8 ms·

What we need is for carbon sequestration to become a profitable industry.

• maxxxxx 8y ago
  Is there even a viable approach for this on a large scale?
  • baq 8y ago
    Yeah plant forests instead of cutting them down. Also it doesn't matter when the high albedo ice on the poles melts.
    • chrischen 8y ago
      You need to cut them down to sequester them and also to make room for new trees. The carbon remains sequestered as long as you do not burn it or let it decay.
      • ithkuil 8y ago
        Interesting. So a forest in equilibrium emits (dead trees rotting) the same amount of co2 than what it uses via photosynthesis?
        • rypskar 8y ago
          Yes, growing and composting is part of the natural CO2 cycle. The problem is not CO2 in it self, but all the extra we humans add to the natural cycle. I like to think of it as having a glass with a hole in the bottom, as long as the stream in is the same as the stream out the level stay the same. Adding to the stream in or making the hole smaller will change the level and in the end overfill and spill
    • HarryHirsch 8y ago
      At the moment Colorado is going the opposite direction, forests are turning into grasslands.
      • tspike 8y ago
        What parts of Colorado? If you look at a picture of Boulder from 1900 and one from today, the difference is striking. True tallgrass and shortgrass prairies are among the most endangered ecosystems on the planet.
        • HarryHirsch 8y ago
          It's the Front Range that's badly affected, winters aren't as cold as they used to be, and as a result the Montain Pine Beetle is expanding its range. The weakened pine forests are a fire hazard.
  • semi-extrinsic 8y ago
    Yes. We can realistically capture and store permanently many Gigatonnes of CO2 per year. It involves capture of CO2 from concentrated point sources (power plants, chemical plants, metal and cement factories etc) and transport to permanent geological storage. We have all the tech and know how to scale up. The only problem is that it's pure cost, no short-term benefit, so no company will do it voluntarily.
    • graeme 8y ago
      This would slow the rate of emissions, but not eliminate them or suck any extant CO2 from the atmosphere, correct?
      • lisper 8y ago
        Right. But it's a start.
        • StavrosK 8y ago
          How much sequestration would we need to do to actually reverse the effect, and why can't we? I know why we won't, at least...
          • lisper 8y ago
            To actually reverse climate change (as opposed to simply slowing or stopping its further progress), we'd need to go back to pre-industrial CO2 levels. That's not physically impossible, but it is (almost certainly) politically and economically impossible, at least with current technology and politics. Cheap solar and coming to our senses about nuclear power (i.e. promoting it) could make a big dent. So it's not hopeless. But it's sure not going to be easy.
            • StavrosK 8y ago
              Ah, wow, pre-industrial? So there's no leeway at all? You mean we'd have to go back to pre-industrial emissions levels, or actually sequester all the carbon we emitted all these decades? Luckily, cheap solar seems to be coming, and electric cars are hopefully becoming more widespread as well. Nuclear is a different story, unfortunately that one doesn't seem to be very palatable to the average person, even though it sounds like a silver bullet.
• rinze 8y ago
  "The world is going to hell, almost literally" "We just need to figure out how to make money while avoiding it" Which pretty much sums up why we are here.
  • chrischen 8y ago
    Well if you can give up your job, say no to money, then we wouldn’t be here.
  • mikeash 8y ago
    It does, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
  • PeterisP 8y ago
    "We just need to figure out how to make money while avoiding it" is just other words for "To achieve X, we need to figure out (and implement) an incentive structure so that people would benefit from doing stuff that facilitates X, which is pretty much the only way to get them to do it".
    • mirimir 8y ago
      That's what I was trying to say. So how do people benefit now from preventing likely future disaster?
      • PeterisP 8y ago
        Right now they don't, but the major governments can set up incentives so that e.g. carbon sequestration would/could become a profitable industry.
        • mirimir 8y ago
          I get that. And I was hoping for something purely economic. But maybe that's impossible. Which is why governments.
        • intended 8y ago
• mirimir 8y ago
  The problem is that carbon sequestration costs more now. Although it would arguably reduce future costs, there doesn't seem to be a workable economic mechanism for linking that to the present. I'm certainly no economist, but the current situation seems clear enough.
• deleted 8y ago
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