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Are there other forms of long term natural carbon storage than hydrocarbures or shale gas? Because a wood branch eventually decades and reemit the carbon, if it

Are there other forms of long term natural carbon storage than hydrocarbures or shale gas? Because a wood branch eventually decades and reemit the carbon, if it doesn't get buried deep in (usually sea) ground

angry_moose 3y ago
New forests are long-term storage. A single tree will eventually die, decay, and re-emit carbon. However, it will quickly be replaced by new trees that re-absorb a similar amount of carbon. Despite some amount of carbon exchange every year from growth and decay, the forest as a whole stores a huge amount of carbon as long as it lasts. Maybe not stable on geological time-scales due to things like disease, disaster, or continental drift; but certainly extremely valuable on the order of millenia.
- stephen_g 3y ago
  Exactly - people seem to get a little caught up in the ‘carbon offsets are BS’ narrative (which there is a lot of truth to - a lot of credits in these markets are grifters selling sham credits, and offsets in general won’t work long term if we don’t massively reduce things like fossil fuel use). But taking it too far can mean they aren’t able to quite grasp this about how the forest works. So you get weird, wrong takes like “because trees eventually die and decompose, a forest stores zero carbon on a net basis.” But you’re spot on - the new forest will absorb a certain amount of carbon, and then should basically reach a steady state where new growth trees are absorbing a similar amount of carbon as the decomposing trees are releasing (more or less on the short term, but should roughly even out over the medium term). Of course, there are sometimes things like bushfires, but ideally forest regrown in an area where there was a bushfire re-offsets that (but you can’t claim that against other carbon you release, only against the carbon released by the bushfire!)
  - hinkley 3y ago
    See also forest succession, where pioneer trees grow and die, intermediate trees grow on the stumps, and apex canopy trees grow on their stumps. That’s a process that’s anywhere from 80-400 years in the making, and each species holds more carbon than the previous. That’s a long time for us to get carbon neutral. One that’s been replaced with clear cutting, which removed the nurse logs the next generation would typically indirectly consume.
  - danbruc 3y ago
    All plant biomass is equivalent to 45 years of global carbon dioxide emissions at current levels. You have to plant a lot of trees to make a noticeable dent.
- 11235813213455 3y ago
  new & long-term are 2 opposite terms by long term I mean a 10k year scale for example (civilization scale), not 100 years (human life scale - mid term), or a few years (short-term)
  - angry_moose 3y ago
    The North American forests existed for at least 100,000 years, many times longer than recorded history. Is that not long enough for you? If we were to reforest those areas that were cut down ("new" forests), that's an extremely effective long term carbon sink.
    - 11235813213455 3y ago
      Yes that forest existed for many years, produced coal, oil, shale gas, that's the long-term storage If the forest now regrow, it's a short term storage (added with the long-term effect, that will take more time to settle, but it's a continuous process, so it's good to have too)
Panino 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar If we get serious about producing biochar, we could sequester many gigatons every year of atmospheric carbon in biochar for addition to the soil. There, it would remain stable for thousands of years and improve soil microbiology, increase soil moisture and plant growth, which in turn would provide more feedstock for additional biochar in addition to other valuable things like food. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
- Faaak 3y ago
  On top of that, some companies are studying adding biochar to concrete (replacing some cement). It's really interesting because it lowers CO₂ emissions twice (cement creation + biochar CO₂ sequestration). It's starting to be tested a bit in France. Take a look in google scholar because it's really interesting and will be big IMHO
jillesvangurp 3y ago
Not 100%; some of it ends up in the soil. And then more soil ends up on top of that, and so on. That's where oil and coal came from. Just accumulated deposits that didn't end up in the atmosphere. Over many millions of years.
hinkley 3y ago
Half of a tree is below ground, and that breaks down slower. And in fact there are situations with root fusion where some roots from one tree get adopted by neighboring trees. You can see this occasionally with stumps that heal over without any trunks at all. I have seen three examples around here and recall the location of two (on a hiking trail less than 200 ft apart).
- justinator 3y ago
  I grew up with the idea that the root system of a tree mirrors the branch system, but that's not really how it works. Roots don't penetrate all that far down, and are more spread out across the surface, but certainly don't hold half the mass of the tree. The bigger the tree, the more this is true. A giant redwood does not have that much biomass underground as it does above it. The soil richness is generally pretty poor in those giant redwood groves.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    Redwoods and a few of the other big trees are unusual in that they stop trying to pull 100% of their water from the ground. It’s hydrologically impossible. Some of it comes from epiphytes like moss, higher up in the canopy. Absorbed straight through the bark or via adventitious root hairs. Not all of the soil carbon from tree roots is in roots. Without the tree, more than just the roots disappear.
justinator 3y ago
What did the massive, global, currently undiscovered civilization before us do? Something tells me the giant oil and coal fields were their solution and we're currently digging that all up and utilizing. (this post is satire)
ianburrell 3y ago
Rock. Silicates absorb CO2 through weathering. Olivine absorbs faster in seawater. Weathering is one of the slow non-biologic sinks for CO2. But it is possible to make it work faster by crushing olivine and dumping it in shallow ocean.
stevenwoo 3y ago
Not exactly the answer to your question but some idea of the scale of the problem https://www.sciencenews.org/article/where-earth-stores-its-carbon https://www.sciencenews.org/article/where-earth-stores-its-c... TLDR, it's estimated the vast majority of carbon on Earth above the crust is in the ocean.
guerby 3y ago
Soil. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08636-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08636-w "Soils store climatically significant amounts of carbon (C) as soil organic matter, globally about 2.3 times greater than the C in atmospheric CO2 and 3.5 times greater than the C in all living terrestrial plants1. However, prolonged cultivation accelerates the decomposition of soil organic matter and can cause the loss of 20–67% of the soil C in an agricultural field2,3,4. Between 1850 and 1998, global agricultural cultivation led to the release of ~78 Gt of C from soil as CO2 to the atmosphere4, with ~133 Gt of soil C so released since the beginning of agriculture5. Since the current global annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and all other sources are ~10 Gt of C6, soil C sequestration has thus been proposed as a plausible partial climate mitigation strategy that might buy time while low-carbon technologies are being developed and adopted7. Indeed, a recent international initiative has set a target of increasing global soil organic matter by 0.4% per year to help negate some greenhouse gas emissions" Note: papers about soil use Carbon mass, not CO2 mass, to convert 1kg C ~ 3.67 kg of CO2

angry_moose 3y ago

New forests are long-term storage. A single tree will eventually die, decay, and re-emit carbon. However, it will quickly be replaced by new trees that re-absorb a similar amount of carbon. Despite some amount of carbon exchange every year from growth and decay, the forest as a whole stores a huge amount of carbon as long as it lasts. Maybe not stable on geological time-scales due to things like disease, disaster, or continental drift; but certainly extremely valuable on the order of millenia.

stephen_g 3y ago
Exactly - people seem to get a little caught up in the ‘carbon offsets are BS’ narrative (which there is a lot of truth to - a lot of credits in these markets are grifters selling sham credits, and offsets in general won’t work long term if we don’t massively reduce things like fossil fuel use). But taking it too far can mean they aren’t able to quite grasp this about how the forest works. So you get weird, wrong takes like “because trees eventually die and decompose, a forest stores zero carbon on a net basis.” But you’re spot on - the new forest will absorb a certain amount of carbon, and then should basically reach a steady state where new growth trees are absorbing a similar amount of carbon as the decomposing trees are releasing (more or less on the short term, but should roughly even out over the medium term). Of course, there are sometimes things like bushfires, but ideally forest regrown in an area where there was a bushfire re-offsets that (but you can’t claim that against other carbon you release, only against the carbon released by the bushfire!)
- hinkley 3y ago
  See also forest succession, where pioneer trees grow and die, intermediate trees grow on the stumps, and apex canopy trees grow on their stumps. That’s a process that’s anywhere from 80-400 years in the making, and each species holds more carbon than the previous. That’s a long time for us to get carbon neutral. One that’s been replaced with clear cutting, which removed the nurse logs the next generation would typically indirectly consume.
- danbruc 3y ago
  All plant biomass is equivalent to 45 years of global carbon dioxide emissions at current levels. You have to plant a lot of trees to make a noticeable dent.
11235813213455 3y ago
new & long-term are 2 opposite terms by long term I mean a 10k year scale for example (civilization scale), not 100 years (human life scale - mid term), or a few years (short-term)
- angry_moose 3y ago
  The North American forests existed for at least 100,000 years, many times longer than recorded history. Is that not long enough for you? If we were to reforest those areas that were cut down ("new" forests), that's an extremely effective long term carbon sink.
  - 11235813213455 3y ago
    Yes that forest existed for many years, produced coal, oil, shale gas, that's the long-term storage If the forest now regrow, it's a short term storage (added with the long-term effect, that will take more time to settle, but it's a continuous process, so it's good to have too)

Panino 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar If we get serious about producing biochar, we could sequester many gigatons every year of atmospheric carbon in biochar for addition to the soil. There, it would remain stable for thousands of years and improve soil microbiology, increase soil moisture and plant growth, which in turn would provide more feedstock for additional biochar in addition to other valuable things like food. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

Faaak 3y ago
On top of that, some companies are studying adding biochar to concrete (replacing some cement). It's really interesting because it lowers CO₂ emissions twice (cement creation + biochar CO₂ sequestration). It's starting to be tested a bit in France. Take a look in google scholar because it's really interesting and will be big IMHO

jillesvangurp 3y ago

Not 100%; some of it ends up in the soil. And then more soil ends up on top of that, and so on. That's where oil and coal came from. Just accumulated deposits that didn't end up in the atmosphere. Over many millions of years.

hinkley 3y ago

Half of a tree is below ground, and that breaks down slower. And in fact there are situations with root fusion where some roots from one tree get adopted by neighboring trees. You can see this occasionally with stumps that heal over without any trunks at all. I have seen three examples around here and recall the location of two (on a hiking trail less than 200 ft apart).

justinator 3y ago
I grew up with the idea that the root system of a tree mirrors the branch system, but that's not really how it works. Roots don't penetrate all that far down, and are more spread out across the surface, but certainly don't hold half the mass of the tree. The bigger the tree, the more this is true. A giant redwood does not have that much biomass underground as it does above it. The soil richness is generally pretty poor in those giant redwood groves.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Redwoods and a few of the other big trees are unusual in that they stop trying to pull 100% of their water from the ground. It’s hydrologically impossible. Some of it comes from epiphytes like moss, higher up in the canopy. Absorbed straight through the bark or via adventitious root hairs. Not all of the soil carbon from tree roots is in roots. Without the tree, more than just the roots disappear.

justinator 3y ago

What did the massive, global, currently undiscovered civilization before us do? Something tells me the giant oil and coal fields were their solution and we're currently digging that all up and utilizing. (this post is satire)

ianburrell 3y ago

Rock. Silicates absorb CO2 through weathering. Olivine absorbs faster in seawater. Weathering is one of the slow non-biologic sinks for CO2. But it is possible to make it work faster by crushing olivine and dumping it in shallow ocean.

stevenwoo 3y ago

Not exactly the answer to your question but some idea of the scale of the problem https://www.sciencenews.org/article/where-earth-stores-its-carbon https://www.sciencenews.org/article/where-earth-stores-its-c... TLDR, it's estimated the vast majority of carbon on Earth above the crust is in the ocean.

guerby 3y ago

Soil. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08636-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08636-w "Soils store climatically significant amounts of carbon (C) as soil organic matter, globally about 2.3 times greater than the C in atmospheric CO2 and 3.5 times greater than the C in all living terrestrial plants1. However, prolonged cultivation accelerates the decomposition of soil organic matter and can cause the loss of 20–67% of the soil C in an agricultural field2,3,4. Between 1850 and 1998, global agricultural cultivation led to the release of ~78 Gt of C from soil as CO2 to the atmosphere4, with ~133 Gt of soil C so released since the beginning of agriculture5. Since the current global annual CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and all other sources are ~10 Gt of C6, soil C sequestration has thus been proposed as a plausible partial climate mitigation strategy that might buy time while low-carbon technologies are being developed and adopted7. Indeed, a recent international initiative has set a target of increasing global soil organic matter by 0.4% per year to help negate some greenhouse gas emissions" Note: papers about soil use Carbon mass, not CO2 mass, to convert 1kg C ~ 3.67 kg of CO2