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Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre

bloomberg.com

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Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre

#141

Post by AnthonyMouse »

StavrosK wrote: post #132
namirez wrote: post #126

This can be helpful, but it's still a shortsighted solution. There are two types of carbon cycle on the planet: the short-term and the long-term [1]. The only natural mechanisms to transfer carbon between the two cycles are the planet's tectonic and volcanic activities. This has changed in recent history and we are constantly extracting carbon buried underground (long cycle) and release it into the atmosphere (short…

I mean, it sounds like the real real solution is to bury trees deep inside the earth.

> I mean, it sounds like the real real solution is to bury trees deep inside the earth.

Which is effectively what oil and coal are. Hence why we need to stop digging them up and burning them first.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to dig a deep hole to extract carbon from the ground at the same time and you're digging a different deep hole to put it back in, when you could save yourself a lot of trouble and just leave it there. (And burn the wood to generate electricity if that's cheaper than alternatives like solar and nuclear, which it isn't.)

Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre

#143

Post by zubspace »

avip wrote: post #140
zubspace wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be interesting to know what you think of project Vesta [1]. Their approach involves weathering olivine on beaches to speed up the long-term carbon cycle. [1] https://projectvesta.org/

I would be interested in knowing who is coordinating the Vesta spam attack, and why. EW could hardly be called "a technology" as of today. http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/enhanced-weathe...

Thank you for putting project Vesta into perspective.

As a layman in this field I can only observe, that topics regarding climate change and carbon sequestration appear alot more frequently here than a year before. I can only guess, that more people are realizing that there's a need for change. But there's no clear path forward.

So every project providing even a small chance for success gets into the news. I don't know if that is good or bad, but it's fricking hard to get a good picture of the current situation and what projects are worth investing in...

Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre

#144

Post by ac29 »

ska wrote: post #114
inetknght wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 produc…

> Or burning for energy production Doesn't that just release the C02 again? Construction purposes might help, or any other way of sequestering.

Yes, but its net-zero carbon, so still an improvement over using fossil fuels.

Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre

#146

Post by avip »

zubspace wrote: post #143
avip wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested in knowing who is coordinating the Vesta spam attack, and why. EW could hardly be called "a technology" as of today. http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/enhanced-weathe...

Thank you for putting project Vesta into perspective. As a layman in this field I can only observe, that topics regarding climate change and carbon sequestration appear alot more frequently here than a year before. I can only guess, that more people are realizing that there's a need for change. But there's no clear path forward. So every project providing even a small chance for success gets into the news. I don't kn…

Yes they appear more frequently as people (finally!) understand that CC is not a "projected future" but a rapidly deteriorating present.

I'm kind of worried we're getting lots of CC propaganda though. I usually consult project drawdown or IPCC for facts-check.

Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre

#147

Post by lucb1e »

zubspace wrote: post #143
avip wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested in knowing who is coordinating the Vesta spam attack, and why. EW could hardly be called "a technology" as of today. http://www.geoengineeringmonitor.org/2018/05/enhanced-weathe...

Thank you for putting project Vesta into perspective. As a layman in this field I can only observe, that topics regarding climate change and carbon sequestration appear alot more frequently here than a year before. I can only guess, that more people are realizing that there's a need for change. But there's no clear path forward. So every project providing even a small chance for success gets into the news. I don't kn…

Same here, I'm having a hard time telling which one will actually help. The one that seems most promising to me is Climeworks. I wrote a bit more about what they told me in another comment last week: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20544179

Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre

#148

Post by olliej »

thinkcontext wrote: post #127
tcgv wrote: post #50

> 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...

You can't count all 103 tons. The Empress wood is really just substituting for other wood that grows more slowly and less efficiently. So, if you grew Empress trees that yielded 10M board feet, there would be less of some other tree grown. Since the Empress is so efficient you could use less land to grow those 10M board feet worth of trees. And if that land which you wind up not needing to grow plantation trees on in…

No one is suggesting we cut down other trees though, there are large expanses of deforested land and the goal here would be rapid reforestation.

Replacing a complete lack of tree with any other tree is an improvement.

Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre

#149

Post by dfeojm-zlib »

crispyambulance wrote: post #64
tcgv wrote: post #50

> 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...

Empress trees certainly have some impressive specs, but no one plant is going to be the silver bullet. Can we eventually take per capita carbon footprint down to a fraction of what it was in 2016? I think so, if the people can be convinced to elect sane leaders in the US and elsewhere. Can vast regions in the USA and other countries be re-forested? Yes, if the willpower is there. Is it worthwhile to develop artificia…

It would only cost about as much as the futile wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to implement Be/CCS solutions at scale to reduce CO2 to pre-industrial levels (280 ppm). The key is sequestration because without that, like the recent virtue-signaling in Africa, growing a bunch of trees in poor soil is pointless: it doesn't stop desertification, increased risk of forest fires and dying/burning trees above ground doesn't capture any net carbon.

Re: Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre

#150

Post by mmaurizi »

nosianu wrote: post #100
bwanab wrote: post #70

Earlier 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.

The carbon stored in a tree is proportional to its weight, about half its dry weight is carbon [ https://scied.ucar.edu/sites/default/files/images/long-conte... ]. Also in all those discussions of processes(!) I find people even here seem to be looking at points in time only, and usually at the start of the process. That also includes the issue of looking at just one tree instead of a forest. When you look at the who…

You don't bury the trees underground to store their carbon.

You bury them in buildings. As lumber.

Replace concrete (which produces CO2) in new buildings with wood (which sequesters it) and you've tackled quite a bit of carbon emissions.

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