined to coastal locations.

They are wanting to establish bigger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other plans that simply balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha might be a good, short-term service to environment change.

"I think it is a good concept since we are actually drawing out carbon dioxide from the atmosphere - and it is completely various between drawing out and avoiding."

According to the scientist's computations the costs of curbing carbon dioxide through the planting of trees would be in 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 variety of countries are currently trialling this innovation, external however it has yet to be deployed 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 harvested for biofuel state the scientists, providing 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 convinced. They point to the fact that in 2007 and 2008 great deals of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, particularly in Africa. But much of these endeavors ended in tears,, external as the plants were not really effective in managing dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels project manager for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was as soon as seen as the excellent, green hope the reality was really various.

"When jatropha was presented it was seen as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or limited land," she said.

"But there are typically people who need 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 highly poisonous and can pollute the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she also had issues about the fairness of the concept.

"It is still somebody else's land. Why go in and grow these huge plantations to deal with a problem these individuals didn't actually trigger?"

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

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Related web links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

The BBC is not accountable for the material of external websites.

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