13 ms·

Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre

236 points by hourislate 7y ago

xahrepap 7y ago
I planted one of these trees a few years ago and I think it's absolutely gorgeous. I can't get over how absolutely huge the leaves get. A lot of people hate them though, for the same reason outlined in the article: you can't kill them. Many consider them weeds.
- ksec 7y ago
  >A lot of people hate them though, for the same reason outlined in the article: you can't kill them. Many consider them weeds. I reread the article and I see no mention of it?
  - Maximus9000 7y ago
    It's in a caption of one of the images: > "After the first year of growth, trees are cut down to the stump, the rest sold for timber. This process, called coppicing, promotes bigger and straighter growth the following year."
    - nashashmi 7y ago
      That should be a method of carbon sequestration.
  - olliej 7y ago
    They mention it’s “easy to regrow from the stump” what that means is cutting it down doesn’t kill it. Additionally many trees that easily regrow from a cut stump also regrow/produce new tree from their roots. Seems like a recipe for an invasive plant (much like those awful pear trees the were used for landscaping)
    - lostlogin 7y ago
      It also seems handy for growing timber. There seems to be a growing market for it too. https://thisnzlife.co.nz/how-a-small-waikato-farm-harnesses-the-power-of-paulownia-the-fastest-growing-tree-in-the-world/ https://thisnzlife.co.nz/how-a-small-waikato-farm-harnesses-...
    - olliej 7y ago
      After one research it seems like only one variant of Paulownia is "invasive" - as in super aggressively spreading, but it does make me wonder if have acres and acres filled with them will result in some mutant offspring developing the super aggressive spread that the species is clearly capable of. Very much like what happened with that invasive pear [1] [1] I dug up the article https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/how-we-turned-the-bradford-pear-into-a-monster/2018/09/14/f29c8f68-91b6-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html?utm_term=.5c4ec3628ee1 https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/how-we-tur...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwaway542134 7y ago
    This page has a good overview: http://www.tsusinvasives.org/home/database/paulownia-tomentosa http://www.tsusinvasives.org/home/database/paulownia-tomento... >...its ability to sprout prolifically from adventitious buds on stems and roots allows it to survive fire, cutting and even bulldozing in construction areas; making it difficult to remove from established areas. >... > Cutting or girdling trees with power or manual saws are effective at preventing seed production, but an herbicide treatment is necessary following cutting since Paulownia readily re-sprouts. Hand pulling may be effective for young seedlings. Plants should be pulled as soon as they are large enough to grasp. Seedlings are best pulled after a rain when the soil is loose. The entire root must be removed since broken fragments may re-sprout. Cutting or pulling is the preferred mechanical treatments of the Paulownia tormentosa; do not use fire because this species is able to survive fire and then quickly proliferates and out-competes native tree species post-fire.
- LeoPanthera 7y ago
  > you can't kill them If you're trying to do carbon capture, maybe this is a feature? Assume you mean that literally, and you can just chop one down and another will grow in its place, that's pretty great, since trees only capture carbon when they are growing.
  - CyanBird 7y ago
    That's exactly what they say in the article, if you cut the tree down, another will grow from the stump, they are quite literally grass-trees And yeah, this is actually a huge bonus for carbon capture!
    - nashashmi 7y ago
      Then it will be great to constantly log them down and sell them as carbon credit.
      - tylerhou 7y ago
        To sell them as carbon credits, you’d have to bury the logs or something — otherwise they might burn, or their mass would be absorbed by other animals/fungi/bacteria which would eventually convert the carbon into CO2.
        LeoPanthera 7y ago
        I beleive the traditional solution is to turn them into furniture. Or houses! Building with farmed wood is very eco friendly since it produces a negative amount of CO2.
        bufferoverflow 7y ago
        That just delays the CO2 release. Furniture breaks. Houses get old and get demolished. Even if it takes 100 or 500 years, it will happen. You need to store wood long-term somehow. Or burn it and store CO2 underground, turning it into rock.
- sp332 7y ago
  All I remember about empress trees is the extremely strong smell of the flowers. Not very pleasant, to me.
- georgestephanis 7y ago
  Yup. Looks like they're often classified "invasive" -- http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/paulownia-princess-tree-on-most-hated-plants-list.html http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/paulownia-princess-tree-on...
- homonculus1 7y ago
  Huge leaves creep me out for some reason. I think it's because small leaves are normal in my region--I associate big ones with tropical regions, rainforests, jungles, etc. When I see a fast-growing tree with a narrow stalk and big leaves, it can't hurt me of course, but it vaguely arouses the same disgust as a parasite or fungus.
- marchenko 7y ago
  They are beautiful, grow absolutely huge at maturity, and produce lovely (enormous) bluish-purple flowers. The leaves are comically huge, and the seed casings form a sort of organic baby rattle. It's wild.
krastanov 7y ago
Any idea whether this is damaging/depleting for the soil because it is so fast-growing? If so, to what extent can the soil be artificially rejuvenated through fertilizers or other tools?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jeff_friesen 7y ago
  I would also like information about this. How much does this tree deplete the soils, or do they help build them up?
- soperj 7y ago
  No, it's one of the only nitrogen fixing trees in the world. That's part of the reason it can grow as fast as it can.
mal10c 7y ago
I think this is a neat idea but have one question. I'm not a chemist but am curious what happens to all that carbon after it's taken in by the tree. Does that carbon become something else? Or does it just kind of hang out in the tree until the tree dies? Once the tree dies, does all that carbon just go back to the atmosphere again? Thanks for any insight!
- dcre 7y ago
  It is part of the wood itself. Apparently wood is about half carbon. All known living things are made of carbon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood#Chemistry_of_wood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood#Chemistry_of_wood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-based_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-based_life
- joshAg 7y ago
  The carbon becomes part of the wood of the tree. After the tree dies, it would only go back into the atmosphere if the trunk was burned.
  - eitland 7y ago
    > After the tree dies, it would only go back into the atmosphere if the trunk was burned. To nitpick: or if it decomposes in other ways.
    - wjnc 7y ago
      And what if we bury it? Can we do landfills with the trunks of these trees, like filling up old brown coal mines? This was something that I was thinking about while driving past a few former mines in Germany. Great places to fill up with decomposables. At a certain point the top layer will stop the bottom layers CO2 from leaking, I expect?
      - Symmetry 7y ago
        If you bury it you might be able to stop oxygen from getting in and turning into CO2, at least with any speed. But if water gets in you can still have methanogen bacteria come in and turn the wood into methane. Which you might be able to capture and sell and displace methane mined out of the ground but that isn't the same as locking it away forever. This process is why you have methane production in swamps and conventional landfills.
EGreg 7y ago
Forgive me, but it doesn't look like much. How can a tree with such a small mass contain more carbon than a massive tree with trunks and branches? They don't even seem to be very close together in those photos: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-02/we-already-have-the-world-s-most-efficient-carbon-capture-technology https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-02/we-alread...
- KingMachiavelli 7y ago
  It's not about carbon per tree. It's about carbon per acre*year. Dense woods grow slowly so they take in very little carbon per year even though they grow very large. Fast growing trees are much better at quickly taking CO2 of the atmosphere.
  - brians 7y ago
    Fast growing matters. The ability to harvest them and have them regrow matters a lot too. That’s what makes bamboo so effective at carbon capture.
    - EGreg 7y ago
      Only if you harvest them without releasing CO2 - no firewood for instance
- Vrondi 7y ago
  If you don't cut them down the first year, they become decent sized trees. However, it isn't about total individual tree size. It is about the fact that they trap more carbon into wood tissue per year, because they grow so very quickly. An oak may take 20-50 years to reach the size an empress tree will reach in say, 5-10 years. Therefore an oak traps carbon far more slowly. Oak is stronger, nicer, harder wood, because it grows more slowly, but also captures carbon more slowly. Different growth habits, different speed, from different ecosystems, with different uses.
- jointpdf 7y ago
  I don’t think the pics in the article show a fully grown tree. According to the Wiki picture, this thing is an absolute unit (for a 8-10 year old plant): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia_tomentosa#/media/File%3APaulownia_tomentosa_JPG2a.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia_tomentosa#/media/F...
olliej 7y ago
Given there was an article about hemp a few days ago, how much carbon/acre does hemp take?
- zparky 7y ago
  Looks to be about 108 tons/year with 2 harvests. www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=ae6e9b56-1d34-4ed3-9851-2b3bf0b6eb4f
dTal 7y ago
Well yeah, by definition we already have the world's best version of any technology.
- dmazin 7y ago
  I think the idea here is that this version is largely unknown?
- acheron 7y ago
  "I wanted to build the world's longest suspension bridge, but I found out someone else had already done it." - Jack Handey
eanzenberg 7y ago
The best thing we can do for the earth is take a lot of the money being spent and plant tons of trees, then use the wood as co2 storage in the form of furniture.
- frankbreetz 7y ago
  Isn't most furniture already made out of wood? I'd imagine if we made every single piece of furniture out of wood it wouldn't make a bit of difference. We need to make things out of wood that are not already made of wood, like skyscrapers and large buildings. If that's not enough we need to cut down trees and bury them so they don't decompose and then plant more. I think you are vastly underestimating the amount of carbon in the atmosphere that needs to be removed.
  - galangalalgol 7y ago
    about 5.5B tons of new wood furniture a year would be needed. That is 70tons of furniture for each person born in a year.
ksec 7y ago
I thought Bamboo was the fastest growing tree? I remember it grows more than an inch every hour. Since no one has done mass planting of Bamboo, there must be some down fall that wasn't well known? Edit: Turns out Bamboo is classified as plant. But the question remains the same.
- bumby 7y ago
  I think you mean classified as a grass
- nielsole 7y ago
  Maybe because they are hollow they can store relatively little considered their height? Also: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/03/160324-bamboo-materials-carbon-dioxide-emissions-sequestration/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/03/160324-bambo...
- EquallyJust 7y ago
  Don't know too much about this but I can speculate. Bamboo is hollow so probably doesn't capture as much carbon compared to a solid tree. You can also use the wood from trees in a lot more places than bamboo.
- pier25 7y ago
  > Bamboo’s carbon sequestration properties have been studied in countries where it naturally forms wild forests, such as Mexico (Castañeda, 2006) and China (Song, 2011). Contributing to these efforts, Ricardo Rojas Quiroga—an environmental engineering student at the Universidad Nuestra Señora de La Paz—studied Guadua angustifolia, a species of bamboo that grows in the Carrasco National Park of Bolivia. He measured the density and masses of bamboo plants in the forest, estimating the amount of carbon stored per hectare. Rojas concluded that, in addition to forming part of one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, each hectare of the bamboo forest of Carrasco National Park stores levels of carbon comparable to some large tree species such as Chinese fir and oak. This finding is consistent with that of many previous studies, a review of which can be found in this 2010 report by INBAR. https://matteroftrust.org/what-can-bamboo-do-about-co2/ https://matteroftrust.org/what-can-bamboo-do-about-co2/
ricefield 7y ago
Not an expert in this... at 103 metric tons of CO2 per acre per year, how many acres of this do we need to plan to make an impact? Look like according to this random Medium blog, we should aim to remove 10B metrics tons every year? So that's 970MM acres? https://medium.com/@friedmann2/going-negative-time-to-suck-it-up-339c5f8a5608 https://medium.com/@friedmann2/going-negative-time-to-suck-i...
- safog 7y ago
  That's like 6x the size of Texas. Can probably pull that off if everyone in the world pitches in. Not sure what other effects like invasiveness of the species factor in.
  - rosser 7y ago
    > The Empress Splendor tree belongs to the genus Paulownia. There are many different species of Paulownia and only one is classified as invasive, the Paulownia tomentosa (http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/printree.shtml http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/printree.shtml). We do not use this variety, choosing instead non-invasive species such as the Paulownia fortuneii.
- sambroner 7y ago
  So like 2% of the worlds acreage...
- slg 7y ago
  For people like me who don't have a good mental image of the size of 970 million acres, I did the math and that is just over half of the land in the continental United States.
- fareesh 7y ago
  Carbon and CO2 "emissions" numbers are different "Carbon" is 10B "CO2" is 40B This article says Carbon in the headline but CO2 in the body From the body of the article: > While each acre of most tree species can capture and store 1.1 to 9.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, an acre of empress trees can absorb 103. 40 billion / 103 = 388 Million acres of Empress Trees China is around 2 billion acres in size 22% of China is covered by forests 22% of 2 billion is 440M In theory China alone can solve this problem by replacing the indigenous trees with these trees. Bad idea though for obvious reasons. In practice if every compatible country just got rid of some sub-optimal tree and replaced it with this tree, it could probably work. If we gathered up the annual amount of money spent on "solving" Climate Change - one example that comes to mind is the recent Google summit where all the B-tier Celebrities went to in Yachts and Private Jets. What if we took all the money that these kinds of events cost and devote it to this single exercise. I'm pretty sure it could be done. All it would take is some governments to say OK. They can get paid for it by the other countries too as a one-off payment.
jaclaz 7y ago
One of the firms referenced in the Bloomberg article actually offers the plants (and opportunities of investment in them) and has a number of answers to the questions asked in the thread: https://worldtree.info/empress-tree/ https://worldtree.info/empress-tree/ Though I have personally never heard about anything actually manufactured with the actual "empress" or "princess" timber. It seems like in Japan it has a number of tradititonal uses, the family is that of the Paulownia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia
- coderintherye 7y ago
  World Tree is solid. I've talked with the owner and she has a good program set up with the farmers who grow the trees to get the capital they need to plant them and then revenue share from the sales. They raised money (about $1 million) on WeFunder earlier this year to help grow the program.
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    Good, so you can maybe know (and tell us) what is manufactured from the actual timber (i.e. to whom it is sold and for what use).
    - coderintherye 7y ago
      You can see here who they plan to market the lumber to: https://worldtree.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/World-Tree-OM-June-1-2018.pdf https://worldtree.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/World-Tree... Note that they are not harvesting until 2022 according to the plan, so it remains to be seen if they can effectively execute on their sales strategy.
      - jaclaz 7y ago
        Thank you, rather lenghty, but really interesting. Even if it is - understandably in a prospect for investors - a tad bit (IMHO) scaring, this is the central issue: >No Market for ES Lumber in North America >A return on a Subscriber’s investment in the Company is dependent on the aggregate of board feet of ES Lumber that the Company is able to harvest from its ES Tree crops and the price per board foot for which it can sell its ES Lumber, both of which are subject to numerous external factors beyond the control of the Company and the Company. >The market for ES Lumber in North America is unestablished. >If the Company is unable to develop the market or if the market does not expand on its own or if the Company is unable to sell to the Asian market, the Company may not be able to sell its ES Lumber for a profit or at all, which may result in a loss of some or all of a Subscriber’s investment in the Company. In a nutshell the issue is that there is not (yet) a market for the wood, and in order to create the market one needs to have substantial quantities of the material to offer. The provided "Fender" example is typical (egg and chicken): >WTT contracted with Fender Guitars in 2010 to supply ES Lumber for the building of Telecaster and Stratocaster Guitars. Fender was pleased with the results of their prototypes and requested thousands of board feet to build more guitars and speaker boxes. Due to limited availability of ES Lumber, WTT was unable to fulfil the demand at the time. However, the Company has recently located a source of 3 million board feet of ES Lumber and is currently negotiating the sale of the lumber to Fender and other buyers.
iovrthoughtthis 7y ago
Don’t we need to take into account the local ecology? If we deploy one single plant to “solve” our carbon capture needs aren’t we both going to reduce biodiversity (they out compete local species) and set up a single point of failure? (Like banana trees now)
- mikhailt 7y ago
  Well, we do have to factor in the potential irreversible loss of biodiversity from the current climate change as well. Folks should still be preserving the seeds and protect the local ecology as much as possible but they don't mean anything if the climate change isn't slowed down or reversed resulting into the same loss anyway.
- Allower 7y ago
  Look who's being all logical over hear. pssh
api 7y ago
Genetically engineer or selectively breed a salt-tolerant version?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove_swamp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove_swamp
tcgv 7y ago
> Empress trees (...) absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre. In 2016, U.S. GHG emissions were 20.15 metric tons CO2-equivalent per person[1]. So basically each american would have to cultivate about 0.196 acre of empress trees (792 sq meters, or 8522 sq foot) to become carbon neutral. [1] http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-environmental-footprint-factsheet http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-environmental-footprint-f...
- __sy__ 7y ago
  I also did a similar back-of-the-envelop calculation the moment I saw this 103 tons per acre figures. Global CO2 emissions: ~40GT/year Area required: ~600K square miles This is approximately the size of the entire state of Alaska. Every year.
  - RaptorJ 7y ago
    well, if you convert it all to biochar (say with a 50% volume fudge factor to account for non-carbon components and packing density), you just have to stack an area the size of pennsylvania with 1 meter of biochar each year to zero emissions.
    - RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
      And the carbon cost of the energy it takes to convert it all to biochar?
      - VBprogrammer 7y ago
        The energy and carbon come from burning off the volatile organics from the wood. It impacts the amount of carbon sequestered but it's still a net positive.
  - soulofmischief 7y ago
    The year is 21XX. Multi-story "tree towers" pierce the skyline in every direction, competing for vertical supremacy with even the tallest of skyscrapers. Solar and other renewable energy sources provide the lighting necessary for the unexposed levels.
rgacote 7y ago
Not sure planting a "highly invasive tree" is the solution: http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/paulownia-princess-tree-on-most-hated-plants-list.html http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/paulownia-princess-tree-on...
- ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
  The hybrid Empress Splendor tree is not invasive. https://worldtree.info/empress-tree/ https://worldtree.info/empress-tree/
  - CyanBird 7y ago
    Quoting the website: >Is the tree invasive? >The short answer is: No, the Empress Splendor tree is not invasive. >The Empress Splendor tree belongs to the genus Paulownia. There are many different species of Paulownia and only one is classified as invasive, the Paulownia tomentosa (http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/printree.shtml http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/printree.shtml). We do not use this variety, choosing instead non-invasive species such as the Paulownia fortuneii. >The Rainforest Alliance has chosen Paulownia as an ecologically sound tree for the purposes of reforestation and carbon sequestration (View the Rainforest Alliance Report). >The Rainforest Alliance is internationally recognized as a certification program for sustainable forestry and best practices for tree planting and agroforestry.
- CyanBird 7y ago
  My question here, is, if this tree proposed a possible slice of solution to carbon capture, is it a "bad" thing if we let it spread over the world which would otherwise be hit by possibly run-away global warming? From my perspective, and quoting interstellar "There's no time for caution" I would go over and say that maybe even doing genetic altering of the tree, so it could fit our purposes better might be a good idea. Be it making it extremely vulnerable to specific herbicide or make it grow/capture carbon even faster
- jwr 7y ago
  Given what we are doing about the climate crisis (nothing), I would be very happy to plant "highly invasive trees" and have them spread around like crazy. Too many of those trees is a much better problem to have than a cooked planet.
brg1007 7y ago
Does anyone knows the scientifical name for the tree pictured in the article ?
- devb 7y ago
  Paulownia tomentosa. Known in my area as the princess tree, but also goes by royal paulownia, foxglove tree, kiri, and empress tree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia_tomentosa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia_tomentosa
xfactor973 7y ago
i can't figure this out: https://worldtree.info/investment/ https://worldtree.info/investment/ this seems far too good to be true. Back of the napkin calculations show they're saying the returns could be 28% a year compounded. That's better than buffet level returns. Surely this is a scam right?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- kennywinker 7y ago
  Yeah those numbers seem really good - $25,000 invested over 8-12 years results in $1,423,125 profits of which you get 25% ($355,781). If those kinds of returns were really there wouldn't people quickly saturate the market, devaluing the lumber and breaking the model?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
corneliusphi1 7y ago
They are suggesting scam like levels of profit: https://worldtree.info/investment/ https://worldtree.info/investment/ 25k -> 355k in 10 years is at least 29% year over year return. That seems... improbable.
- peacetreefrog 7y ago
  The profit is all based on lumber sales too. If profits really were that high it seems like capital would flow in until there were so many of these trees that prices would go down (though I'd imagine they're a small part of the global lumber market), especially if you can only use their wood for a limited number of things. On the other hand, if they really do such a great job storing carbon, seems like there is potential for them to make money on the fact people are willing to pay to offset their emissions.
dillondoyle 7y ago
I wonder if there is any investment in bio-engineering a better plant or tree? Maybe just simple evolution working from our best carbon sinking trees, rapid prototype through generations, only breeding from the best stock?
greggeter 7y ago
Nuclear now!
namirez 7y ago
This can be helpful, but it's still a shortsighted solution. There are two types of carbon cycle on the planet: the short-term and the long-term [1]. The only natural mechanisms to transfer carbon between the two cycles are the planet's tectonic and volcanic activities. This has changed in recent history and we are constantly extracting carbon buried underground (long cycle) and release it into the atmosphere (short cycle). Capturing the atmospheric carbon into trees can be helpful, but it still remains on the surface. The real solution is to stop burning fossil fuels altogether. [1] https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle
- StavrosK 7y ago
  I mean, it sounds like the real real solution is to bury trees deep inside the earth.
  - namirez 7y ago
    Agreed! Eventually, some form of carbon sequestration is necessary.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > I mean, it sounds like the real real solution is to bury trees deep inside the earth. Which is effectively what oil and coal are. Hence why we need to stop digging them up and burning them first. It doesn't make a lot of sense to dig a deep hole to extract carbon from the ground at the same time and you're digging a different deep hole to put it back in, when you could save yourself a lot of trouble and just leave it there. (And burn the wood to generate electricity if that's cheaper than alternatives like solar and nuclear, which it isn't.)
- zubspace 7y ago
  Would be interesting to know what you think of project Vesta [1]. Their approach involves weathering olivine on beaches to speed up the long-term carbon cycle. [1] https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/
Timothycquinn 7y ago
There are very limited cases where growing trees for carbon sequestration purposes is a net benefit for the planet. Yes, there are places where land is un-utilised, and water is sufficient but it's often better for the environment to allow wild plants grow so wildlife can flourish. Here is a very good article by the respected Bob McDonald speaks to this topic: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/trees-carbon-emissions-bob-mcdonald-1.4132679 https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/trees-carbon-emissions-bo...
- JusticeJuice 7y ago
  > There are very limited cases where growing trees for carbon sequestration purposes is a net benefit for the planet. Could you elaborate on this? I couldn't see anything in that article to back up that statement.
cookingrobot 7y ago
A unique carbon capture solution I don't hear much about is kelp. The key is that you want the carbon captured to stay out of the air, and the deep sea is a great place for it to end up. https://carboninstitute.org/kelp-and-carbon-sequestration-bringing-terrestrial-carbon-accounting-to-the-deep-sea/ https://carboninstitute.org/kelp-and-carbon-sequestration-br...
- BasicObject 7y ago
  Is there something similar in freshwater? A carbon capturing plant like kelp in lakes?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- th-ai 7y ago
  3) Ocean Afforestation via macro-algae forests covering 9% of the world’s ocean surface can produce sufficient biomethane to replace all of today’s needs in fossil fuel energy, while removing 53 billion tons of CO2 per year from the atmosphere, restoring pre-industrial levels. This amount of biomass could also increase sustainable fish production to potentially provide 200 kg/yr/person for 10 billion people. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259892834_Negative_Carbon_Via_Ocean_Afforestation https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259892834_Negative_... Offsetting current carbon emissions would require some 50 trillion trees. An alternative offset would be to cultivate kelp forests. Kelp can grow at 2 feet per day, 30 times faster than terrestrial plants. Planting kelp across 9% of the oceans (4.5 x the area of Australia) could provide the same offset. Additionally, the kelp would support a fish harvest of 2 megatons per year and reduce ocean acidification. Large scale open ocean forestry would require engineered substrate and added nutrients. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture_of_giant_kelp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture_of_giant_kelp
LifeLiverTransp 7y ago
Carbon Sequestering would ideally happen by plants at sea, the biomass then bee wrapped up and plunged into the crushing depths where it would remain stored.
aaron695 7y ago
Stop being wankers. If it's the best commerically viable tree use it. Cheap products is what will help this religious CO2 is Armageddon cause because people will actually use them. Else plant natives if you're planting wide spread trees.
blondie9x 7y ago
Company information for those interested - https://worldtree.info https://worldtree.info
danzig13 7y ago
My parents have one of these bastards growing against their house. We had no idea what it was until this story. They’ve cut it down twice, butchered the stump, given it a chemical bath. It is currently back at gutter height.
midnitewarrior 7y ago
Do Empress trees make for good firewood?
titojankowski 7y ago
Fascinating! Anyone got a good source for the 103 tons per acre stat? All I've found so far is the Bloomberg link, which I think is from the World Tree Website (the company spotlighted in the article). World Tree [1] says the source is The Environmental Resources Trust, but doesn't provide a link. https://worldtree.info/carbon-offsets/ https://worldtree.info/carbon-offsets/

236 points by hourislate 7y ago

I planted one of these trees a few years ago and I think it's absolutely gorgeous. I can't get over how absolutely huge the leaves get. A lot of people hate them though, for the same reason outlined in the article: you can't kill them. Many consider them weeds.

ksec 7y ago
>A lot of people hate them though, for the same reason outlined in the article: you can't kill them. Many consider them weeds. I reread the article and I see no mention of it?
- Maximus9000 7y ago
  It's in a caption of one of the images: > "After the first year of growth, trees are cut down to the stump, the rest sold for timber. This process, called coppicing, promotes bigger and straighter growth the following year."
  - nashashmi 7y ago
    That should be a method of carbon sequestration.
- olliej 7y ago
  They mention it’s “easy to regrow from the stump” what that means is cutting it down doesn’t kill it. Additionally many trees that easily regrow from a cut stump also regrow/produce new tree from their roots. Seems like a recipe for an invasive plant (much like those awful pear trees the were used for landscaping)
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    It also seems handy for growing timber. There seems to be a growing market for it too. https://thisnzlife.co.nz/how-a-small-waikato-farm-harnesses-the-power-of-paulownia-the-fastest-growing-tree-in-the-world/ https://thisnzlife.co.nz/how-a-small-waikato-farm-harnesses-...
  - olliej 7y ago
    After one research it seems like only one variant of Paulownia is "invasive" - as in super aggressively spreading, but it does make me wonder if have acres and acres filled with them will result in some mutant offspring developing the super aggressive spread that the species is clearly capable of. Very much like what happened with that invasive pear [1] [1] I dug up the article https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/how-we-turned-the-bradford-pear-into-a-monster/2018/09/14/f29c8f68-91b6-11e8-b769-e3fff17f0689_story.html?utm_term=.5c4ec3628ee1 https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/how-we-tur...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway542134 7y ago
  This page has a good overview: http://www.tsusinvasives.org/home/database/paulownia-tomentosa http://www.tsusinvasives.org/home/database/paulownia-tomento... >...its ability to sprout prolifically from adventitious buds on stems and roots allows it to survive fire, cutting and even bulldozing in construction areas; making it difficult to remove from established areas. >... > Cutting or girdling trees with power or manual saws are effective at preventing seed production, but an herbicide treatment is necessary following cutting since Paulownia readily re-sprouts. Hand pulling may be effective for young seedlings. Plants should be pulled as soon as they are large enough to grasp. Seedlings are best pulled after a rain when the soil is loose. The entire root must be removed since broken fragments may re-sprout. Cutting or pulling is the preferred mechanical treatments of the Paulownia tormentosa; do not use fire because this species is able to survive fire and then quickly proliferates and out-competes native tree species post-fire.
LeoPanthera 7y ago
> you can't kill them If you're trying to do carbon capture, maybe this is a feature? Assume you mean that literally, and you can just chop one down and another will grow in its place, that's pretty great, since trees only capture carbon when they are growing.
- CyanBird 7y ago
  That's exactly what they say in the article, if you cut the tree down, another will grow from the stump, they are quite literally grass-trees And yeah, this is actually a huge bonus for carbon capture!
  - nashashmi 7y ago
    Then it will be great to constantly log them down and sell them as carbon credit.
    - tylerhou 7y ago
      To sell them as carbon credits, you’d have to bury the logs or something — otherwise they might burn, or their mass would be absorbed by other animals/fungi/bacteria which would eventually convert the carbon into CO2.
      - LeoPanthera 7y ago
        I beleive the traditional solution is to turn them into furniture. Or houses! Building with farmed wood is very eco friendly since it produces a negative amount of CO2.
        bufferoverflow 7y ago
        That just delays the CO2 release. Furniture breaks. Houses get old and get demolished. Even if it takes 100 or 500 years, it will happen. You need to store wood long-term somehow. Or burn it and store CO2 underground, turning it into rock.
sp332 7y ago
All I remember about empress trees is the extremely strong smell of the flowers. Not very pleasant, to me.
georgestephanis 7y ago
Yup. Looks like they're often classified "invasive" -- http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/paulownia-princess-tree-on-most-hated-plants-list.html http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/paulownia-princess-tree-on...
homonculus1 7y ago
Huge leaves creep me out for some reason. I think it's because small leaves are normal in my region--I associate big ones with tropical regions, rainforests, jungles, etc. When I see a fast-growing tree with a narrow stalk and big leaves, it can't hurt me of course, but it vaguely arouses the same disgust as a parasite or fungus.
marchenko 7y ago
They are beautiful, grow absolutely huge at maturity, and produce lovely (enormous) bluish-purple flowers. The leaves are comically huge, and the seed casings form a sort of organic baby rattle. It's wild.

krastanov 7y ago

Any idea whether this is damaging/depleting for the soil because it is so fast-growing? If so, to what extent can the soil be artificially rejuvenated through fertilizers or other tools?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jeff_friesen 7y ago
I would also like information about this. How much does this tree deplete the soils, or do they help build them up?
soperj 7y ago
No, it's one of the only nitrogen fixing trees in the world. That's part of the reason it can grow as fast as it can.

mal10c 7y ago

I think this is a neat idea but have one question. I'm not a chemist but am curious what happens to all that carbon after it's taken in by the tree. Does that carbon become something else? Or does it just kind of hang out in the tree until the tree dies? Once the tree dies, does all that carbon just go back to the atmosphere again? Thanks for any insight!

dcre 7y ago
It is part of the wood itself. Apparently wood is about half carbon. All known living things are made of carbon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood#Chemistry_of_wood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood#Chemistry_of_wood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-based_life https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-based_life
joshAg 7y ago
The carbon becomes part of the wood of the tree. After the tree dies, it would only go back into the atmosphere if the trunk was burned.
- eitland 7y ago
  > After the tree dies, it would only go back into the atmosphere if the trunk was burned. To nitpick: or if it decomposes in other ways.
  - wjnc 7y ago
    And what if we bury it? Can we do landfills with the trunks of these trees, like filling up old brown coal mines? This was something that I was thinking about while driving past a few former mines in Germany. Great places to fill up with decomposables. At a certain point the top layer will stop the bottom layers CO2 from leaking, I expect?
    - Symmetry 7y ago
      If you bury it you might be able to stop oxygen from getting in and turning into CO2, at least with any speed. But if water gets in you can still have methanogen bacteria come in and turn the wood into methane. Which you might be able to capture and sell and displace methane mined out of the ground but that isn't the same as locking it away forever. This process is why you have methane production in swamps and conventional landfills.

EGreg 7y ago

Forgive me, but it doesn't look like much. How can a tree with such a small mass contain more carbon than a massive tree with trunks and branches? They don't even seem to be very close together in those photos: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-02/we-already-have-the-world-s-most-efficient-carbon-capture-technology https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-02/we-alread...

KingMachiavelli 7y ago
It's not about carbon per tree. It's about carbon per acre*year. Dense woods grow slowly so they take in very little carbon per year even though they grow very large. Fast growing trees are much better at quickly taking CO2 of the atmosphere.
- brians 7y ago
  Fast growing matters. The ability to harvest them and have them regrow matters a lot too. That’s what makes bamboo so effective at carbon capture.
  - EGreg 7y ago
    Only if you harvest them without releasing CO2 - no firewood for instance
Vrondi 7y ago
If you don't cut them down the first year, they become decent sized trees. However, it isn't about total individual tree size. It is about the fact that they trap more carbon into wood tissue per year, because they grow so very quickly. An oak may take 20-50 years to reach the size an empress tree will reach in say, 5-10 years. Therefore an oak traps carbon far more slowly. Oak is stronger, nicer, harder wood, because it grows more slowly, but also captures carbon more slowly. Different growth habits, different speed, from different ecosystems, with different uses.
jointpdf 7y ago
I don’t think the pics in the article show a fully grown tree. According to the Wiki picture, this thing is an absolute unit (for a 8-10 year old plant): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia_tomentosa#/media/File%3APaulownia_tomentosa_JPG2a.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia_tomentosa#/media/F...

olliej 7y ago

Given there was an article about hemp a few days ago, how much carbon/acre does hemp take?

zparky 7y ago
Looks to be about 108 tons/year with 2 harvests. www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=ae6e9b56-1d34-4ed3-9851-2b3bf0b6eb4f

dTal 7y ago

Well yeah, by definition we already have the world's best version of any technology.

dmazin 7y ago
I think the idea here is that this version is largely unknown?
acheron 7y ago
"I wanted to build the world's longest suspension bridge, but I found out someone else had already done it." - Jack Handey

eanzenberg 7y ago

The best thing we can do for the earth is take a lot of the money being spent and plant tons of trees, then use the wood as co2 storage in the form of furniture.

frankbreetz 7y ago
Isn't most furniture already made out of wood? I'd imagine if we made every single piece of furniture out of wood it wouldn't make a bit of difference. We need to make things out of wood that are not already made of wood, like skyscrapers and large buildings. If that's not enough we need to cut down trees and bury them so they don't decompose and then plant more. I think you are vastly underestimating the amount of carbon in the atmosphere that needs to be removed.
- galangalalgol 7y ago
  about 5.5B tons of new wood furniture a year would be needed. That is 70tons of furniture for each person born in a year.

ksec 7y ago

I thought Bamboo was the fastest growing tree? I remember it grows more than an inch every hour. Since no one has done mass planting of Bamboo, there must be some down fall that wasn't well known? Edit: Turns out Bamboo is classified as plant. But the question remains the same.

bumby 7y ago
I think you mean classified as a grass
nielsole 7y ago
Maybe because they are hollow they can store relatively little considered their height? Also: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/03/160324-bamboo-materials-carbon-dioxide-emissions-sequestration/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/03/160324-bambo...
EquallyJust 7y ago
Don't know too much about this but I can speculate. Bamboo is hollow so probably doesn't capture as much carbon compared to a solid tree. You can also use the wood from trees in a lot more places than bamboo.
pier25 7y ago
> Bamboo’s carbon sequestration properties have been studied in countries where it naturally forms wild forests, such as Mexico (Castañeda, 2006) and China (Song, 2011). Contributing to these efforts, Ricardo Rojas Quiroga—an environmental engineering student at the Universidad Nuestra Señora de La Paz—studied Guadua angustifolia, a species of bamboo that grows in the Carrasco National Park of Bolivia. He measured the density and masses of bamboo plants in the forest, estimating the amount of carbon stored per hectare. Rojas concluded that, in addition to forming part of one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, each hectare of the bamboo forest of Carrasco National Park stores levels of carbon comparable to some large tree species such as Chinese fir and oak. This finding is consistent with that of many previous studies, a review of which can be found in this 2010 report by INBAR. https://matteroftrust.org/what-can-bamboo-do-about-co2/ https://matteroftrust.org/what-can-bamboo-do-about-co2/

ricefield 7y ago

Not an expert in this... at 103 metric tons of CO2 per acre per year, how many acres of this do we need to plan to make an impact? Look like according to this random Medium blog, we should aim to remove 10B metrics tons every year? So that's 970MM acres? https://medium.com/@friedmann2/going-negative-time-to-suck-it-up-339c5f8a5608 https://medium.com/@friedmann2/going-negative-time-to-suck-i...

safog 7y ago
That's like 6x the size of Texas. Can probably pull that off if everyone in the world pitches in. Not sure what other effects like invasiveness of the species factor in.
- rosser 7y ago
  > The Empress Splendor tree belongs to the genus Paulownia. There are many different species of Paulownia and only one is classified as invasive, the Paulownia tomentosa (http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/printree.shtml http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/printree.shtml). We do not use this variety, choosing instead non-invasive species such as the Paulownia fortuneii.
sambroner 7y ago
So like 2% of the worlds acreage...
slg 7y ago
For people like me who don't have a good mental image of the size of 970 million acres, I did the math and that is just over half of the land in the continental United States.
fareesh 7y ago
Carbon and CO2 "emissions" numbers are different "Carbon" is 10B "CO2" is 40B This article says Carbon in the headline but CO2 in the body From the body of the article: > While each acre of most tree species can capture and store 1.1 to 9.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, an acre of empress trees can absorb 103. 40 billion / 103 = 388 Million acres of Empress Trees China is around 2 billion acres in size 22% of China is covered by forests 22% of 2 billion is 440M In theory China alone can solve this problem by replacing the indigenous trees with these trees. Bad idea though for obvious reasons. In practice if every compatible country just got rid of some sub-optimal tree and replaced it with this tree, it could probably work. If we gathered up the annual amount of money spent on "solving" Climate Change - one example that comes to mind is the recent Google summit where all the B-tier Celebrities went to in Yachts and Private Jets. What if we took all the money that these kinds of events cost and devote it to this single exercise. I'm pretty sure it could be done. All it would take is some governments to say OK. They can get paid for it by the other countries too as a one-off payment.

jaclaz 7y ago

One of the firms referenced in the Bloomberg article actually offers the plants (and opportunities of investment in them) and has a number of answers to the questions asked in the thread: https://worldtree.info/empress-tree/ https://worldtree.info/empress-tree/ Though I have personally never heard about anything actually manufactured with the actual "empress" or "princess" timber. It seems like in Japan it has a number of tradititonal uses, the family is that of the Paulownia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia

coderintherye 7y ago
World Tree is solid. I've talked with the owner and she has a good program set up with the farmers who grow the trees to get the capital they need to plant them and then revenue share from the sales. They raised money (about $1 million) on WeFunder earlier this year to help grow the program.
- jaclaz 7y ago
  Good, so you can maybe know (and tell us) what is manufactured from the actual timber (i.e. to whom it is sold and for what use).
  - coderintherye 7y ago
    You can see here who they plan to market the lumber to: https://worldtree.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/World-Tree-OM-June-1-2018.pdf https://worldtree.info/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/World-Tree... Note that they are not harvesting until 2022 according to the plan, so it remains to be seen if they can effectively execute on their sales strategy.
    - jaclaz 7y ago
      Thank you, rather lenghty, but really interesting. Even if it is - understandably in a prospect for investors - a tad bit (IMHO) scaring, this is the central issue: >No Market for ES Lumber in North America >A return on a Subscriber’s investment in the Company is dependent on the aggregate of board feet of ES Lumber that the Company is able to harvest from its ES Tree crops and the price per board foot for which it can sell its ES Lumber, both of which are subject to numerous external factors beyond the control of the Company and the Company. >The market for ES Lumber in North America is unestablished. >If the Company is unable to develop the market or if the market does not expand on its own or if the Company is unable to sell to the Asian market, the Company may not be able to sell its ES Lumber for a profit or at all, which may result in a loss of some or all of a Subscriber’s investment in the Company. In a nutshell the issue is that there is not (yet) a market for the wood, and in order to create the market one needs to have substantial quantities of the material to offer. The provided "Fender" example is typical (egg and chicken): >WTT contracted with Fender Guitars in 2010 to supply ES Lumber for the building of Telecaster and Stratocaster Guitars. Fender was pleased with the results of their prototypes and requested thousands of board feet to build more guitars and speaker boxes. Due to limited availability of ES Lumber, WTT was unable to fulfil the demand at the time. However, the Company has recently located a source of 3 million board feet of ES Lumber and is currently negotiating the sale of the lumber to Fender and other buyers.

iovrthoughtthis 7y ago

Don’t we need to take into account the local ecology? If we deploy one single plant to “solve” our carbon capture needs aren’t we both going to reduce biodiversity (they out compete local species) and set up a single point of failure? (Like banana trees now)

mikhailt 7y ago
Well, we do have to factor in the potential irreversible loss of biodiversity from the current climate change as well. Folks should still be preserving the seeds and protect the local ecology as much as possible but they don't mean anything if the climate change isn't slowed down or reversed resulting into the same loss anyway.
Allower 7y ago
Look who's being all logical over hear. pssh

api 7y ago

Genetically engineer or selectively breed a salt-tolerant version?

dredmorbius 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove_swamp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove_swamp

tcgv 7y ago

> Empress trees (...) absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre. In 2016, U.S. GHG emissions were 20.15 metric tons CO2-equivalent per person[1]. So basically each american would have to cultivate about 0.196 acre of empress trees (792 sq meters, or 8522 sq foot) to become carbon neutral. [1] http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-environmental-footprint-factsheet http://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-environmental-footprint-f...

__sy__ 7y ago
I also did a similar back-of-the-envelop calculation the moment I saw this 103 tons per acre figures. Global CO2 emissions: ~40GT/year Area required: ~600K square miles This is approximately the size of the entire state of Alaska. Every year.
- RaptorJ 7y ago
  well, if you convert it all to biochar (say with a 50% volume fudge factor to account for non-carbon components and packing density), you just have to stack an area the size of pennsylvania with 1 meter of biochar each year to zero emissions.
  - RosanaAnaDana 7y ago
    And the carbon cost of the energy it takes to convert it all to biochar?
    - VBprogrammer 7y ago
      The energy and carbon come from burning off the volatile organics from the wood. It impacts the amount of carbon sequestered but it's still a net positive.
- soulofmischief 7y ago
  The year is 21XX. Multi-story "tree towers" pierce the skyline in every direction, competing for vertical supremacy with even the tallest of skyscrapers. Solar and other renewable energy sources provide the lighting necessary for the unexposed levels.

rgacote 7y ago

Not sure planting a "highly invasive tree" is the solution: http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/paulownia-princess-tree-on-most-hated-plants-list.html http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/paulownia-princess-tree-on...

ghostbrainalpha 7y ago
The hybrid Empress Splendor tree is not invasive. https://worldtree.info/empress-tree/ https://worldtree.info/empress-tree/
- CyanBird 7y ago
  Quoting the website: >Is the tree invasive? >The short answer is: No, the Empress Splendor tree is not invasive. >The Empress Splendor tree belongs to the genus Paulownia. There are many different species of Paulownia and only one is classified as invasive, the Paulownia tomentosa (http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/printree.shtml http://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/plants/printree.shtml). We do not use this variety, choosing instead non-invasive species such as the Paulownia fortuneii. >The Rainforest Alliance has chosen Paulownia as an ecologically sound tree for the purposes of reforestation and carbon sequestration (View the Rainforest Alliance Report). >The Rainforest Alliance is internationally recognized as a certification program for sustainable forestry and best practices for tree planting and agroforestry.
CyanBird 7y ago
My question here, is, if this tree proposed a possible slice of solution to carbon capture, is it a "bad" thing if we let it spread over the world which would otherwise be hit by possibly run-away global warming? From my perspective, and quoting interstellar "There's no time for caution" I would go over and say that maybe even doing genetic altering of the tree, so it could fit our purposes better might be a good idea. Be it making it extremely vulnerable to specific herbicide or make it grow/capture carbon even faster
jwr 7y ago
Given what we are doing about the climate crisis (nothing), I would be very happy to plant "highly invasive trees" and have them spread around like crazy. Too many of those trees is a much better problem to have than a cooked planet.

brg1007 7y ago

Does anyone knows the scientifical name for the tree pictured in the article ?

devb 7y ago
Paulownia tomentosa. Known in my area as the princess tree, but also goes by royal paulownia, foxglove tree, kiri, and empress tree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia_tomentosa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulownia_tomentosa

xfactor973 7y ago

i can't figure this out: https://worldtree.info/investment/ https://worldtree.info/investment/ this seems far too good to be true. Back of the napkin calculations show they're saying the returns could be 28% a year compounded. That's better than buffet level returns. Surely this is a scam right?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kennywinker 7y ago
Yeah those numbers seem really good - $25,000 invested over 8-12 years results in $1,423,125 profits of which you get 25% ($355,781). If those kinds of returns were really there wouldn't people quickly saturate the market, devaluing the lumber and breaking the model?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

corneliusphi1 7y ago

They are suggesting scam like levels of profit: https://worldtree.info/investment/ https://worldtree.info/investment/ 25k -> 355k in 10 years is at least 29% year over year return. That seems... improbable.

peacetreefrog 7y ago
The profit is all based on lumber sales too. If profits really were that high it seems like capital would flow in until there were so many of these trees that prices would go down (though I'd imagine they're a small part of the global lumber market), especially if you can only use their wood for a limited number of things. On the other hand, if they really do such a great job storing carbon, seems like there is potential for them to make money on the fact people are willing to pay to offset their emissions.

dillondoyle 7y ago

I wonder if there is any investment in bio-engineering a better plant or tree? Maybe just simple evolution working from our best carbon sinking trees, rapid prototype through generations, only breeding from the best stock?

greggeter 7y ago

Nuclear now!

namirez 7y ago

This can be helpful, but it's still a shortsighted solution. There are two types of carbon cycle on the planet: the short-term and the long-term [1]. The only natural mechanisms to transfer carbon between the two cycles are the planet's tectonic and volcanic activities. This has changed in recent history and we are constantly extracting carbon buried underground (long cycle) and release it into the atmosphere (short cycle). Capturing the atmospheric carbon into trees can be helpful, but it still remains on the surface. The real solution is to stop burning fossil fuels altogether. [1] https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle

StavrosK 7y ago
I mean, it sounds like the real real solution is to bury trees deep inside the earth.
- namirez 7y ago
  Agreed! Eventually, some form of carbon sequestration is necessary.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > I mean, it sounds like the real real solution is to bury trees deep inside the earth. Which is effectively what oil and coal are. Hence why we need to stop digging them up and burning them first. It doesn't make a lot of sense to dig a deep hole to extract carbon from the ground at the same time and you're digging a different deep hole to put it back in, when you could save yourself a lot of trouble and just leave it there. (And burn the wood to generate electricity if that's cheaper than alternatives like solar and nuclear, which it isn't.)
zubspace 7y ago
Would be interesting to know what you think of project Vesta [1]. Their approach involves weathering olivine on beaches to speed up the long-term carbon cycle. [1] https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/

Timothycquinn 7y ago

There are very limited cases where growing trees for carbon sequestration purposes is a net benefit for the planet. Yes, there are places where land is un-utilised, and water is sufficient but it's often better for the environment to allow wild plants grow so wildlife can flourish. Here is a very good article by the respected Bob McDonald speaks to this topic: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/trees-carbon-emissions-bob-mcdonald-1.4132679 https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/trees-carbon-emissions-bo...

JusticeJuice 7y ago
> There are very limited cases where growing trees for carbon sequestration purposes is a net benefit for the planet. Could you elaborate on this? I couldn't see anything in that article to back up that statement.

cookingrobot 7y ago

A unique carbon capture solution I don't hear much about is kelp. The key is that you want the carbon captured to stay out of the air, and the deep sea is a great place for it to end up. https://carboninstitute.org/kelp-and-carbon-sequestration-bringing-terrestrial-carbon-accounting-to-the-deep-sea/ https://carboninstitute.org/kelp-and-carbon-sequestration-br...

BasicObject 7y ago
Is there something similar in freshwater? A carbon capturing plant like kelp in lakes?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
th-ai 7y ago
3) Ocean Afforestation via macro-algae forests covering 9% of the world’s ocean surface can produce sufficient biomethane to replace all of today’s needs in fossil fuel energy, while removing 53 billion tons of CO2 per year from the atmosphere, restoring pre-industrial levels. This amount of biomass could also increase sustainable fish production to potentially provide 200 kg/yr/person for 10 billion people. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259892834_Negative_Carbon_Via_Ocean_Afforestation https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259892834_Negative_... Offsetting current carbon emissions would require some 50 trillion trees. An alternative offset would be to cultivate kelp forests. Kelp can grow at 2 feet per day, 30 times faster than terrestrial plants. Planting kelp across 9% of the oceans (4.5 x the area of Australia) could provide the same offset. Additionally, the kelp would support a fish harvest of 2 megatons per year and reduce ocean acidification. Large scale open ocean forestry would require engineered substrate and added nutrients. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture_of_giant_kelp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture_of_giant_kelp

LifeLiverTransp 7y ago

Carbon Sequestering would ideally happen by plants at sea, the biomass then bee wrapped up and plunged into the crushing depths where it would remain stored.

aaron695 7y ago

Stop being wankers. If it's the best commerically viable tree use it. Cheap products is what will help this religious CO2 is Armageddon cause because people will actually use them. Else plant natives if you're planting wide spread trees.

blondie9x 7y ago

Company information for those interested - https://worldtree.info https://worldtree.info

danzig13 7y ago

My parents have one of these bastards growing against their house. We had no idea what it was until this story. They’ve cut it down twice, butchered the stump, given it a chemical bath. It is currently back at gutter height.

midnitewarrior 7y ago

Do Empress trees make for good firewood?

titojankowski 7y ago

Fascinating! Anyone got a good source for the 103 tons per acre stat? All I've found so far is the Bloomberg link, which I think is from the World Tree Website (the company spotlighted in the article). World Tree [1] says the source is The Environmental Resources Trust, but doesn't provide a link. https://worldtree.info/carbon-offsets/ https://worldtree.info/carbon-offsets/