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| photo courtesy of http://research.ifas.ufl.edu |
There has been much recent press about the desert shrub Jatropha curcas and it's potential to soak up carbon monoxide emissions. A team of German scientists, publishing in the international science journal Earth System Dynamics, analyzed data from Jatropha plantations in several
countries and found that approximately 2.5 acres of Jatropha can capture 17-25
tons of carbon monoxide per year, over a 20 year period.
According to the study’s lead author, the plants can lower
desert temperature by as much as 2 degrees Fahrenheit as well as increase
rainfall in these regions. Scientific American.com states that if the 1 billion hectares of suitable land was to be used for growing Jatropha, it would be "enough to offset the annual CO2 pollution of China, the U.S. and the E.U. combined."
This poisonous scrubby plant grows as a shrub or small tree and can
handle low-nutrient soils. It can live for over 50 years and has not shown to
be invasive. The benefit of growing Jatropha is that it grows well in the most
arid of regions where it is difficult to farm for food. Instead, it is grown for ‘carbon farming’. Ideally
this plant would be grown in coastal regions where it can receive some minimal
irrigation. The cost of planting these plants if you use existing desalination devices would be more cost effective than higher-tech practices.
Native to Central America and planted around the world,
it is used for biofuel, cosmetics, fertilizer, and more. The plant
produces a seed that contains inedible pure oil which is used for biofuel. About 1/3 of the seed’s mass is oil. Research
has found that the better the growing conditions the more yields. This has
increased the controversy of using this plant for this purpose as some countries have converted
good farmland to growing Jatropha.
There has been considerable hype and research in using
Jatropha as a biofuel. It will be interesting to see what additional studies reveal on its
benefit alternatively for carbon capture.