Carbon sequestration

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The Search Is on for Pulling Carbon from the Air Annie Sneed; Scientific American; 27 Dec 2016

Scientists are investigating a range of technologies they hope can capture lots of carbon without a lot of cost
Nations worldwide have agreed to limit carbon dioxide emissions in hopes of preventing global warming from surpassing 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. But countries will not manage to meet their goals at the rate they’re going. To limit warming, nations will also likely need to physically remove carbon from the atmosphere. And to do that, they will have to deploy “negative emissions technology”—techniques that scrub CO2 out of the air.
Can these techniques, such as covering farmland with crushed silica, work? Researchers acknowledge that they have yet to invent a truly cost-effective, scalable and sustainable technology that can remove the needed amount of carbon dioxide, but they maintain that the world should continue to look into the options. “Negative emissions technologies are coming into play because the math [on climate change] is so intense and unforgiving,” Katharine Mach, a senior research scientist at Stanford University. Last week at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, researchers presented several intriguing negative emissions strategies, as well as the drawbacks.

natural/biological

China's Great Green Wall Helps Pull CO2 Out of Atmosphere

China contributed the most to a global increase in carbon stored in trees and other plants

Terrestrial Biomass and the Effects of Deforestation on the Global Carbon Cycle - Results from a model of primary production using satellite observations Christopher S. Potter; BioScience Oxford Journals; 1999

In this article, I examine several different methods for estimating changes in terrestrial biomass sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide using a combination of global satellite observations, ecosystem model (such as NASA-CASA) predictions of aboveground biomass for the late 1980s, and data on country-by-country changes in global forest cover for the years 1990–1995 (FAO 1997). When the NASA-CASA model is used, the analysis suggests that yearly net terrestrial losses of carbon dioxide from changes in the world's forest ecosystems are 1.2–1.3 Pg of carbon for the early 1990s. This estimate, which accounts for forest area regrowth and expansion sinks in temperate and boreal forest zones, is based on the most recent global maps for observed climate, soils, plant cover, and changes in forest areas from natural and human forces.

Deforestation emissions on the rise - Amazon study suggests denser forest yields will mean more carbon release Jeff Tollefson; Nature News; 29 Jul 2009

Carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation in the Amazon are increasing as loggers and land developers move deeper into dense regions of the forest, a new study suggests. Researchers have analyzed Brazilian deforestation data from 2001–2007 in an effort to quantify emissions as deforestation moves from the forest outskirts to the interior, where more carbon is bound up in plants and soil. Areas that are not formally protected, and thus are most likely to be cleared in the future, contain roughly 25 percent more carbon than areas cleared in 2001, according to the study.

Soil & Carbon sequestration

What is Soil Carbon Sequestration? UN Food & Agriculture Organisation - Soils Portal

Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide can be lowered either by reducing emissions or by taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and storing in terrestrial, oceanic, or freshwater aquatic ecosystems. A sink is defined as a process or an activity that removes greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. The long-term conversion of grassland and forestland to cropland (and grazing lands) has resulted in historic losses of soil carbon worldwide but there is a major potential for increasing soil carbon through restoration of degraded soils and widespread adoption of soil conservation practices.

How Much Carbon Can Soil Store Soil Quality website

  • Increasing the total organic carbon in soil may decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide and increases soil quality.
  • The amount of organic carbon stored in soil is the sum of inputs to soil (plant and animal residues) and losses from soil (decomposition, erosion and offtake in plant and animal production).
  • The maximum capacity of soil to store organic carbon is determined by soil type (% clay).

Management practices that maximise plant growth and minimise losses of organic carbon from soil will result in greatest organic carbon storage in soil.

Recent interest in carbon sequestration has raised questions about how much organic carbon (OC) can be stored in soil. Total OC is the amount of carbon in the materials related to living organisms or derived from them. In Australian soils, total OC is usually less than 8 % of total soil weight (Spain et al., 1983) and under rainfed farming it is typically 0.7 – 4 %. Increasing the amount of OC stored in soil may be one option for decreasing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Increasing the amount of OC stored in soil may also improve soil quality as OC contributes to many beneficial physical, chemical and biological processes in the soil ecosystem (figure 1) (see Total Organic Carbon fact sheet). When OC in soil is below 1 %, soil health may be constrained and yield potential (based on rainfall) may not be achieved (Kay and Angers, 1999).

A sprinkle of compost helps rangeland lock up carbon

Soil Association: Soil Carbon and organic farming - a review of the evidence of agriculture's potential to combat climate change summary full report

THE FARM THAT GROWS CLIMATE SOLUTIONS Eric Toensmeier; ENSIA; 9 Mar 2016

Editor’s note: The following is adapted from The Carbon Farming Solution: A Global Toolkit of Perennial Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices for Climate Change Mitigation and Food Security by Eric Toensmeier (2016). The book introduces the concept of carbon farming, explains how it can help mitigate climate change, and explores strategies for adoption around the world. Published with permission from Chelsea Green Publishing.

Study finds fungi, not plant matter, responsible for most carbon sequestration in northern forests Bob Yirka; phys.org; 29 Mar 2013

(Phys.org) —A new study undertaken by a diverse group of scientists in Sweden has found that contrary to popular belief, most of the carbon that is sequestered in northern boreal forests comes about due to fungi that live on and in tree roots, rather than via dead needles, moss and leaf matter. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team describes their findings after taking soil samples from 30 islands in two lakes in northern Sweden. Scientists have known for quite some time that northern forests sequester a lot of carbon—they pull in carbon dioxide after all, and "breath" out oxygen. But what the trees actually do with the carbon has been a matter of debate—most have suggested that it's likely carried to needles and leaves then eventually drops to the forest floor where over time decomposition causes it to leech into the soil. If that were the case, this new team of researchers reasoned, then the newest carbon deposits should appear closest to the surface of the forest floor. But this is not what they found—instead they discovered that newer deposits were more likely to be found at deeper levels in the soil. This was because, they learned, the trees were carrying much of the carbon they pulled in down to their roots (via sugars) where it was being sequestered by a type of fungi (ectomycorrhizal, aka mycorrhizal fungi) that eats the sugars and expels the residue into the soil.

Carbon Engineering

A Canadian start-up is removing CO2 from the air and turning it into pellets

A pilot project to suck CO2 out of the atmosphere and turn it into pellets that can either be used as fuel or stored underground for later has been launched by a Vancouver-based start-up called Carbon Engineering. While the test facility has so far only extracted 10 tonnes of CO2 since its launch back in June, its operations will help inform the construction of a $200 million commercial plant in 2017, which is expected to extract 1 million tonnes per day - the equivalent of taking 100 cars off the road every year. It plans to start selling CO2-based synthetic fuels by 2018. "It's now possible to take CO2 out of the atmosphere, and use it as a feed stock, with hydrogen, to produce net zero emission fuels," company chief executive Adrian Corless told the AFP.

Giant Fans Will Soon Suck CO2 out of the Atmosphere and Turn It into Fuel

Carbon Capture and Storage*