Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by JudgeWapner » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 3:39 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #178

JudgeWapner wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with cigarettes , a product that kills its consumer even when used exactly as designed , congress wont' ban them because that would negatively impact a corporation. But you seem to think that corporations don't need to abide by clear-cut rules. they need some kind of "bureau" so that there can be a constant back-and-forth, give-and-take, so that we don't impact that poor, tender corporation. Why is that required…

> corporations don't need to abide by clear-cut rules This is a straw man. Nobody thinks this. > but we don't need a "domestic violence bureau" There are several federal institutions which deal with domestic violence (alongside additional state and local ones). For example the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, and has the mandate to “understan…

you keep backpedaling about bureaus, ignoring how 99% of the law in this nation is enforced. we can't have a conversation if you do contortions by reading the most implausible interpretation of everything I say.

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

#182

Post by pakitan » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 6:18 AM UTC

kgilpin wrote: post #117

jwr wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given what we are doing about the climate crisis (nothing), I would be very happy to plant "highly invasive trees" and have them spread around like crazy. Too many of those trees is a much better problem to have than a cooked planet.

I guess you would be trading a carbon problem for mass extinction.

Mass extinction of what? I haven't heard of a tree that's so invasive that it kills everything in its way, animals and plants alike.

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

#183

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 7:21 AM UTC

JudgeWapner wrote: post #181

jacobolus wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> corporations don't need to abide by clear-cut rules This is a straw man. Nobody thinks this. > but we don't need a "domestic violence bureau" There are several federal institutions which deal with domestic violence (alongside additional state and local ones). For example the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, and has the mandate to “understan…

you keep backpedaling about bureaus, ignoring how 99% of the law in this nation is enforced. we can't have a conversation if you do contortions by reading the most implausible interpretation of everything I say.

[deleted]

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

#184

Post by gingabriska » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 7:23 AM UTC

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…

>Can vast regions in the USA and other countries be re-forested? Yes, if the willpower is there.

China and India already plant a lot of trees.

US can sit back relax and dedicate that space to more research centers and get ahead while China/India are busy squeezing their population and putting up large pieces of land for reforestation.

Not every country has to do it, not many in Europe will shell out for reforestation.

The carbon in atmosphere will have effect nomatter where the tree is.

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

#185

Post by Merg » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 8:10 AM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #96

crispyambulance wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 might be done quite quickly with a proper carbon pricing regime. The UK carbon price is about £35/ton. Times 104 tons/acre is about £3500/acre which is probably enough to make a profit. Then just get VC funding for your carbon startup and off it goes. There are political and practical difficulties doing that but there are also difficulties with wrecking the climate that might outweigh those.

It is basically in progress by largest forest owner in Poland - state company to be exact.

It is called Carbon Forest Sylviculture (Leśne Gospodarstwo Węglowe). Over all it is more of a marketing scheme with very small impact. We tried to increase sequestration rates with correct sylvicultural regimes.

Currently it is more like a way for companies to sound ecological. IDK if it can be profitable, remember land and everything cost and I think those profit margins would be very small.

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

#186

Post by Merg » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 8:11 AM UTC

gingabriska wrote: post #184

crispyambulance wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Can vast regions in the USA and other countries be re-forested? Yes, if the willpower is there. China and India already plant a lot of trees. US can sit back relax and dedicate that space to more research centers and get ahead while China/India are busy squeezing their population and putting up large pieces of land for reforestation. Not every country has to do it, not many in Europe will shell out for reforestation…

Large part of Europe already did it. USA is backwater it seems...

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

#187

Post by Merg » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 8:12 AM UTC

cwkoss wrote: post #108

crispyambulance wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We need to research what kind of mycorhizal fungi and microbes can be inoculated into the soil to best optimize for tree growth rate.

It is heavily researched topic. You would need some way to microdose water and nutrients into plants.

Forestry is science. There are loads of smart people working in this area currently.

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

#188

Post by youngtaff » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 8:44 AM UTC

duckymcduckface wrote: post #80

_rpd wrote: post #75

Earlier 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.

Make charcoal and then bury it

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

#189

Post by nosianu » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

mmaurizi wrote: post #150

nosianu wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You again look only at points in time or short periods and only at individual items instead of systems. Buildings are not a final permanent storage and they are not a different storage compared to trees, they basically serve the exact same purpose if you model global CO2 storage and have pretty much the same characteristics. Nothing changes by including buildings, you could just model it as a larger forest.

Unless you add additional options by having two different items (tress + buildings), e.g. the option to stack them on top of one another, it does not matter if the carbon is stored in a tree or a building made from it. They all share the same limited surface space and you could just replace all buildings with trees in the model, or vice versa and it does not change the total storage capacity here on the surface. I refer back to everything I wrote.

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

#190

Post by tim333 » Sat, Aug 03, 2019, 9:46 AM UTC

markdown wrote: post #174

hef19898 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be a worthwhile start-up idea... I'm wondering...

https://worldtree.info/paulownia-scam/ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-17/timber-investment-sch...

Ah. To summarise those some previous companies, Timbercorp and Great Southern pushed planting similar trees as a get rich quick thing and then went bust leaving useless trees and a lot of people with large losses. World Tree, featured in the Bloomberg article say they are different and do it better. I guess it's a tricky business to do well.