Mission NewEnergy Limited

Overview

  • Sectors Content Marketing
  • Posted Jobs 0

Company Description

Desert ‘carbon Farming’ To Curb CO2

Desert ‘carbon farming’ to suppress CO2

1 August 2013

Share

close panel

Share page

Copy link

About sharing

By Matt McGrath

Environment correspondent, BBC News

Scientists say that planting large numbers of jatropha trees in desert areas might be an effective method of suppressing emissions of CO2.

Dubbed “carbon farming”, scientists say the concept is financially competitive with state-of-the-art carbon capture and storage jobs.

But critics state the concept could be have unforeseen, negative effects 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 came from Central America and is extremely well adjusted to harsh conditions consisting of incredibly arid deserts.

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

In this research study, German scientists revealed that a person hectare of jatropha could record up to 25 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. The researchers based their 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, a great response from these plants. I feel there will be no problem attempting it on a much bigger scale, for instance 10 thousand hectares in the start,” he stated.

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

The scientists state that an important component of the strategy would be the accessibility of desalination centers. This suggests that at first, any plantations would be restricted to seaside areas.

They are wanting to establish bigger trials in desert areas of Oman or Qatar. Prof Becker says that unlike other plans that simply offset the carbon that people produce, the planting of jatropha might be an excellent, short-term solution to climate change.

“I think it is a great concept since we are truly extracting co2 from the atmosphere – and it is completely different in between extracting and preventing.”

According to the researcher’s computations the costs of suppressing carbon dioxide via 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 variety of nations 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 help to make desert locations more habitable, and the plant’s seeds can be collected for biofuel state the researchers, supplying a financial return.

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

But other professionals in this area are not encouraged. They indicate the fact that in 2007 and 2008 large numbers of were planted for biofuel, specifically in Africa. But a lot of these ventures ended in tears,, external as the plants were not very successful in coping with dry conditions.

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

“When jatropha was introduced it was viewed as a miracle crop, it would grow on scrubland or marginal land,” she said.

“But there are typically people who need minimal land to graze their animals, they are getting food from that area – we wouldn’t class the land as limited.”

She mentioned that jatropha is extremely harmful and can contaminate the land it is grown on, even in a desert. And she also had issues about the fairness of the concept.

“It is still someone else’s land. Why enter and grow these enormous plantations to handle a problem these individuals didn’t actually trigger?”

Follow Matt on Twitter, external.

More on this story

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

1 July 2013

Biofuels are ‘irrational method’

Published

15 April 2013

Related web links

Universität Hohenheim

European Geosciences Union

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

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.
Email checkbox

Talent Recruitment Solution inquiry

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.
Name