Storing carbon -please answer this real question sensibly?

Question

As I understand the problem we are releasing too much carbon into the atmosphere by burning fuels such as oil that stored carbon underground for years and mature hardwood trees that also trap carbon. I have heard about one idea where trees are buried in order that the trapped carbon is not released.

Is this a sensible solution and, if burying is a good idea, why are landfill sites bad?

Answer 1

You are kidding right?  OK, let's just say that you guys get rid of all the carbon that exists...  Then where will new life come from?  Seriously, are you seeking to turn the entire globe into a desert?  Liberals need to leave nature alone and let nature do what nature does...  A tree dies, releases carbon, then other new trees take the carbon, gets released, retrieved... so on and so forth...  No wonder you extremist liberals cause more problems than you solve.... Your thinking is simply wrong!!!!

Just like if we retrieved all CO2 from the atmosphere, then what will the plants feed off of?  Again, another example of where your misguided thinking gets us into trouble instead of solving anything...

Answer 2

I wonder if you took sequestered carbon and used it for an agricultural purpose whether that could make it worth while objectively, in a cost-benefit analysis.

Answer 3

This is all none sense!  Carbon, just like all the other elements are recycled back into the environment.  Nature, like the Free Market, is self regulating.

What you need to worry about are the politicians who are working to enslave us, with lies like "Global Warming".  This, is an imaginary problem, just like Y2K was.

Terrorism is another threat they are using to destroy our freedoms.  Our own politicians have brought terrorism to us.  They use the threat of terrorism, as well as the threat of ecological catastrophism to destroy our civil rights.

Answer 4

Don't believe everything you hear on TV. We are NOT and I repeat WE ARE NOT polluting the earth with carbon dioxide. WE ARE NOT causing global warming. GLOBAL WARMING IS A NATURAL PROCESS. 95% OF CO2 COMES FROM THE OCEANS AS THE PLANET IS HEATING UP NATURALLY, it causes the ocean to release CO2. The governments tax us becuase most people are ignorant enough to believe global warming is our fault when actually we didn't cause it and we can't fix it. LOOK AT THE FACTS! More and more scientists are rejecting the theory that global warming is man made. DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING THE TV TELLS YOU!!

Answer 5

Slash and Bury?  That doesn't sound too environmental.  In fact, it sounds like a war on nature.  I guess some people can be talked into anything.  

I, on the other hand, am a conservationist who knows this little warming trend is merely a planetary reaction to the highest solar activity seen in over a thousand years.  Just because scientists can't figure out how the two are linked doesn't mean we can dismiss it.

Answer 6

After burning of fossil fuels and deforestation leading to higher carbon dioxide concentrations the next biggest Greenhouse culprits are covered vented landfill emissions, and the newer style of fully vented septic systems.

A new approach that is one of the first to successfully store fully vented septic tanks and landfill carbon dioxide underground may have huge implications for global warming and the oil industry. Rod Pennington is part of an extensive team working on the Sweetfilter CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project-- potentially the largest of its kind--that has safely buried the greenhouse gas and reduced emissions from entering the atmosphere. That extensive team includes YOU and the time is NOW. PUTTING GREENHOUSE CARBON BACK INTO THE SOIL. Only ZeoCarbon Sweetfilters (registered with the USPTO) remove Odor, CO2, and other Greenhouse Gases by as much as 18%, on a lb. per lb. basis. Typically, after 5 years of work, the ZeoCarbon is returned to the soil as a nitrogen rich ornamental plant fertilizer.

Answer 7

Burying trees? you mean dead trees? Dead trees in a normal life cycle will not release carbon in the atmosphere as if you burn it. As for burying live trees... I don't see why you would like to bury live trees.?!?

Landfill sites are bad because you concentrate lots of stuff together and the is a massive clump of garbage that will start releasing gases like methane, witch is even worse than CO2. Also, materials like cotton swabs, tampons and such, traps bacterial colonies and offer them a very good ground to develop. Not to forget all those toxic stuff (batteries, paint, mercury, etc.) that we bury and it leaks in the underground water.

Burying is a good idea, but it has to be done right. If you take your organic garbage like apple core, carrot ends, eggshells, bread crumbs, and you mix it with soil, it will eventually become soil itself. This is called composting. Of course you can't bury everything. Old paint will never turn back to soil. The difference between composting and landfills is that composting will provide you with fertile soil, where landfill will make your soil unusable and contaminated.

Answer 8

that's difficult to say, it would have first been considered a solution

and landfill site become bad if there not properly maintained and staffed

Answer 9

I don't think the idea is a good one, I think it's more an act of desperation that sidesteps the core issues involved.  

I did some research on this initially, and will share a few links dealing with sequestration.  I'm leery, but yes, this is a tool in the arsenal of weapons to fight the overall problem that must be fully considered before it can properly be dismissed, or utilized as appropriate.

Answer 10

How are you planning to bury a tree, with stone and sticks & store or by use carbon based fuel?

Answer 11

Well, it works ... IF you re-plant the area from which the trees were taken, with more trees

But it's very expensive to bury a tree. There are much, much cheaper options available for carbon sequestration. For example, if you pump CO2 500 meters deep into the ocean, the pressure turns it into a liquid, and since liquid CO2 is heavier than water, it sinks to the bottom and stays there. You can also turn carbon into a rock call calcium carbonate, which is the same as limestone.

Answer 12

Check this reference about a profitable way to store carbon

Answer 13

I have discussed the subject of Co2 with several local companies that bottle gases for industrial use and when you mention extracting Co2 from the atmosphere to bury it the laugh a lot. Why, the concentration of the gas in the atmosphere is not sufficient to be able to extract it except at very high cost. So I asked where does the Co2 gas come from that you sell for use in carbonated (coke) drink dispensers and dry ice. Answer they get it from stack scrubbers at oil refineries, power plants and other manufacturing sources that produce Co2 as a part of their operation cycle. How long has this been going on I then asked, their answer was at least a hundred years since it became practical to do so.

So once again we find the truth is different than the AGW promoters would have us believe, industry in general is not at fault for AGW and Co2 is such a rare gas in the atmosphere that it is not economically feasible to extract it for industrial or commercial uses. So where does so much of the Co2 come from, carbonated soft drinks (those pretty bubbles), dry ice and people and animals breathing. Easiest and cheapest way to reduce Co2 in the atmosphere is to plant a couple of trees they extract the one carbon atom and release the two oxygen atoms into the air for us to breath. When you bury Co2 as the AGW people want us to do, for every single carbon atom you put in the ground you also put down there two oxygen atoms, so eventually if the AGW people have their way we will certainly run out of oxygen atoms for us to breath and live off of.

As you can easily see those who promote the AGW political agenda are first not very bright and second they are not at all scientific.

  It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.

Robert A. Heinlein

Answer 14

Landfills are bad because they promote anaerobic decomposition, which releases methane.  Burying trees would also create some methane, although probably less than a landfill does.

Burying trees is not really practical, as we'd be cutting down useable timber just to bury it.  The trees are far more valuable carbon sinks alive than underground.

And Cindy W, i'm afraid it is your thinking which is completely wrong.  I have never heard someone propose to remove all carbon from the atmospere.  The problem is there's already plenty of carbon in the atmosphere for growing plants to utilize, yet we continue to release underground carbon which has been trapped for millions of years.  Efforts to reduce atmospheric carbon seek only to offset the carbon we are currently adding.

edit- James, the fact that CO2 isn't present in the atmosphere at industrially useful levels is completely irrelevant.  It may not be economical to extract mercury or lead from water for industrial uses, but that doesn't mean the two are benign.  Industry simply goes after the CO2 that is easiest to obtain, which is the high concentration stream leaving power plants, breweries, etc.