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So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
31–40 of 117 posts
Re: So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
#32no, we are useing solar PV to eliminate the excess carbon bieng added to the atmosphere, and plants, rocks, and many other natural processes will return CO² levels to a more moderate level.
Article is not about global atmospheric or climate phenomena, nor civilization scale industrial processes. It's about the CO^2 levels in your room due to your breathing.
oh no!
realy?
but since I live in a drafty farmhouse up on a windy hill beside the ocean, my room air and the atmosphere as whole have very similar compositions, and I will continue to treat conversations about both, the same as well.
Re: So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
#33Trees respire. They breath in and out . At night time, many trees emit more CO2. And trees don't exist in isolation as these napkin calculation articles consider them (spherical cows and all that). Every single tree on earth relies on mycorrhizal fungi for the vast majority of its nutrients. Fungi break things down release CO2. Most of our oxygen comes not from forest but from oceans (specifically from phytoplankton,…
> Which IMO is in an even more dire strait than our forests I think you are probably right, but could you kindly elaborate and provide more details? Very curious to hear your view and learn more.
https://science.nasa.gov/earth/explore/the-ocean-and-climate...
Has a pretty good overview. But in brief: Changes in biosphere due to heat and decreasing pH balance due to increased CO2 can leave species unable to adapt fast enough causing deaths.
Re: So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
#34You can sequester carbon with plants, but you can't let them decay or it will release it back into the environment (it's called the "carbon cycle" of a reason). A startup has solved this problem the following way (for example): grow microalgae near a very dry desert, and bury it in trenches. It never decays and thus never releases CO2 due to lack of water. Basically, we'd have to permanently stick it back underground…
To me, this is great that demonstrates how ridiculous carbon capture and storage is. I just can't imagine us paying to do something like this at scale, when we have a much more straightforward alternative: Stop burning fossil fuels, and use clean energy instead. Right? Like why even both going through the effort of carbon capture, when we're still going to have to stop burning fossil fuels anyways, in order to fix the climate?
Re: So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
#35Trees respire. They breath in and out . At night time, many trees emit more CO2. And trees don't exist in isolation as these napkin calculation articles consider them (spherical cows and all that). Every single tree on earth relies on mycorrhizal fungi for the vast majority of its nutrients. Fungi break things down release CO2. Most of our oxygen comes not from forest but from oceans (specifically from phytoplankton,…
Forests do net sequester carbon. But if you want to really sock away the carbon you harvest the trees and pyrolize it. It will give you energy (heat) you can use and elemental carbon (biochar). You could bury that a few feet under or innoculate it with microorganisms and work it into fields. Carbon in that form will sit in the soil for hundreds of years. Thousands or millions if you bury it.
Re: So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
#36You can sequester carbon with plants, but you can't let them decay or it will release it back into the environment (it's called the "carbon cycle" of a reason). A startup has solved this problem the following way (for example): grow microalgae near a very dry desert, and bury it in trenches. It never decays and thus never releases CO2 due to lack of water. Basically, we'd have to permanently stick it back underground…
To me, this is great that demonstrates how ridiculous carbon capture and storage is. I just can't imagine us paying to do something like this at scale, when we have a much more straightforward alternative: Stop burning fossil fuels, and use clean energy instead. Right? Like why even both going through the effort of carbon capture, when we're still going to have to stop burning fossil fuels anyways, in order to fix th…
We'll have to do both I imagine by the time we realize it's too late.
Re: So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
#37You can sequester carbon with plants, but you can't let them decay or it will release it back into the environment (it's called the "carbon cycle" of a reason). A startup has solved this problem the following way (for example): grow microalgae near a very dry desert, and bury it in trenches. It never decays and thus never releases CO2 due to lack of water. Basically, we'd have to permanently stick it back underground…
To me, this is great that demonstrates how ridiculous carbon capture and storage is. I just can't imagine us paying to do something like this at scale, when we have a much more straightforward alternative: Stop burning fossil fuels, and use clean energy instead. Right? Like why even both going through the effort of carbon capture, when we're still going to have to stop burning fossil fuels anyways, in order to fix th…
If you can find a way to get other people to stop burning carbon, let us know.
I know that sounds dismissive but I mean it. There's no magic wand.
Re: So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
#38What if the plants were algae?
I did some of the napkin math on algae a couple years ago... The fun realization is that the physical carbon has to go somewhere. So if we're trying to sequester the average american's 14 tons a year of carbon or whatever it is these days, that means you're going to have at least 14 tons of dead algae to deal with. (And a lot more weight if the algae isn't dehydrated.). That's a lot of dead algae, which demonstrates the difficulty of the problem...
In other news, have you considered ditching your car and becoming a vegetarian? Not emitting the carbon in the first place is much easier!
Re: So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
#39The vast interior of the world's oceans are a nutrient desert. It has been proposed to grow algae by spreading silt, the same way that Saharan winds do.
Re: So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂
#40I’ve always wanted to jam on how to create an indoor carbon dioxide removal system. (I think that’s what this article is about but perhaps it’s indirectly about the changing climate)
1 kg per day of material adds up fast but that assumes zero ventilation. If I simply wanted a system to keep my office below 500 ppm all day, I wonder how much material that would produce.
Anyone ever build a little carbon dioxide zapping system for indoor air quality? I’ve also heard that indoor CO2 isn’t actually all that bad but it’s VOCs that are what make me feel sluggish.