[Terrapreta] Yet another "put trees in the ground" article

[Peter Read]

No Max, planting 1 GHa over 25 years will do the trick.  

To quote a little article I have just written
"Planting 40MHa that reaches 400 tons biomass per Ha (~200 t C[1]) at 25 year maturity would absorb 8 Gt C prior to felling. So a simple mandate on extractors of fossil fuels to invest in projects that, over a 25 year time-span, will absorb the fossil carbon they extract could, if maintained for 25 years, result in a 'normal forest' estate with equal, 40MHa areas of plantings at each age cohort, total 1GHa and absorbing 8Gt annually after a 25 year build up."

200 tC in 25 years is moderately conservative, as shown in the footnote:

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[1] At 500m on moderate soil ~40º South in New Zealand, Pinus Radiata yields 156.1 above ground live biomass, 34.1 below ground live biomass, 7.3 dead woody litter, 11.9 fine litter = 209.3 tC/Ha total after 20 years.  Faster growth rates are achieved with eucalypts and other fast growing species in tropical and sub-tropical conditions.



It is a question of logistics and economics whether it is better to use the woody biomass for fuel and keep fossil carbon buried or to bury it and continue using fossil fuel.  Or to bury part of it as biochar and use the volatiles to displace some fossil fuel.  Or to saw it up and make more long-lived wooden houses.   And of course there are a lot of sustainability and socio-economic issues to be addressed.



Cheers

Peter

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: MFH 
  To: 'Biopact' ; 'terra pretta group' 
  Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 10:53 AM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Yet another "put trees in the ground" article


  Are they serious? They may well be “from the University of Greifswald” but I bet they’re from the Department of Absolute Nonsense.

   

  SO the plan is to grow trees, harvest them, dig great holes and bury them. Don’t cut the trees down and saw them for timber so people can build homes. Or schools or hospitals – just bury them. Yep, that’s a really terrific idea.

   

  Then they say we’d need to plant a billion hectares of new forest just to balance the Co2 produced in a year. So doesn’t that mean a billion hectares every year? Excuse me, where are we going to find another planet to do this on?

   

  And then the absolute crunch line. The finely detailed advice that can only come from one who has had the benefit of tenure at an institute of learning as respected as Greifswald:

   

  “The forests would only be planted in countries that are suitable for growing forest”. Wow. There are surely people out there who will tremble at the sheer audacity of such brilliance. 

   

  Tell me you’re kidding….

   

  Max H

   

   


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  From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org [mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Biopact
  Sent: Wednesday, 14 May 2008 1:21 AM
  To: terra pretta group
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Yet another "put trees in the ground" article

   

  http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-05/w-ptt051308.php

  Put the trees in the ground
  A solution for the global carbon dioxide problem?
   

  Of the current global environmental problems, the excessive release of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels and the related global warming is one of the most pressing. In an essay in the journal ChemSusChem , Fritz Scholz and Ulrich Hasse from the University of Greifswald introduce a possible approach to a solution: deliberately planted forests bind the CO 2 through photosynthesis and are then removed from the global CO2 cycle by burial. �For the first time, humankind will give something back to nature that we have taken away before,� says Scholz.

  �Whereas other environmental problems can, at least in principle, be solved by the appropriate modern technology,� reports Scholz, �there are no realistic solutions for the CO2 problem.� At present, a daunting 32 gigatons of CO2 are released into the atmosphere every year. Previous proposals to pump the CO2 into the oceans are not practicable or are ecologically problematic.

  The only possible way to bind sufficiently large quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere is photosynthesis. However, the resulting biomass cannot be burned or composted, because this would release the bound CO2. The trick will be to make the biomass �disappear�. Scholz recommends planting forests whose wood will subsequently be buried. Possible burial sites include open brown coal pits or other surface mines. These should be filled with wood and covered with soil. Cut off from the air in this manner, the wood would not change, even over long periods. It could in principle be dug up in the future and used.

  According to estimations made by Scholz and Hasse, we would have to plant a little over one billion (109) hectares of forest in order to bind all of the carbon dioxide produced in a year. This corresponds roughly to the surface of the virgin forest cut down in the last century. This project could be financed by an additional tax of 0.11 � per liter of gasoline or 0.003 � per kilowatt-hour of electricity.

  �The forests should be planted in countries that are suitable for growing forest and also have the necessary sites for burial of the wood,� stresses Scholz. �Other countries, the primary consumers of fossil fuels, can pay them for it. This would produce a global trade that would benefit everyone involved.�

  ###

  Author: Fritz Scholz, University of Greifswald, Greifswald (Germany), mailto:fscholz at uni-greifswald.de

  Title: Permanent Wood Sequestration: The Solution to the Global Carbon Dioxide Problem

  ChemSusChem, doi: 10.1002/cssc.200800048 



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