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New Technique Measures Carbon in Soil

Posted on: Tuesday, 2 September 2003, 06:00 CDT

RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) -- Researchers at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology have earned a patent pending on a technique that could help farmers tap into a billion-dollar market for "carbon credits."

The technique - called C-Lock - is designed to help farmers better measure, certify and market the carbon stored in their soil.

"If that can be documented and measured, it has market value," said Pat Zimmerman, an atmospheric scientist at Tech who worked on the technique with colleagues Lee Vierling, Bill Capehart and Maribeth Price.

Fossil-fuel combustion, deforestation and farming all release carbon into the atmosphere.

But since plants readily absorb carbon dioxide and deposit it into the soil, farmers may some day be paid for storing greenhouse gases in topsoil if they can prove the extent to which their land-management practices result in those deposits.

Tilled soil, for example, releases more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than untilled soil.

The technique developed by the Tech scientists uses sophisticated computer programs and mathematical models to project increases in carbon stored in soil by changes in farming practice.

Converting to "no till" agriculture, for example, decreases carbon released to the atmosphere.

Zimmerman thinks carbon sequestration - the process in which plants absorb carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases - could be $100 billion-a-year industry for at least the next 10 years.

He estimates South Dakota's carbon-credit potential at $100 million to $500 million a year in the Conservation Reserve Program alone. The federal CRP program encourages landowners to plant fragile cropland back to grass.

The Tech scientists also have received a $250,000 Department of Energy grant to test the technique in the field.

The grant is part of a program to pool carbon-sequestration resources throughout the United States.

Zimmerman and his team will join researchers in Idaho and Montana in the Northern Rockies and Great Plains Carbon Sequestration Partnership - one of seven such partnerships throughout the nation.

The carbon-credit market is driven by the Kyoto Protocol, an international accord to combat global warming. The United States has not signed the accord, but Zimmerman said countries and companies are already trading carbon credits in anticipation of widespread acceptance of Kyoto.

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