Where Is the CO2 Coming From?

a reply to: Phage

Oh,

So you are a "carbon credit scam" proponent then? May I ask if there is some personal financial incentive involved for you to actually support such a stance?

Here are a couple of solutions on a recent thread:

James Lovelock the originator of the Gaia theory has a pretty good breakdown (including the financial scam which is carbon credits)

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: Phage

Welp.. judging by the extensive search results.. looks like I'm about to go back to college. Rickymouse brought up a good point.
You have changed my perspective a little.. my uncle and his wife studies the Rain Forest. He was going on about the cutting and burning of the rain forest.( Tree's are vital, however shouldn't be burned )he mentioned the introduction of cows to tribes to curb the land sales.. I replied back." Great.. bring in the methane farting machine! "

So now I oh him an apology.

Just out of curiosity..the tree or carbon life base that's burned.. if it produces a green leaf.. or red leaves.. does it matter?

Wow! Let me rephrase.. some trees make red leaves...some make green.. I was told that the red producing trees are a eco-threat.. is that true? Yep. Another dumb question.. but if I don't ask, I won't learn!

a reply to: Bigburgh

www.abovetopsecret.com...

James Lovelock the originator of the Gaia theory -

Most of the "green" stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted.

It's not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning.

There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast.

The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly; we put in only 30 gigatonnes. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms.

What we can do is cheat those consumers by getting farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the farmer then ploughs into the field. A little CO2 is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon.

You get a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which the farmer can sell. This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won't do it.

a reply to: infolurker

So you are a "carbon credit scam" proponent then?

Nope.

May I ask if there is some personal financial incentive involved for you to actually support such a stance?

Nope. But if someone can come up with something that works and can also make a profit by doing so I'm fine with it.

Interesting idea about charcoal. But *gasp* someone makes a profit as you point out. Horrors. It has also (OMG) been promoted as a adjunct to carbon trading.

This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Would it compensate for the amount of CO2 produced by the burning of fossil fuels? Maybe, but that's a lot of charcoal to bury. It also can create problems of it's own. It also seems that the carbon sequestered by this method may not stay sequestered all that long, limiting it's efficacy. But it is certainly worth further study.

We ran a 10-year experiment in each of three boreal forest stands to show that fire-derived charcoal promotes loss of forest humus and that this is associated with enhancement of microbial activity by charcoal. This result shows that charcoal-induced losses of belowground carbon in forests can partially offset the benefits of charcoal as a long-term carbon sink.

www.sciencemag.org...

In any case, we do know the source of increasing CO2. Which is what this thread is about. There are many who deny its source is the combustion of fossil fuels.

a reply to: Bigburgh

Just out of curiosity..the tree or carbon life base that's burned.. if it produces a green leaf.. or red leaves.. does it matter?

Not really, not in terms of CO2 anyway (there are other unpleasant effects). Because the carbon released by burning "modern" plants is part of the carbon cycle. The plants took it out of the air and burning it puts it back and plants will absorb it again.

The problem is that fossil fuels put carbon which was taken out of the atmosphere millions upon millions of years ago into the atmosphere. It is not part of the carbon cycle. It's extra carbon which the cycle cannot deal with. That is why CO2 levels are rising. The extra, "old", carbon we are taking out of the ground and putting into the air.

a reply to: Phage

I can't find the old links and posts but Algae Oil is "carbon neutral".

We could provide all of our fuel needs with a land area about 1/10 the size of the state of New Mexico and never have to rely on foreign sources or nuclear power ever again.

a reply to: Phage
Interesting. So are you saying that the more 14C in the atmosphere = less CO2? Or are you showing that 14C somehow affects CO2 (like making it to heavy to be freely distributed in the air?

A little off topic, but shouldn't there be a way of leaching CO2 out of the air?

Also a little bit of water in a glass of whiskey helps bloom the flavor.

a reply to: infolurker

As I said "living" sources of carbon are carbon neutral because they are part of the established carbon cycle.

We could provide all of our fuel needs with a land area about 1/10 the size of the state of New Mexico and never have to rely on foreign sources or nuclear power ever again.

Great. Who's going to pay for it?

a reply to: Guyfriday

So are you saying that the more 14C in the atmosphere = less CO2?

No. I am saying that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere and because the ratio between 14C and other carbon isotopes is declining it shows that the source of the increase is the combustion of fossil fuels.

A little off topic, but shouldn't there be a way of leaching CO2 out of the air?

There are various proposals to do just that. Some are not so good, like seeding the oceans with iron to increase algal growth.

a reply to: Phage

Exactly,

If implemented, no need for fossil fuels for the most part. It could replace gasoline, diesel, coal, natural gas, and nuclear.

Jet fuel, I am not sure but the reduction in fossil fuel usage would be reduced more with this than any possible carbon credit or price fixing scam.

Oh, and the "waste" can be used as animal feed or even human consumption.

a reply to: infolurker

If implemented, no need for fossil fuels for the most part. It could replace gasoline, diesel, coal, and nuclear.

I'm not convinced of that. I think more efficient and less expensive PV systems would be very effective in reducing the use of fossil fuels. Maybe enough that biofuels actually could make a larger dent.

a reply to: Phage

Well $##t on my BB'Q! Seems if I use BlueRhino propane.. or charcoal.. both are bad then..
As I still read..
But that's a metric F-ton of charcoal needed.. so? Pennsylvania is responsible? Jokes aside .. is this your aim?

a reply to: Bigburgh
Charcoal is pretty much carbon neutral. Propane is not, though it does produce less CO2 than petroleum.

is this your aim?

My "aim" is to show that, despite what deniers claim, there is very strong evidence that the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to the combustion of fossil fuels.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Guyfriday

So are you saying that the more 14C in the atmosphere = less CO2?

No. I am saying that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere and because the ratio between 14C and other carbon isotopes is declining it shows that the source of the increase is the combustion of fossil fuels.

Ok so if I'm getting this correct, because there are less isotopes clogging the readings we're able to see the rise in ancient sourced CO2. Thanks for clearing that up.

A little off topic, but shouldn't there be a way of leaching CO2 out of the air?

There are various proposals to do just that. Some are not so good, like seeding the oceans with iron.

I heard about using the seeded iron in the oceans to feed the plankton, but the unknown hazards were too far of a concern. I thought there was a way to leach CO2 out of the air like those in-home air purifiers.

I think it is also worth mentioning that 80 % of the worlds forest has been cut down by humans in the last 5000 years, 10 % old growth and 10 % regrowth is what is left , so the extra and natural carbon is not being absorbed by nature as it did before man started clearing forest, which just add to the problem, and with the speed of cutting down forest today, it ain't going to be better.

a reply to: Guyfriday

I thought there was a way to leach CO2 out of the air like those in-home air purifiers.

Yes. There is CO2 scrubbing technology. The new EPA standards are meant to see that it is implemented and improved on an industrial scale, in order to reduce industrial emissions of CO2.

a reply to: Mianeye
Yeah.
That gets really tricky to quantify but it certainly doesn't help matters.

a reply to: infolurker

www.shell.com...

Annnd here..
www.globalsecurity.org...

I worked in airport fire.. ( Allegheny airport fire authority).

Personally.. this crap is nasty. But it adds some icing.

a reply to: Mianeye

Algae Oil (or other carbon neutral bio-fuel), Burying Charcoal, and trapping carbon in polymer based building materials are 3 real solutions to reducing carbon on a huge scale if needed.

Another Technology in the works is converting carbon dioxide itself into fuel:

www.technologyreview.com...

cleantechnica.com...

a reply to: Phage

OK.. I get that.. I drive less than 3000 miles a year.. so? How do we curb the "out for a Sunday drive " culture? Which is increasing so many folds! But this is not just the single answer. Everything is needed in consideration.