3 ms·

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

by 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.

by skolor 17y ago

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.