5 ms·

Terrestrial vegetation is part of the planet's natural carbon cycle, i.e. forest fires are normal, expected, and necessary. Unlike oil and coal which hasn't hi

Terrestrial vegetation is part of the planet's natural carbon cycle, i.e. forest fires are normal, expected, and necessary. Unlike oil and coal which hasn't historically extracted itself from deep underground to combust in the atmosphere. It escapes me how anyone can consider it for long-term carbon storage/offsetting of excess atmospheric co2 derived from fossil fuels.

guerrilla 5y ago
> It escapes me how anyone can consider it for long-term carbon storage/offsetting of excess atmospheric co2 derived from fossil fuels. There's been a lot of talk about burying it as it matures. I have a question though. Why can't we compost it and make soil out of it? I gather that this would release some carbon back to the atmosphere (in both anaerobic and aerobic composting) but wouldn't it be a net capture?
- gruez 5y ago
  >I gather that this would release some carbon back to the atmosphere (in both anaerobic and aerobic composting) but wouldn't it be a net capture? You can sequester carbon with any kind of organic matter. As long as the compost product contains carbon, you'll be sequestering it. The only problem is that if you just leave it around, plants will eventually extract it for nutrients, which means it will reenter the carbon cycle. To sequester it long term you have to prevent it from being used by lifeforms, eg. burying it really deep.
  - zumu 5y ago
    The idea that we dug up a bunch of sequestered organic carbon and released it into the atmosphere, only to now try to re-sequester it and stick it back into the ground is really amusing to me.
    - Retric 5y ago
      Yes, it seems like a really dumb idea when we are also still extracting nearly pure carbon as coal from the ground to burn. I just picture someone trying to optimize it by buying coal to then burry.
      - zacmps 5y ago
        If you were Bezos this could be a strategy; driving up the price of coal by buying it and doing nothing with it would reduce carbon emissions. Not sure how effective it would be from a CO2/$ standpoint.
        sitkack 5y ago
        At some point, someone will make money buying coal, dig it up and then bury it again as carbon credits. I am looking at you Goldman Sachs.
        jtsiskin 5y ago
        The existing carbon credit market already seems pretty close to that
- redisman 5y ago
  You can also make stuff out of it unless you grow some garbage trees
- smileysteve 5y ago
  Composting also creates CO2 (aerobic bacteria breaking down organic matter). There's some opportunity to consider Vermacompost or bokashi to reduce the CO2 output
  - jonnydubowsky 5y ago
    I love seeing a Bokashi reference on HN! For those interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokashi_(horticulture) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokashi_(horticulture) https://www.teraganix.com/products/terakashi-bokashi https://www.teraganix.com/products/terakashi-bokashi
- lazide 5y ago
  It's not uncommon for some compost to be 'used up' (all carbon decomposed and nutrients used up) in a year or less. It's not very efficient as compared to, say, building a building out of a log, if what you want is carbon sequestration.
burlesona 5y ago
I mean, there are large chunks of the world that don’t generally catch on fire. The entire eastern have of the US, for example. The land is more expensive, but if you converted a corn field or prairie to forest anywhere from Wichita to Washington you wouldn’t expect it to burn down in a massive forest fire. The fire cycle thing is more of a mountain west problem.
- pengaru 5y ago
  Where I grew up in the midwest prairie fires were definitely a thing [0]. Controlled burns were performed and even the local community college would perform them on a local prairie for education purposes, as they were such an integral part of the ecosystem. And in case you haven't noticed, the climate is changing. Whatever assumptions you may have about the probability of abundant fuel left on the planet's surface going up in smoke are unlikely to stay correct, if they even are today. [0] https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/education/Pages/ILPrairies.aspx https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/education/Pages/ILPrairies.asp...
- chongli 5y ago
  Forests that don’t burn down in regular fires don’t sequester carbon long term either. Trees die and slowly rot on the forest floor, releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere. Fossil fuels come from accidents of evolution. When plants first evolved lignin there was nothing around that could decompose it and so it built up in large layers, later to be converted into fossil fuels under pressure. Now there are fungi which can decompose lignin and so there will never be a natural build-up of lignin again. Our best bet is to grow trees to sequester carbon and then cut them down and use the wood for durable goods such as houses and furniture. If we can take care of this wood to prevent it from rotting or burning then it’ll sequester carbon for a long time. We’ll have to find ways to cut out fossil fuels from the wood supply chain though.
  - jjk166 5y ago
    > Forests that don’t burn down in regular fires don’t sequester carbon long term either. Trees die and slowly rot on the forest floor, releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere. But at the same time those old trees are rotting, new trees are growing. So long as the forest exists (as opposed to say prairie), the carbon is sequestered.
ajross 5y ago
> It escapes me how anyone can consider it for long-term carbon storage/offsetting Because, the occasional fire notwithstanding, it's not ephemeral. The canonical idea here is taking stripped land like farms, which has had all the carbon removed and burned off into the atmosphere, and replacing it (over a century or two) with a mature forest where very large amounts of carbon is stored in biomass. Yes, it burns sometimes. But over time forests house vastly more carbon than farms. So planting them is a win. The ding against forest sequestration isn't fires, it's that they just don't work fast enough. It's not enough to scrub all the CO2 out of the air by 2221 AD, we need it done now.
- lazide 5y ago
  That is... probably not correct? The forest stores x amount of carbon it has extracted while the forest exists, but forests are ephemeral over geological timescales, or in some cases even 100's of years. And while they suck up carbon while growing, they reach equilibrium relatively quickly, and then mostly just cycle it, not store much more. It's great if you have a bunch of land that COULD have a forest, but currently doesn't for some reason (harvested?) - but there isn't a lot of that anymore. If it doesn't have it now because the last one burned, then it's just getting back to it's previous storage point, not really changing the overall equilibrium. You can't easily make more land be forestable, as it requires quite a lot of water, and most places with a lot of water already have forests.
  - joe_the_user 5y ago
    Here in California, 2 million acres burned last year and we may well have 2 million acres burn this year (we're up to at least a million). And before 1850, 2 million acres also burned, so we're essentially catching to the average - in the worst way possible. It's global warming and an abused, fire-based ecology, together. And people imagine "plant a tree" is the solution. So forests here are very ephemeral indeed. The idea that people keeping a forest here forever would fight global warming is mind boggling.
    - ajross 5y ago

guerrilla 5y ago

> It escapes me how anyone can consider it for long-term carbon storage/offsetting of excess atmospheric co2 derived from fossil fuels. There's been a lot of talk about burying it as it matures. I have a question though. Why can't we compost it and make soil out of it? I gather that this would release some carbon back to the atmosphere (in both anaerobic and aerobic composting) but wouldn't it be a net capture?

gruez 5y ago
>I gather that this would release some carbon back to the atmosphere (in both anaerobic and aerobic composting) but wouldn't it be a net capture? You can sequester carbon with any kind of organic matter. As long as the compost product contains carbon, you'll be sequestering it. The only problem is that if you just leave it around, plants will eventually extract it for nutrients, which means it will reenter the carbon cycle. To sequester it long term you have to prevent it from being used by lifeforms, eg. burying it really deep.
- zumu 5y ago
  The idea that we dug up a bunch of sequestered organic carbon and released it into the atmosphere, only to now try to re-sequester it and stick it back into the ground is really amusing to me.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Yes, it seems like a really dumb idea when we are also still extracting nearly pure carbon as coal from the ground to burn. I just picture someone trying to optimize it by buying coal to then burry.
    - zacmps 5y ago
      If you were Bezos this could be a strategy; driving up the price of coal by buying it and doing nothing with it would reduce carbon emissions. Not sure how effective it would be from a CO2/$ standpoint.
      - sitkack 5y ago
        At some point, someone will make money buying coal, dig it up and then bury it again as carbon credits. I am looking at you Goldman Sachs.
        jtsiskin 5y ago
        The existing carbon credit market already seems pretty close to that
redisman 5y ago
You can also make stuff out of it unless you grow some garbage trees
smileysteve 5y ago
Composting also creates CO2 (aerobic bacteria breaking down organic matter). There's some opportunity to consider Vermacompost or bokashi to reduce the CO2 output
- jonnydubowsky 5y ago
  I love seeing a Bokashi reference on HN! For those interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokashi_(horticulture) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokashi_(horticulture) https://www.teraganix.com/products/terakashi-bokashi https://www.teraganix.com/products/terakashi-bokashi
lazide 5y ago
It's not uncommon for some compost to be 'used up' (all carbon decomposed and nutrients used up) in a year or less. It's not very efficient as compared to, say, building a building out of a log, if what you want is carbon sequestration.

burlesona 5y ago

I mean, there are large chunks of the world that don’t generally catch on fire. The entire eastern have of the US, for example. The land is more expensive, but if you converted a corn field or prairie to forest anywhere from Wichita to Washington you wouldn’t expect it to burn down in a massive forest fire. The fire cycle thing is more of a mountain west problem.

pengaru 5y ago
Where I grew up in the midwest prairie fires were definitely a thing [0]. Controlled burns were performed and even the local community college would perform them on a local prairie for education purposes, as they were such an integral part of the ecosystem. And in case you haven't noticed, the climate is changing. Whatever assumptions you may have about the probability of abundant fuel left on the planet's surface going up in smoke are unlikely to stay correct, if they even are today. [0] https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/education/Pages/ILPrairies.aspx https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/education/Pages/ILPrairies.asp...
chongli 5y ago
Forests that don’t burn down in regular fires don’t sequester carbon long term either. Trees die and slowly rot on the forest floor, releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere. Fossil fuels come from accidents of evolution. When plants first evolved lignin there was nothing around that could decompose it and so it built up in large layers, later to be converted into fossil fuels under pressure. Now there are fungi which can decompose lignin and so there will never be a natural build-up of lignin again. Our best bet is to grow trees to sequester carbon and then cut them down and use the wood for durable goods such as houses and furniture. If we can take care of this wood to prevent it from rotting or burning then it’ll sequester carbon for a long time. We’ll have to find ways to cut out fossil fuels from the wood supply chain though.
- jjk166 5y ago
  > Forests that don’t burn down in regular fires don’t sequester carbon long term either. Trees die and slowly rot on the forest floor, releasing their carbon back into the atmosphere. But at the same time those old trees are rotting, new trees are growing. So long as the forest exists (as opposed to say prairie), the carbon is sequestered.

ajross 5y ago

> It escapes me how anyone can consider it for long-term carbon storage/offsetting Because, the occasional fire notwithstanding, it's not ephemeral. The canonical idea here is taking stripped land like farms, which has had all the carbon removed and burned off into the atmosphere, and replacing it (over a century or two) with a mature forest where very large amounts of carbon is stored in biomass. Yes, it burns sometimes. But over time forests house vastly more carbon than farms. So planting them is a win. The ding against forest sequestration isn't fires, it's that they just don't work fast enough. It's not enough to scrub all the CO2 out of the air by 2221 AD, we need it done now.

lazide 5y ago
That is... probably not correct? The forest stores x amount of carbon it has extracted while the forest exists, but forests are ephemeral over geological timescales, or in some cases even 100's of years. And while they suck up carbon while growing, they reach equilibrium relatively quickly, and then mostly just cycle it, not store much more. It's great if you have a bunch of land that COULD have a forest, but currently doesn't for some reason (harvested?) - but there isn't a lot of that anymore. If it doesn't have it now because the last one burned, then it's just getting back to it's previous storage point, not really changing the overall equilibrium. You can't easily make more land be forestable, as it requires quite a lot of water, and most places with a lot of water already have forests.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  Here in California, 2 million acres burned last year and we may well have 2 million acres burn this year (we're up to at least a million). And before 1850, 2 million acres also burned, so we're essentially catching to the average - in the worst way possible. It's global warming and an abused, fire-based ecology, together. And people imagine "plant a tree" is the solution. So forests here are very ephemeral indeed. The idea that people keeping a forest here forever would fight global warming is mind boggling.
  - ajross 5y ago