21–30 of 153 posts
Sequestring CO2 is a huge scale problem, and all solutions have significant flaws. Forests require vasts amounts of land, and storage is only assured as long as nobody decides to chop down the forest for other more pressing purposes (looking at you, Brazil). Storing CO2 in oceans (either in the form of "ocean fertilization" or by directly dissolving CO2 in seawater) could have huge and unknown consequences for marine…
Is it possible to vent the CO2 into space?
There are potential unknown negative side effects of reducing environmental plant residues from current levels, however, so the choice of feedstock biomass shouldn't be taken lightly. Perhaps it should be made from human waste streams or fast growing grasses from areas that have high regeneration potential.
Then again, agriculture itself has fundamentally modified ecosystems for centuries, so there's not much that is timeless or sacred about the current state of industrial agricultural land. If it's a question of whether the leftover crop matter rots and CO2 is released, or is captured long term in biochar, then its compelling to consider it.
Sequestring CO2 is a huge scale problem, and all solutions have significant flaws. Forests require vasts amounts of land, and storage is only assured as long as nobody decides to chop down the forest for other more pressing purposes (looking at you, Brazil). Storing CO2 in oceans (either in the form of "ocean fertilization" or by directly dissolving CO2 in seawater) could have huge and unknown consequences for marine…
Is it possible to vent the CO2 into space?
Feasible is a different issue.
It is hugely expensive (give CO2 escape velocity) and wasteful (CO2 is a valuable substance, containing 2 important elements).
Sequestring CO2 is a huge scale problem, and all solutions have significant flaws. Forests require vasts amounts of land, and storage is only assured as long as nobody decides to chop down the forest for other more pressing purposes (looking at you, Brazil). Storing CO2 in oceans (either in the form of "ocean fertilization" or by directly dissolving CO2 in seawater) could have huge and unknown consequences for marine…
Is it possible to vent the CO2 into space?
Green house gas is such a hard problem because it's a dispersed problem. This is where we need to stop removing plant life from the earth, and start seriously considering a little bit of CRISPR to tweak plants to grow fast and absorb as much co2 as possible. It'd also be great if we started iron seeding the southern ocean to kick that ecosystem into gear as we really need evertying to start sequestering carbon.
It's "slow sequestration" but it lasts a long time. Hardwood is very valuable, and growing more valuable, and trees are pretty.
Everything else might sequester the carbon faster, but a tree is "forever."
And you wouldn't just plant trees on that piece of land. You could interplant other sequestration for probably 15 years before it was no longer viable, or raise livestock, whatever.
Why isn't there more focus on phytoplankton since it produces more O2? Maybe have a device that seeds/catalyzes their growth on every boat?
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2019/12/nat...
> When it comes to saving the planet, one whale is worth thousands of trees.
> Marine biologists have recently discovered that whales—especially the great whales—play a significant role in capturing carbon from the atmosphere.
> In recent years, scientists have discovered that whales have a multiplier effect of increasing phytoplankton production wherever they go. How? It turns out that whales’ waste products contain exactly the substances—notably iron and nitrogen—phytoplankton need to grow.
Sequestring CO2 is a huge scale problem, and all solutions have significant flaws. Forests require vasts amounts of land, and storage is only assured as long as nobody decides to chop down the forest for other more pressing purposes (looking at you, Brazil). Storing CO2 in oceans (either in the form of "ocean fertilization" or by directly dissolving CO2 in seawater) could have huge and unknown consequences for marine…
It's not really historical as in far in the past. The relatively recent bill pushed by Trump that gives massive tax credits for CO2 sequestration were a veiled subsidy(or whatever you wish to call it) towards extracting more oil with enhanced oil recovery.
Sequestring CO2 is a huge scale problem, and all solutions have significant flaws. Forests require vasts amounts of land, and storage is only assured as long as nobody decides to chop down the forest for other more pressing purposes (looking at you, Brazil). Storing CO2 in oceans (either in the form of "ocean fertilization" or by directly dissolving CO2 in seawater) could have huge and unknown consequences for marine…
Is it possible to vent the CO2 into space?
It might be in the wrong place (atmosphere) but we definitely want it on the earth, not in outer space.
"Hemp twice as effective at capturing carbon as trees, UK researcher says" (2021) https://hempindustrydaily.com/hemp-twice-as-effective-at-cap... : > “Industrial hemp absorbs between 8 to 15 tonnes of CO2 per hectare (3 to 6 tonnes per acre) of cultivation.” > Comparatively, forests capture 2 to 6 tonnes of carbon per hectare (0.8 to 2.4 tonnes per acre), depending on the region, number of years of growth, type of tr…
tonnes of carbon per hectare is not relevant. What you need is tonnes of carbon per hectare per year. We don't have enough space to let these plants be there, we need to convert them into coal and throw it back into the mines.
There were periods in the geological timeline where photosynthesis >> respiration and the result was massive accumulation of coal and oil deposits, such as the during the Carboniferous era (~350 million years ago).
Of course there are many good reasons to do reforestation - prevention of erosion, a supply of timber, habitat for wildlife, retention of water, etc. Offsetting fossil fuel emissions is not one of those reasons.
[edit: on medium length (10K year) timescales, there is an effect of storage of photosynthesis products, one that's involved in the past ~2 million year ice age cycle (with periods of around 100K years). There are two processes: storage of photosynthetic products in the deep ocean, related to decreased circulation, and storage in permafrost, related to growth of permanent ice, that slowly decrease atmospheric CO2 during the descent into ice ages.]