I am trying to avoid a climate change debate and am more intested in
methods of climate control. I suspected the conversion to charcoal
would require an energy expenditure and wondered how much, Eprida
seems to be trying to sell franchises. But I am more curious about
GE'd trees particularly since that is an option the current
administration is looking at along with seeding pollution in the upper
atmosphere. Anybody have an idea of how much the respiration of trees
can be increased?
Sure, I have a really good idea, it will increase respiration very easily,
doesn't need genetic engineering and so simple anyone can do it.
Drum roll and trumpet fanfare please for the greatest idea before
sliced bread :
Grow more trees.
TA - DA!
BTW, more new trees need more CO2. Burn more coal. When you
run out of coal, burn the extra trees.
'New ideas pass through three periods:
. It can't be done.
. It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing.
. I knew it was a good idea all along.' - Arthur C. Clarke
If you want to sequester more carbon per tree, you have to have bigger
(faster growing) trees *with the same density". You run into all
kinds of problems trying to do that---'respiration rate' is not going
to solve anything. The most obvious question is where you get all the
water that will be involved---same issue as 'green revolution' crops.
-tg
-tg
The most obvious answer is rain. Reducing the canopy allows faster
growth and I've seen Radiata Pine from New Zealand that had a full
inch or more between growth rings. Apparently it is feasable to GE
trees to increase their absorbtion of CO2 but I have no idea of how
this can be done.
So, Australia has all these plantations of these trees as I understand
it. Your solution is that Australia should increase its rainfall? Good
luck.
I think you are applying magical thinking to this idea of genetic
engineering. Trees make wood, and you are talking about trees making
something else---'high-carbon cellulose' I guess. Suggestions for GM
algae to produce diesel fuel are a lot more realistic.
-tg
>Anybody have an idea of how much the respiration of trees
>can be increased?
Forest systems have been studied since George Woodwell and Richard
Houghton set up fancy gas-monitoring equipment in a Brookhaven forest
in the 1960's. Look up the idea of the temperature coefficient Q10
(rate of respiration change from a 10C increase.) Get familiar with
Max Kleiber's 1932 additions to Max Rubner's 1880 estimates of basal
metabolic rate (BMR), to start.
The basic idea of Q10 is:
BMR(c) = BMR*10^{[(Tc-Tb)/10]*log10(Q10)}
That equation tells you exactly what the factor Q10 is designed for.
There is also the idea of universal temperature dependence, UTD. See,
"Effects of Size and Temperature on Metabolic Rate," James F.
Gillooly, James H. Brown, Geoffrey B. West, Van M. Savage, and Eric L.
Charnov, Science 21 September 2001: Vol. 293. no. 5538, pp. 2248 -
2251, DOI: 10.1126/science.1061967.
I assume you are already familiar with the terms, photosynthesis,
Krebs cycle and Calvin cycle.
One of the insights you might consider thinking about is that plant
respiration operates in two directions -- inhaling and exhaling carbon
differently, night and day. Night-time, plants consume oxygen and
produce CO2. Most day times, the reverse. Respiration, not just the
daily cycles but also over an entire annual cycle, includes both the
inhalation and exhalation of CO2 by plants. Animals, obviously, don't
inhale CO2 at all and only produce it. The net effect of all this
that on the order of decades, if anthropogenic effects were removed,
the concentrations of CO2 would remain fairly stable. Human impacts
are adding a baseline slope to that net, yielding the rise we see now.
The magnitude of respiration by plants and animals is very important
to consider. From memory, it's on the order of 100 gigatons of carbon
per year. Overall, green plants inhale about that much carbon out of
the atmosphere. Also, broadly speaking, these same green plants plus
all of the other life on Earth including animals, plus oxidation of
organic matter in soils, exhale that much carbon, as well. Since the
entire atmosphere has something on the order of 750 gigatons, the
rough idea is that about every 7 or 8 years the entire atmosphere's
CO2 passes in and out of the biosphere. Life never rests.
However, photosynthesis isn't much affected by temperature or CO2
concentrations. It is far more impacted by light and the availability
of nutrients and water. And perhaps at the bottom of the top dozen
factors comes atmospheric CO2 concentrations. But respiration _is_
affected by temperature. In fact, that's a principle factor.
As Dr. Woodwell once said, "Respiration is affected by temperature,
temperature, and by temperature!"
I remember reading that about 1500 gigatons of carbon are locked up in
organic matter in soil and another 500 gigatons in everything living
and dead not yet in the soils. This excludes dissolved CO2 in the
ocean and calcium carbonate shells. That's about 2000 gigatons.
A concern arrives from recognizing that respiration depends on
temperature while photosynthesis largely does not and from the sheer
magnitude of the annual inhalation and exhalation amounts. As
respiration increases when temperatures rise and photosynthesis
remains largely unimpacted, then because of the sheer magnitudes
involved even a small shift in the net respiration balance of carbon
inhalation verses exhalation could itself contribute a lot of carbon.
The question is, which way does the balance shift as respiration
increases and temperatures rise? And especially how does all this go
in the interim (decade periods) as things are changing? Woodwell
suggested an answer, writing, "When respiration outstrips
photosynthesis, plants and other organisms cease growth and ultimately
die."
Putting all this into perspective, this might already be on the order
of a gigaton/year shift, on its own. I've seen that suggestion. With
fossil fuels on the order of 5 gigatons/year and deforestation on the
order of 2 gigatons/year, ocean uptake on the order of -2.5 gigatons
per year, it's not hard to gather why we are seeing a rise of about 6
gigatons per year in the atmosphere's carbon and why respiration is
such an important area of study.
I don't have an answer for you. Just some thoughts to consider as you
read about it.
Jon
Thank-you Jon, that was helpful. And I would also like to thank tg,
tadchem, and hanson for their input. I wasn't sure about how trees can
be genetically engineered but it seems it's simply an attempt to
produce faster growing trees. And that's probably what the radiata I
mention was, which was brittle and produced inferior lumber.
Btw there is also concern that if such trees reproduced in the "wild"
they would outcompete "native" species and reduce genetic diversity so
work is being done on making them sterile.
Any time we humans start tinkering on a significant scale, we do so at
great peril. For example, it's not just the competition alone that
may be a problem. That much we can easily see. But it may also be
that certain enzymes (-ases) may snip the modifications we make and
insert them elsewhere, with little understood impact. Or they may be
subject to mutation and selection, again without knowing where or when
or to what impact. Natural systems have had a LONG TIME by which to
stabilize and express their impacts. Human modifications will have
had almost no time at all, and if applied on a grand scale, will
definitely have their impacts, projected and "not projected and yet to
be discovered later on."
The idea of spraying a mist of H2SO4 in the stratosphere, a few
decades ago, was proposed as a remediation for human caused global
warming -- it would help reflect sunlight back into space. However,
that too would have both projected and possibly worrisome impacts.
Piling risky modifications to the environment upon other risky
modifications to the environment is pretty much the way that humans
seem to like doing things. Rather than the safer and better
understood thing, which obviously is to just try and impact the
environment less and allow it to operate as it has for some time, so
well for us.
Jon
The obvious solution is get rid of people but I think we should also
look at other ways of mediating our impact. Conservation and more
efficient use of our resources will help but we still have impacts,
known and unknown. It would make sense to put air scrubbers on coal
plants but how do you get everybody to do it? I think trying to
discover what we don't know and using what we do know can help
counteract these impacts. However the idea of spraying hydrogen
sulfate into the stratosphere scares the hell out of me, I like blue
sky.
>On Apr 30, 10:17�am, Jon Kirwan <j...@infinitefactors.org> wrote:
hehe. Yes, but. Probably, a good number to try reaching would be in
the one to two billion and keep it there. But how? You can't even
bring up the subject without all manner of nuts entering into the
discussion, let alone realizing that our science isn't yet up to
answering that question even if it could be asked without all the
political and philosophical questions running amok.
>I think we should also
>look at other ways of mediating our impact.
Yes.
>Conservation and more
>efficient use of our resources will help
They are linear, by and large. Population increases remain
exponential. The world has tripled in numbers since I was born. And
I'll see that grow before I die. Any linear changes due to
conservation will be overwhelmed by the exponential growth in short
order.
>but we still have impacts,
>known and unknown. It would make sense to put air scrubbers on coal
>plants but how do you get everybody to do it? I think trying to
>discover what we don't know and using what we do know can help
>counteract these impacts. However the idea of spraying hydrogen
>sulfate
Sulfuric acid, commonly called.
>into the stratosphere scares the hell out of me, I like blue
>sky.
Yeah. It scared a lot of people.
Jon
Probably it's purpose, it always seems to come back to people. And the
only solution (other than unilateral) I can see is education. But any
attempt to impove the living standards of undeveloped countries (which
have the population increases) seems doomed since it would require
increased consumption.
>On Apr 30, 12:33�pm, Jon Kirwan <j...@infinitefactors.org> wrote:
Yes, and sadly when it only costs more and more as the population
continues to bloom and the pressure against resources just for
survival and slight comforts continue to increase. Labor becomes
worth less and less, raw resources more and more, and eventually the
cost it takes to merely keep someone alive crosses over the value
added to others that they can contribute by surviving. When and where
that crossover takes place, free market will certainly fail them and
leave them to their conclusion as a "worthless part" of society. We
already see some of that in the US.
Also, good education is hard to come by and very expensive -- which
translates back into energy requirements one way or another
(supporting people take energy, food takes energy, schools take
energy, infrastructure takes energy, etc.)
The omens aren't so good.
>But any
>attempt to impove the living standards of undeveloped countries (which
>have the population increases) seems doomed since it would require
>increased consumption.
That, too.
Jon
If you are really convinced that the climate is going to change, a
more economical use of your resources would be to develop methods to
ADAPT to the change.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
No GE needed. If you want a tree to sequester more CO2, FEED IT!
"Comprehensive reviews of the plant science literature indicate that a
300 part per million (ppm) increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide
(CO2) concentration generally increases plant growth by approximately
30%. "
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T3Y-48XKRGD-4M&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=0383ebf6ab3c0c648488601425d254dd
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
Yes, adaptation is necessary but the question remains; what to keep
and what to change? We are capable of affecting our enviornment.
Apparently temperature and sunlight also increases it but this is
still relatively short term solution unless it is converted to a more
stable form. This mechanism of increased absorption may have moderated
previous climate change but our population increase has reduced areas
of vegetation.
Hanson you dumb quack! Don't you understand it's "positive feedback"
that puts us all in trouble. Of course climatologists and physicists
wouldn't know positive feedback if it was shoved up their asses, but
the salient feature is that it's amazingly unstable. If the lefties
are right we can expect the earth to look like Mars before Obama is
out of office.
But happily none of the scammers actually have a clue what "positive
feedback" is so my guess is that the only thing likely to end up a
barren wasteland is our wallets...
> I think you are applying magical thinking to this idea of genetic
> engineering. Trees make wood, and you are talking about trees making
> something else---'high-carbon cellulose' I guess. Suggestions for GM
> algae to produce diesel fuel are a lot more realistic.
You just don't understand magic. If we all wish very very hard with
all our might to be saved from global warming or for trees to grow in
the desert, they will. Wicca and her sister Physics guarantee it!
I'm working on a method to keep beer from going skunky when stored at
high temp.
DB
> I'm working on a method to keep beer from going skunky when stored at
> high temp.
Now THAT is an AGW tax I can support!
<danger...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:d8bd337f-6488-404d...@d19g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
I had a case of Moosehead at room temp for more than two years.
Just got to keep from shaking it, and keep it in the dark.
David A. Smith
"Mike" <sacs...@aol.com> wrote:
Yes, adaptation is necessary but the question remains;
(1) what to keep and what to change?
(2) We are capable of affecting our enviornment.
>
hanson wrote:
(1) We do NOT know. ----- (2) Yes we are & do!
(1 &2 ) All we are constructed for, like ANY other life form,
is to change our environment, while being changed by
said environment. No-one knows, why?.. All the answers
the green Schitz, the polititians and the priest came & come
up with are bad music, silly poetry and sillier dances which
did/do bring NO deeper insight at all.
All we know is that we are commanded to follow chemical
commands that say: Consume and Procreate... with the
useless freedom for the fools to self-anoint themselves and
swear that there is a higher purpose.... AHAHAHAHA...
Thanks for the laughs... ahahaha....ahahahanson
Reduce the population through reduced reproduction. Then, if ACC is a
real phenomenon, you have eliminated it. If there is going to be a
change that is *not* anthropogenic, then it becomes a simple matter to
find optimal habitation for the species.
I would suggest as a first approximation 300 million humans. There
would certainly be comfortable places for them to live if the climate
stays within the range the planet has experienced in the past say
billion years, which is almost 100% likely. (I can't solve it if the
sun explodes or something like that.)
-tg
side line .....
recently saw short doco/news issue here in Oz .... one particular type
of sugar cane that is in use [ makes sugar same as others, and no
shortcomings ] has ability to LOCK up carbon into the SOIL
cummulatively, without any loss of soil productivity for next seasons
sugar cane planting.
amount of carbon sequestration was higher/faster per annum than all
any all BEST tree abilities. Farmers here as part of carbon trading
system debates had asked for agri credits, but have been excluded from
the system.
all that was needed was to decision for all cane farmers [ quite a big
business here ] to switch to the other variety over time .... a win-
win ... but alas no action as yet. above is from my memory,
some links
http://news.mongabay.com/bioenergy/2008/07/fao-introduces-new-global-soil-database.html
http://www.plantstone.com.au/
Meanwhile farmers say that costs will rise from carbon trading, for
example fertiliser, fuel and steel while beef producer Trevor Wilson,
from the New South Wales North Coast, says:
scientists have figured his farm captures more carbon than he emits.
“(In) my pasture grazing system, which is a managed rotation, I have
sequestered enough carbon in the last six years to cover my carbon
emissions from my cows for 125 years.”
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/03/12/sorting-out-soil-carbon/
and
Two New South Wales scientists believe they may have discovered the
key to a simple model for measuring carbon sequestration. University
of Southern Cross soil scientist Leigh Sullivan and paeleobotanist
Jeff Parr have been investigating the role of phytoliths or
plantstones in grass crops such as sugar cane. Each leaf contains
millions of the microscopic phytoliths as part of the plant's immune
system, and these store inert carbon for thousands of years.
DR LEIGH SULLIVAN, SOIL SCIENTIST: The sugar cane that we've been
looking at today can increase plantstone carbon, CO2 reductions by 40
times greater than just normal vegetation, and what this means is that
agriculture can have a major role in the whole fight against global
warming.
SEAN MURPHY: Using an electron microscope capable of magnifying up to
80,000 times, Dr Sullivan has been able to identify the quartz-like
silica plantstones in a range of commercial crops such as this sorghum
from Tamworth.
DR LEIGH SULLIVAN: These are phytoliths, there's a group of three
phytoliths here. They're very closely locked together. These would
have been on the outside of a plant leaf, protecting the leaf from
fungal invasion or midge attack. But as far as we're concerned, the
carbon that's tied up into these phytoliths is locked away from
decomposition, it's locked away from being returned to the atmosphere.
SEAN MURPHY: Dr Jeff Parr made the initial discovery on a field trip
to Papua New Guinea.
DR JEFF PARR, PALEOBOTANIST: And we were looking at soil or sediment
profiles over the last 8,000 years and we're actually radiocarbon
dating the plantstones themselves down the profile to get a handle on
what the age of the profile was and what vegetation was there at that
particular time.
SEAN MURPHY: Almost by accident he discovered plantstones containing
carbon which had been securely stored in soil sediments for thousands
of years.
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s2176108.htm
blah blah blah ...... so many things can solve the CO2 issue, it's not
hard to do .... it's just a "choice" and continued research and
ACTION.
Lot's of little simple things done everywhere and everyday ... and
bingo ...
Hop alpha-acid humulone isomerizes during wort boiling to
isohumulone. That rapidly reacts with riboflavin and protein cystine
residues in light (bright fluorescent will do it; sunlight is death)
to form 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, or skunked beer.
Keep your beer in brown (not green and certainly not clear) bottles
and out of light. If you produce really fowl brew, add some citrus
juice then have somebody else drink it.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/lajos.htm#a2
amount of carbon sequestration was higher/faster per annum than all
any all BEST tree abilities. Farmers here as part of carbon trading
system debates had asked for agri credits, but have been excluded from
the system.
all that was needed was to decision for all cane farmers [ quite a big
business here ] to switch to the other variety over time .... a win-
win ... but alas no action as yet. above is from my memory,
some links
http://news.mongabay.com/bioenergy/2008/07/fao-introduces-new-global-soil-database.html
http://www.plantstone.com.au/
Meanwhile farmers say that costs will rise from carbon trading, for
example fertiliser, fuel and steel while beef producer Trevor Wilson,
from the New South Wales North Coast, says:
scientists have figured his farm captures more carbon than he emits.
�(In) my pasture grazing system, which is a managed rotation, I have
sequestered enough carbon in the last six years to cover my carbon
emissions from my cows for 125 years.�
Oh geeze. Now I'm not sure whether I want to drink
Uncle Al's home brew or not.
Socks
If citrus beer scares you, then DON'T look at this:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24053467
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
The researchers still need to be paid but it's implimentation would
require minimal changes. Thanks for the information. I suspect bamboo
will eventually replace timber anyway but it would also depend on
climate and soil type. Does bamboo form more plantstones?
Um, not sure if you noticed, but *I* never said I agreed with a carbon
trading scheme, and for the record I do not, and partly for the
reasons you mention above, for imho it is a GIANT scam for "investors"
and a COP-OUT by the Government pretending that they are doing
something constructive, when they are NOT.
The info I posted was about yet another classic example of the
manifold solutions available to "improve" the overall situation ....
the context of farmers being excluded from a ETS carbion trading
regime was IRRELEVANT, and not the point at all of my post.
So, feel free to relax.
cheers sean
> >http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2006/s2176108.htm
>
> > blah blah blah ...... so many things can solve the CO2 issue, it's not
> > hard to do .... it's just a "choice" and continued research and
> > ACTION.
>
> > Lot's of little simple things done everywhere and everyday ... and
> > bingo ...
>
> The researchers still need to be paid but it's implimentation would
> require minimal changes. Thanks for the information. I suspect bamboo
> will eventually replace timber anyway but it would also depend on
> climate and soil type. Does bamboo form more plantstones?
Hi, I don;t know exactly, but my memory of other stuff I saw on TV
recently was that the sugar cane [ and other large grasses too ] were
*claimed* to transfer more carbon into the ground than any other
plant, so I assume bamboo wasn't as good .... you'd have to check that
out.
But IMO this is another one of many things that are "out there" quite
capable when all are utilized to to achieve the goals of managing the
environment better, reducing GHG build ups in the atmoshpere and
oceans, reducing energy cost in REAL TERMS into the future, and
reducing overall pollution etc etc.
I thought bamboo would qualify as a large grass.
> But IMO this is another one of many things that are "out there" quite
> capable when all are utilized to to achieve the goals of managing the
> environment better, reducing GHG build ups in the atmoshpere and
> oceans, reducing energy cost in REAL TERMS into the future, and
> reducing overall pollution etc etc.
But there is still a lot of disagreement about what those goals are,
thier priority, how they can be implemented, and who is going to pay
for it.
Never said that either ... sheesh, try a blue jelly bean and chill
out. :-)
Yes bamboo is a large grass, I just don;t know if it does the carbon
into the ground to the same degree or at all , as was claimed about
the specific type of sugar cane ... you'd need to check it yourself if
interested.
> > But IMO this is another one of many things that are "out there" quite
> > capable when all are utilized to to achieve the goals of managing the
> > environment better, reducing GHG build ups in the atmoshpere and
> > oceans, reducing energy cost in REAL TERMS into the future, and
> > reducing overall pollution etc etc.
>
> But there is still a lot of disagreement about what those goals are,
> thier priority, how they can be implemented, and who is going to pay
> for it.
the same people who pay for all the aspects of energy and land use
now ... there's always an assumption running that it is more costly,
I'm not so sure. there are things called economies of scale that are
well known ... and if the US govt didn't subsidise highway
construction, and oil supplies [ including security oforeign suppliers
at no cost to the Oil companies or the guy at the gas pump ] and all
the technology advances in the 50's and ongoing then would the oil and
the cars and the overall cost of trasnport have been as relatively
cheap as it was ???
these underlying and one step removed "economies" and their costs
don't actually always end up in the per unit price the consumer pays,
be it Oil, electrical power, and lots of other associated aspects.
cheers
While there is some truth to that senario about Class 1, 2 & 3
Enviros, as there is also truth to the deniers senario, and then there
are others in neither camp that probably hold more of the truth than
anyone else. The people, the masses, those who respond to polls and
most who post to newsgroup have no idea one way or the other who is
telling the truth, who is getting what $ from where, or whether or not
CC is real, or if it is real is it a problem .... but all have an
opinion even those with no opinion or who could care less ... and then
there are others around leaning towards either camp that simply don;t
fit the above groupings.
and then there are other options as well that exist.
and then .... well what will be will be, things have a way of
"happening" no matter what the polls say, or who thinks what or when.
The world is a strange place mainly due to the Humans that live
here . ;-))
cheers and thanks for the heads up, I watch it.
> But there is still a lot of disagreement about what those goals are,
> thier priority, how they can be implemented, and who is going to pay
> for it.
Sorry Mike. But there is NO disagreement as to who is going to pay for
it...