4 ms·

I'm sorry, but these "Synthetic Trees" seem to be incredibly stupid. Trees (real ones) serve several funtions, the ones most important to this being: They remov

by skolor 17y ago

I'm sorry, but these "Synthetic Trees" seem to be incredibly stupid. Trees (real ones) serve several funtions, the ones most important to this being: They remove CO2, and the turn it into oxygen. All that these Synthetic trees do is take CO2 out of the air, and shove it underground to store. This may just be me, but this sounds like the kind of thing that will have massive ramifications a century or so down the line.

mseebach 17y ago
Maybe. But according to a number of climate scientists, we've screwed the earth by then if we keep pumping it into the air. It's not the perfect solution, but it's nominally a better scenario. Who know what we might do with a huge load of CO2 in 100 years? We might have industrialized photosynthesis, so we can convert it all back to oxygen and coal.
- skolor 17y ago
  The thing about CO2 and O2 is that its a loop. We breathe in O2 and breathe out CO2. Plants "Breathe" in CO2 and "Breathe" out O2. It just seems very dangerous to me to sequester a lot of that underground, more so than climate change.
  - mseebach 17y ago
    The deal with the climate change CO2 is that we've pumped out an enormous surplus of CO2 beyond what is tied up in that loop. Note, that all that CO2 came from oxygen that was once in the atmosphere, and we're still breathing fine. If the CO2 that would be caught by these trees would otherwise be "breathed" by plants, there wouldn't be a problem. CO2 doesn't bother the climate as long as it's down here, it's in the stratosphere (I think. One of the -pheres) it becomes a greenhouse gas.
    - skolor 17y ago
      Right, so trying to balance this cycle by pumping it back underground doesn't seem to be the right solution (unless these synthetic trees can operate without being powered). Otherwise all we're doing is creating a second, closed loop of: Pull Carbon out of the ground (in the form of fossil fuels) -> burn, turn into CO2 -> capture out of atmosphere, put back in ground. Unless we the trees do it without using up more fossil fuels to do so, it doesn't seem entirely effective. It just seems to me to be a bad idea to create a second CO2 loop rather than just strengthening the one that already exists. Yes, the synthetic trees may be more effective, but you get more than just CO2->O2 out of a tree.
      - mseebach 17y ago
        We don't don't need to balance the cycle, it's perfectly balanced on it's own, we want to avoid generating large amounts of CO2 that won't go into that cycle, because it will make a greenhouse effect -- either by not emitting, by scrubbing and storing (this solution) or by enlarging the cycle (plating actual tree, algae etc.). I'd think that if we can convert the CO2 back to coal, we'd want to dump it in a hole somewhere, not burn it. The point was to get it out of the way until then.
psadauskas 17y ago
The same thing happens with real trees, though. They capture the carbon in themselves. Then when they die and decay, they release the carbon again, as methane (when they rot) and CO2 (when they burn).

by skolor 17y ago

mseebach 17y ago

Maybe. But according to a number of climate scientists, we've screwed the earth by then if we keep pumping it into the air. It's not the perfect solution, but it's nominally a better scenario. Who know what we might do with a huge load of CO2 in 100 years? We might have industrialized photosynthesis, so we can convert it all back to oxygen and coal.

skolor 17y ago
The thing about CO2 and O2 is that its a loop. We breathe in O2 and breathe out CO2. Plants "Breathe" in CO2 and "Breathe" out O2. It just seems very dangerous to me to sequester a lot of that underground, more so than climate change.
- mseebach 17y ago
  The deal with the climate change CO2 is that we've pumped out an enormous surplus of CO2 beyond what is tied up in that loop. Note, that all that CO2 came from oxygen that was once in the atmosphere, and we're still breathing fine. If the CO2 that would be caught by these trees would otherwise be "breathed" by plants, there wouldn't be a problem. CO2 doesn't bother the climate as long as it's down here, it's in the stratosphere (I think. One of the -pheres) it becomes a greenhouse gas.
  - skolor 17y ago
    Right, so trying to balance this cycle by pumping it back underground doesn't seem to be the right solution (unless these synthetic trees can operate without being powered). Otherwise all we're doing is creating a second, closed loop of: Pull Carbon out of the ground (in the form of fossil fuels) -> burn, turn into CO2 -> capture out of atmosphere, put back in ground. Unless we the trees do it without using up more fossil fuels to do so, it doesn't seem entirely effective. It just seems to me to be a bad idea to create a second CO2 loop rather than just strengthening the one that already exists. Yes, the synthetic trees may be more effective, but you get more than just CO2->O2 out of a tree.
    - mseebach 17y ago
      We don't don't need to balance the cycle, it's perfectly balanced on it's own, we want to avoid generating large amounts of CO2 that won't go into that cycle, because it will make a greenhouse effect -- either by not emitting, by scrubbing and storing (this solution) or by enlarging the cycle (plating actual tree, algae etc.). I'd think that if we can convert the CO2 back to coal, we'd want to dump it in a hole somewhere, not burn it. The point was to get it out of the way until then.

psadauskas 17y ago

The same thing happens with real trees, though. They capture the carbon in themselves. Then when they die and decay, they release the carbon again, as methane (when they rot) and CO2 (when they burn).