this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
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Doing some back of the envelope calculations we have put about 1.6 trillion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. Latest estimates put the number of trees on earth at around 3 trillion. Looking at how much CO2 a tree takes up puts the average around 600lbs over the first twenty years. So combing all this if we want to plant enough trees to take up all the excess CO2 we would need about 5.3 trillion more trees, or almost double the total number of trees on the planet.
This is simply not achievable in a fast enough time span to make a difference. Nevermind that I was being super optimistic with all my calculations and the real number needed is likely much higher still.
It is simply a necessity to develop better methods to pull CO2 directly from the air and to do it on the same scale that we have been releasing CO2.
No it's not. In fact, it's impossible. Turning C02 into other stuff takes energy. There's no perpetual motion machine you can use to burn carbon, turn the carbon back into oil, and gain energy. It's impossible. The only solution is to reduce our demand for fossil fuels, and increase our excess energy generation enough that we can begin undoing the past 100 years of damage through capture after we've already prevented worsening of the problem.
Nowhere did I say or imply that capturing CO2 is a net positive of energy. It is in fact a huge energy sink. If you aren't using renewables to power CO2 capture then you're just making the problem worse.