maddiehalla

5 ms·

1.
by maddiehalla 5y ago
Yes, lead, nickel, iron, copper and lithium are all metals that in theory can be hyperaccumulated. We have spent some time on nickel, copper and lithium so far but haven't shared any of this research yet.
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
Good questions! The end use of the wood depends on the location of the pilot project and how close it is to a mill. Given the duration of our pilot projects, the trees will be too large to be used for anything outside of saw timber for furn
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
would be happy to discuss with you and see if doing a pilot project make sense! land (@) livingcarbon.com
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
I think I mentioned this in my other comment but durability and grow rate increase are two different traits we are working on at Living Carbon. I agree it's near impossible to address both in one trait.
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
In the conversations we have had with landowners, they are much more interested in planting Loblolly pine or poplar, which are naturalized and / or native than Empress. I think Empress trees are very cool but hybrid poplar and loblolly
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
We would not use any trees with metal for pellets. Because the landowners we work with grow the trees for over 25 years the type of wood produced is better for saw timber or timber that is used in building materials. it wouldn't be pel
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
Good question, the research we are doing on increasing the durability of wood is separate from the research on photosynthesis. The durability of wood largely has to do with the ratio of lignin to cellulose. Historically organizations focuse
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
Wow - this post is getting a lot of great discussion. We are working on responding to the comments directly. A few key points to add that help frame how we think about the role biotechnology plays in carbon capture and removal. Similar to h
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
The concentrations of metal that would occur from natural hyperacclumulation is actually much less that what occur in the process of pressure treated wood for common commercial uses like decks and building materials. In this case any wood t
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
Trees have proven incredibly adept at restabilizing the climate over eons. However, to continue to sustainably inhabit the earth as a species, we need to address the imbalance of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions over the scale of a hu
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
Right now we are planting them in controlled environments for further study or on land where other plants cannot grow well - such as abandoned minelands. Our goal is to draw down 1GT of carbon in lands where trees don’t currently thrive; th
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
All our current poplar trees are female and do not produce pollen, thus instilling a low fertility rate while maintaining the integrity of the tree to integrate with local ecosystems. We take an ecosystem approach to everything we do. This
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
C4 plants evolved when CO₂ partial pressure was low and there was a higher partial pressure of oxygen in the air, which is the opposite of the trajectory we see today. Therefore, we have reduced the selection pressure on C4 plants. Rather t
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
We could but our main focus has been improving the land efficiency of carbon projects and allowing trees to be planted on land that would not otherwise be arable for crops and other trees. We specifically focus using our trees to help clean
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
We cover the cost of site prep and seedlings for landowners we partner with and retain the rights to the carbon captured by our seedlings. We then monetize the carbon captured by our seedlings.
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
How and why we have genetically enhanced our seedlings matter a lot. we only include genes from other plants and don't use any genes known to increase plant pet risk or weediness. we have confirmation that we do not require further der
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
Good questions! 1. We are still studying tradeoffs. Given the biochemical mechanism (how we change the trees), we are essentially increasing the amount of energy going to growth and not changing any fundamental ratios between lignin and ce
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
You can join the waitlist to stay up to date with our work. https://www.livingcarbon.com/seedling-waitlist
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
They do not meet the USDA definition of GMO but FSC is a different story. FSC right now is quite exclusionary and so we are not eligible for FSC certification. I do think that FSC certification is quite challenging for most family foresters
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
This is a good reminder of how important it is we study ecosystem impacts of any of the work we do. Right now our seedling are female hybrids that don't produce pollen so this is less of a worry. We are working with third party institu
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
Luckily, the US plants 1.6B trees a year. The world already knows how to scale up very similar supply chains to what we need to propagate Living Carbon seedlings. We work with a large scale nursery that produces over 300M trees a year right
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by maddiehalla 5y ago
Selective breeding is helpful to get ~1% increase in growth rate per year. Given we use biotechnology to enhance natural processes, we haven't seen the same pushback as if we had added a completely new trait in plants that doesn't
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Launch HN: Living Carbon (YC W20) – Trees that capture and store more carbon
424 points by maddiehalla 5y ago|256 comments