[Terrapreta] 20 million artificial trees to scrub CO2

[Biopact]

Spot on, Peter.
What's more, with real trees and the biochar system, you can generate energy and sequester C at the same time. Let's not forget that the world is going to need 50% more energy by 2030. Where are we going to get that? Not coal I hope?

So let's plant trees, use a fraction of those to cover our growing energy needs, in the biochar system. 

Artificial trees don't generate energy, they don't yield ecosystem services beyond scrubbing CO2 out of the atmosphere. The biochar system does.




  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Peter Read 
  To: Laurens Rademakers 
  Cc: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org 
  Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 10:24 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] 20 million artificial trees to scrub CO2


  Why not just grow ordinary trees ?
  'civilization' has destroyed 2 b Ha of forest
  why not restore half of that,. operate it commercially, build wooden houses with the timber, and pyrolyse the trash for soil improvement and bio-oil ?
  1 b Ha in warm climate absorbs ~10Gt (billion tons) p.a.
  there's plenty of land (esp as trees don't need arable quality land)
  the shortage is not of land but of investment in land
  Peter
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Laurens Rademakers 
    To: terra Preta 
    Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 7:36 AM
    Subject: [Terrapreta] 20 million artificial trees to scrub CO2


    Here, an idea that directly competes with terra preta; the artificial tree idea.

    I find this a stupid idea, because it doesn't offer any benefits besides capturing CO2. What's more, you would capture the CO2 and geosequester it, which is an untested method.

    It's also hugely expensive ($600 billion).

    So why does this fella make the BBC headlines, and why not Lehmann or Steiner?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7429562.stm

    Giant trees 'to clear excess CO2'
    The scientist who coined the term "global warming" in the 1970s has proposed a radical solution to the problem of climate change. 

    Wallace Broecker advocated millions of "carbon scrubbers" - giant artificial trees to pull CO2 from the air. 

    Dr Broecker told the Hay literary festival in Powys: "We've got an extremely serious problem. 

    He added: "It's a race against time and we are just sort of crawling along at a slow pace." 

    He said some 20 million of the scrubbing devices would be required to capture all the CO2 currently produced in the US. 

    But he told the festival: "Okay, you say that's enormous, but we make 55 million cars a year, so if we really wanted to we could. Over 30 or 40 years we could easily make that number." 

    After addressing the festival, Dr Broecker told the BBC News website that 60 million of the devices would be needed worldwide at an estimated cost of $600bn (£303bn) a year. 

    The towers would be about 50ft high and 8ft in diameter, and use a special type of plastic to absorb the CO2. 

    The gas would then be either liquefied under pressure and pumped underground or turned into a mineral. 

    Political will 

    Dr Broecker said the most likely location for the towers would be desert areas of the planet. 

    However, he admitted that such a project faced an uphill struggle. 

    "If I were a betting man I would bet against it because I don't know if we have the political will to do it," he said. 

    "But looking at countries like Germany and here in the UK the will is developing." 

    He said the challenge was to get rapidly developing countries such China, India and Brazil behind the idea. 




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