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You still need oxygen. Plants breath in oxygen too. Photosynthesis does not magically create "bio energy". Or rather, photosynthesis does not directly regenerat
by icegreentea 16y ago
You still need oxygen. Plants breath in oxygen too. Photosynthesis does not magically create "bio energy". Or rather, photosynthesis does not directly regenerate ATP. It creates glucose which then has to be broken down for ATP via Krebs cycle (same thing you do).
I guess in theory, you COULD do everything anaerobically. But then your efficiency drops even more.
- baddox 16y agoA plant still produces a net positive of oxygen though, correct?
- daemin 16y agoOnly during the day from what I've read. At night they consume a net amount of oxygen.
- jeroen 16y agoThe amount consumed is smaller than the amount produced, so there is a net production over the whole cycle.
- gregable 16y agoSort of, a plant converts a net positive of CO_2 to O_2. This is also another one of those cases where some folks can misunderstand the statement to believe that plants somehow take in all this CO_2 and scrub it of Carbon. Not really, that Carbon becomes the plant itself. The amount of C's that a plant pulls out of the CO_2's is nearly equivalent to the plant's dead weight. This is important to understand, because old growth forests don't actually remove net CO_2 from the atmosphere, they just fail to release it. If you cut down the forest, the dead plant matter starts decomposing and/or burning and then CO_2 and/or methane goes back into the atmosphere. Or at least, that's how I understand it.
- eru 16y agoEssentially correct. There may be some second order effects that help established forests pick up some more carbon out of the atmosphere, especially if the atmosphere gets more carbon laden than it used to be when the forest was formed. The Economist had a special report on forests last week that had some details on the climate benefits of old forests.