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Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre
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Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre
#82I planted one of these trees a few years ago and I think it's absolutely gorgeous. I can't get over how absolutely huge the leaves get. A lot of people hate them though, for the same reason outlined in the article: you can't kill them. Many consider them weeds.
> you can't kill them If you're trying to do carbon capture, maybe this is a feature? Assume you mean that literally, and you can just chop one down and another will grow in its place, that's pretty great, since trees only capture carbon when they are growing.
That's exactly what they say in the article, if you cut the tree down, another will grow from the stump, they are quite literally grass-trees
And yeah, this is actually a huge bonus for carbon capture!
Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre
#83I think this is a neat idea but have one question. I'm not a chemist but am curious what happens to all that carbon after it's taken in by the tree. Does that carbon become something else? Or does it just kind of hang out in the tree until the tree dies? Once the tree dies, does all that carbon just go back to the atmosphere again? Thanks for any insight!
As it turns out, the vast majority of any plant is actually Carbon! That it got from the AIR!!!! I remember when my friends' brains were blown that all trees are essentially made out of "air" that got converted to wood. Technically it's the 2xCO_2 -> 2xO_2+2C and the Carbon that sticks around becomes the wood. (also insert Water and energy into that equation. Photosynthesis is crazy). And yes, if it gets burned or de…
I'm really pleased to see people in this subthread being so excited about the fact that plants are made out of carbon they extract from the air.
Question, though: isn't this something you learned in school?
Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre
#84I planted one of these trees a few years ago and I think it's absolutely gorgeous. I can't get over how absolutely huge the leaves get. A lot of people hate them though, for the same reason outlined in the article: you can't kill them. Many consider them weeds.
Huge leaves creep me out for some reason. I think it's because small leaves are normal in my region--I associate big ones with tropical regions, rainforests, jungles, etc. When I see a fast-growing tree with a narrow stalk and big leaves, it can't hurt me of course, but it vaguely arouses the same disgust as a parasite or fungus.
Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre
#85I think this is a neat idea but have one question. I'm not a chemist but am curious what happens to all that carbon after it's taken in by the tree. Does that carbon become something else? Or does it just kind of hang out in the tree until the tree dies? Once the tree dies, does all that carbon just go back to the atmosphere again? Thanks for any insight!
Many have commented about carbon becoming part of the tree however one also has to consider carbon in the soil around the tree. Plants put carbon into the ground through their roots and leaves, bark and other material that comes off of them that then feeds soil bacteria, fungi, worms, etc. Think about the soil underfoot in a mature forest is versus that under a lawn. In the forest you have soft, airy soil that teems with life and goes down for meters, whereas a lawn is compacted dirt after about a foot. There's a huge difference in stored carbon between them.
Its a complex ecosystem with the plants at the center, and trees, since they have the deepest roots do the best at promoting carbon uptake. Of course, if you clearcut a forest the soil ecosystem dies and the carbon eventually comes back out of the ground.
Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
When the tree dies, it will release 99% of the stored carbon back to the atmosphere. Unless you bury the tree in an anaerobic environment or treat it in some other way, the tree is just a time-delayed release mechanism. New forest can store a buffer in perpetuity, e.g., a new trillion trees can store 133 Gt. But current emissions are > 40 Gt/year, so this is < 4 years worth of emissions.
Makes me wonder if in the future the solution will be to create synthetic crude and pump it back into the ground.
Or just:
>Once the trees reach maturity, farmers harvest their wood for use in houses or musical instruments
as in the article. You could make chunky log cabin type buildings to use more. I'd quite like a log mansion.
Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre
#87> Empress trees (...) absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre. In 2016, U.S. GHG emissions were 20.15 metric tons CO2-equivalent per person[1]. So basically each american would have to cultivate about 0.196 acre of empress trees (792 sq meters, or 8522 sq foot) to become carbon neutral. [1] http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-environmental-footprint-f...
I also did a similar back-of-the-envelop calculation the moment I saw this 103 tons per acre figures. Global CO2 emissions: ~40GT/year Area required: ~600K square miles This is approximately the size of the entire state of Alaska. Every year.
and even if this were possible, it requires a significant amount of freshwater to supply that many trees.
Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not every year. Given the article's assertion of the 103 tons per acre per year, your Alaska of Empress trees would do it until they all die and presumably those forests will be maintained into perpetuity.
When the tree dies, it will release 99% of the stored carbon back to the atmosphere. Unless you bury the tree in an anaerobic environment or treat it in some other way, the tree is just a time-delayed release mechanism. New forest can store a buffer in perpetuity, e.g., a new trillion trees can store 133 Gt. But current emissions are > 40 Gt/year, so this is < 4 years worth of emissions.
> When the tree dies, it will release 99% of the stored carbon back to the atmosphere.
It's not the tree which does that. It's the organisms consuming the tree during the decomposition process which do that. And that doesn't happen all at once. Indeed, if you grow another tree then you're likely to still be net-positive.
If you use the tree for other purposes -- construction, for example. Or burning for energy production -- then it becomes a useful part of the lifecycle.
Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre
#89> Empress trees (...) absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre. In 2016, U.S. GHG emissions were 20.15 metric tons CO2-equivalent per person[1]. So basically each american would have to cultivate about 0.196 acre of empress trees (792 sq meters, or 8522 sq foot) to become carbon neutral. [1] http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-environmental-footprint-f...
Presumably, some of that 103 tons are taken care of already by existing plants/trees.
Absolutely, not to mention the ocean. A third of existing emissions are already absorbed by the oceans: https://www2.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/sea-carb-bish....
Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not every year. Given the article's assertion of the 103 tons per acre per year, your Alaska of Empress trees would do it until they all die and presumably those forests will be maintained into perpetuity.
When the tree dies, it will release 99% of the stored carbon back to the atmosphere. Unless you bury the tree in an anaerobic environment or treat it in some other way, the tree is just a time-delayed release mechanism. New forest can store a buffer in perpetuity, e.g., a new trillion trees can store 133 Gt. But current emissions are > 40 Gt/year, so this is < 4 years worth of emissions.
There is a guy here who cuts them down and regrows them from the stumps, selling the timber and feeding stock with the leaves and small branches.
Presumably this increases the carbon capture.
https://thisnzlife.co.nz/how-a-small-waikato-farm-harnesses-...