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Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2
Desert ‘carbon farming’ to curb CO2
1 August 2013
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By Matt McGrath
Environment reporter, BBC News
Scientists say that planting great deals of jatropha trees in desert locations might be an effective method of suppressing emissions of CO2.
Dubbed “carbon farming”, researchers say the idea is financially competitive with modern carbon capture and storage tasks.
But critics say the concept could be have unanticipated, negative impacts consisting of increasing food rates.
The research study has actually been released, external in the journal Earth System Dynamics.
Seeds of change
Jatropha curcas is a plant that came from Central America and is effectively adapted to severe conditions consisting of very arid deserts.
It is currently grown as a biofuel, external in some parts of the world because its seeds can produce oil.
In this study, German researchers showed that a person hectare of jatropha could capture as much as 25 tonnes of co2 from the environment every year. The scientists based their quotes on trees currently growing in trial plots in Egypt and in the Negev desert.
“The outcomes are overwhelming,” said Prof Klaus Becker, from the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart.
“There was good development, a good action from these plants. I feel there will be no issue attempting it on a much bigger scale, for instance ten thousand hectares in the start,” he said.
According to the scientists a plantation that would cover three percent of the Arabian desert would take in all the CO2 produced by cars and trucks and trucks in Germany over a twenty years period.
The researchers state that a vital aspect of the plan would be the schedule of desalination facilities. This means that at first, any plantations would be restricted to coastal locations.
They are intending to develop bigger trials in desert locations of Oman or Qatar. states that unlike other plans that just balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha might be a good, short-term service to climate modification.
“I think it is a great concept due to the fact that we are actually drawing out co2 from the environment – and it is completely various between extracting and preventing.”
According to the scientist’s estimations the expenses of curbing co2 through 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 nations are presently trialling this innovation, external but it has yet to be deployed commercially.
Growing jatropha not just soaks up CO2 however has other advantages. The plants would assist to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be collected for biofuel say the scientists, supplying an economic return.
“Jatropha is ideal to be developed into biokerosene – it is even much better than biodiesel,” said Prof Becker.
But other professionals in this area are not persuaded. They point to the truth that in 2007 and 2008 large numbers of jatropha trees were planted for biofuel, particularly in Africa. But many of these endeavors ended in tears,, external as the plants were not very effective in dealing with dry conditions.
Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign supervisor for the charity, Actionaid. She states that while jatropha was once viewed as the great, green hope the truth was extremely different.
“When jatropha was presented it was viewed as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or limited land,” she stated.
“But there are typically people who require marginal 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 toxic and can contaminate the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she also had concerns about the fairness of the idea.
“It is still someone else’s land. Why enter and grow these enormous plantations to deal with a problem these people didn’t really cause?”
Follow Matt on Twitter, external.
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Related internet links
Universität Hohenheim
European Geosciences Union
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