←back to thread

Dead trees keep surprisingly large amounts of carbon out of atmosphere

(phys.org)
91 points PaulHoule | 5 comments | 14 Apr 25 14:23 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
gilbetron ◴[14 Apr 25 18:07 UTC] No.43684331[source]▶
I still like: Grow plants/trees -> create plastics from them -> use plastics -> bury plastics forever

Otherwise plants/trees are just a type of carbon battery - pull carbon, burn for fuel, carbon goes back out, gets pulled back in again.

replies(1): >>43684399 #
1. augusto-moura ◴[14 Apr 25 18:13 UTC] No.43684399[source]▶
Do we need to grow plants to create plastics anyway? Wouldn't be better to just capture co2 and convert them to plastics (or other long lifespan products) directly
replies(4): >>43684458 #>>43685254 #>>43687326 #>>43690523 #
2. beAbU ◴[14 Apr 25 18:19 UTC] No.43684458[source]▶
Methinks the word "just" in "just capture CO2" is doing a lot more work than you think.
3. gilbetron ◴[14 Apr 25 19:30 UTC] No.43685254[source]▶
As my peer comment hinted at, I think "just capture co2" is the part that plants are really good at. However, yes, the general approach is: capture co2 -> make plastics -> use plastics -> bury plastics forever. And "capture co2" can be "grow trees" or "grow algae" or "create a machine that pulls carbon out of the air" or whatever :)
4. ◴[14 Apr 25 23:15 UTC] No.43687326[source]▶
5. AngryData ◴[15 Apr 25 08:59 UTC] No.43690523[source]▶
It does take considerable energy to capture and store that carbon when it is only a small fraction of the atmosphere. Trees may not be as energy efficient as us building a dedicated process for it, but growing trees is basically free and it isn't like we are lacking land area to do so. Farmland utilization has been dropping for many decades all across the globe, and even if that didn't happen we would still be very far from running out of suitable tree growing land since trees can grow everywhere but the harshest deserts.