Mission Biofuels Sdn. Bhd

Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ to curb CO2

1 August 2013

Share

close panel

Share page

Copy link

About sharing

By Matt McGrath

Environment reporter, BBC News

Scientists say that planting big numbers of jatropha trees in desert locations might be an efficient method of curbing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed “carbon farming”, scientists state the concept is economically competitive with modern carbon capture and storage jobs.

But critics say the idea could be have unpredicted, negative impacts consisting of driving up 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 originated in Central America and is extremely well adapted to severe conditions consisting of exceptionally arid deserts.

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

In this research study, German scientists revealed that a person hectare of jatropha could catch up to 25 tonnes of co2 from the atmosphere every year. The scientists based their price quotes on trees currently 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, an excellent reaction from these plants. I feel there will be no issue attempting it on a much larger scale, for example ten thousand hectares in the beginning,” he stated.

According to the scientists 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 period.

The scientists state that a critical element of the plan would be the availability of desalination facilities. This means that initially, any plantations would be confined to seaside locations.

They are wishing to establish bigger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker states that unlike other plans that just balance out the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha could be an excellent, short-term solution to climate change.

“I believe it is an excellent concept due to the fact that we are actually extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – and it is completely various in between drawing out and avoiding.”

According to the scientist’s computations the expenses of suppressing carbon dioxide via the planting of trees would be 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 number of nations are presently trialling this technology, external however it has yet to be deployed commercially.

Growing jatropha not only absorbs CO2 but has other advantages. The plants would assist to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be gathered for biofuel state the researchers, providing a financial return.

“Jatropha is ideal to be developed into biokerosene – it is even much better than biodiesel,” said Prof Becker.

But other experts in this location are not convinced. They indicate the fact that in 2007 and 2008 large numbers 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 effective in handling dry conditions.

Lucy Hurn is the biofuels campaign manager for the charity, Actionaid. She says that while jatropha was once viewed as the great, green hope the reality was extremely various.

“When jatropha was introduced it was seen as a wonder crop, it would grow on scrubland or minimal land,” she said.

“But there are often individuals who require minimal land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that area – we would not class the land as limited.”

She pointed out that jatropha is extremely harmful and can pollute the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she likewise had concerns about the fairness of the concept.

“It is still someone else’s land. Why enter and grow these massive plantations to deal with an issue these people didn’t really cause?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

More on this story

‘Carpets of seaweed’ grown for fuel. Video, 00:03:05’Carpets of for fuel

1 July 2013

Biofuels are ‘unreasonable method’

Published

15 April 2013

Related internet links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external websites.