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I'd be really interested in this area of research, too. And not just trees- what about smaller plants (even house plants)? I'd imagine an engineered "heavy brea

• stouset 12y ago
  Plants don't just magick carbon away. They store the carbon as more plant. Ergo, to offset the release of a pound of carbon, you need more than a pound of plant. A typical American releases tons of carbon per year (literally, not figuratively), so to offset this will require tons of plant. Thousands of pounds of houseplant per year is... impractical, to put it gently. 80ft tall, 24ft diameter hardwoods can hit 50 tons at maturity (50+ years). So it seems that planting half a dozen to a dozen hardwoods would be enough to mostly offset a typical American's lifetime carbon emissions. Of course, when the tree dies, the carbon has to go somewhere.
  • bryondowd 12y ago
    Probably completely impractical, but this conversation gave me a picture of people raising fast-growing plants in their homes/yards that they continually 'harvest'. This harvested matter than gets taken to a dump site and buried, capturing the carbon underground. I suppose the whole operation would have to either use solar power or be extremely efficient to avoid burning as much or more carbon based fuel than it buries.
    • semi-extrinsic 12y ago
      Freeman Dyson proposed this solution a few years back. I honestly think it's not being done because most huge companies prefer to spend a little money (relatively speaking) on CCS research and kicking the can down the road.