Is carbon sequestration really green?

[Brazen]

There are vast quantities of carbon already sequestered in forests. Northern forests are increasing in biomass atm, but tropical forests are being logged. It's probably far cheaper to subsidise the maintainance of these forests than using far more complicated methods.

If we only used wood-derived energy sources* and ensured we planted as much as we used (and over-planted to account for the years it takes to grow a mature tree) we'd never use more carbon that would be used in photosynthesis.


*Like, say, oil and coal

[Grallon]

Who else has a feeling that all this agitation around carbon emissions is merely a delaying tactic?  As in: "Let's agree on some bogus objectives while we keep pumping and burning oil as if nothing had changed; by the time the shit hit the fan we'll be dead."




G.

[Jaron]

Who else has a feeling that all this agitation around carbon emissions is merely a delaying tactic?  As in: "Let's agree on some bogus objectives while we keep pumping and burning oil as if nothing had changed; by the time the shit hit the fan we'll be dead."




G.

*cackle*

[Admiral Yi]

Who else has a feeling that all this agitation around carbon emissions is merely a delaying tactic?  As in: "Let's agree on some bogus objectives while we keep pumping and burning oil as if nothing had changed; by the time the shit hit the fan we'll be dead."




G.

Not me.  We already know sequestration "works."  Trees suck carbon out of the atmosphere.  I heard something on NPR that no-till planting helps too.  Whether artificial sequestration should be pursued is a technical question, not a philosophical or ideological one.

The purists (i.e. KRonn's relgious greens) seem to think the point of the excercise is to suffer nobly rather than to reduce carbon in the atmosphere.

[The Minsky Moment]

Fucking Luddites.

Hello?

By some estimates, current technology will require between 10 and 40 percent of a plant's power just to function, and there's no guarantee that the carbon will stay put. If even a fraction of injected CO2 seeps out from underground storage sites, it could trigger a chain of chemical reactions that would cause poisons to leech from rocks into the water supply, before eventually making its way back into the atmosphere where it would continue to warm the planet. And the technology might not be ready for large-scale deployment until 2030—about 15 years too late to avoid the worse effects of man-made global warming, according to many experts. Better to invest that money in renewable energy, opponents argue, than to waste it retrofitting coal-fired power plants, which will presumably be obsolete in the coming decades anyway.

Those are all valid concerns.

[The Brain]

If we cover the Sahara with nuke plants we should be OK.