CO2

[electrondady1]

there was another big environment report issued today,

in Paris, this time.

and of course man kind is at fault.

(well, no one ever really  suspected dolfins to behind it all )

now everyone seems to be talking about alternate fuels and such. and pumping the stuff back down the wells it came from.ok,

 but wouldn't it help if we could just plant a lot of trees and get them to bind the co2.

i'm thinking a good place for greenhouse gas would be in a greenhouse!  

[RUFUS]

Do'n my part

             Rufus

[Countryboy]

Planting trees is like spitting on a forest fire to put it out.

Yes, trees can take in CO2 and give off Oxygen, but the amount they do is virtually insignificant.

Something like 99% of the work is done by phytoplankton in the ocean.

We see the effects of global warming on the oceans, because the oceans have the biggest impact back at us.  We may not think anything of seeing global temperatures rise a few degrees, but that small temperature change can affect vast amount of different lifeforms in the ocean - many lifeforms which our lives depend on.

If we are going to plant trees to get rid of CO2, then why don't we also start killing off CO2 producers, such as idiots and stupid politicians?

[vawtman]

Its too freekin cold up here to even think of global warming.Im burning waste oil and any bad thing i can find to warm the planet back up again.

 The more the earth heats up the more the waters will evaporate causing more clouds and cooler temps in time.An opinion

[electrondady1]

"Yes, trees can take in CO2 and give off Oxygen, but the amount they do is virtually insignificant."

i have no numbers to back up my instinct but i can't see how that could be.

granted the oceans are about 4/5 of the worlds surface,and water may be more productive  .

but plankton doesn't form wood that can lock up carbon for centuries.

don't get me wrong i'm all for healthy oceans(well hey, who would be in favor of sick oceans?) ,

but even this little apple seed on my desk , given some time, could capture and hold a lot of co2.

so after a century of pulling carbon from the atmosphere and making an unknown quantity of apples for me to eat, maybe some grandson could turn it into a piece of furniture.

the carbon is still locked up.      

[windstuffnow]

  I believe the law reads something like... "Energy can not be created or destroyed only changed in its physical form"

  The more energy we waste the more it will come back to bite us in another form.   Every thing has a balance, mother nature will balance things out in her own way... we may not like the way she does the balancing but I assure you it will work.  Unfortunately, we may not be around to enjoy the balance.   Since we are the problem, assuming we don't do something about it now, the solution might be one without us.

  Quite frankly, unless something comes along that is good for the planet and will fill the pockets of the greedy nothing will change. As well, If some type of population control isn't put into place worldwide we'll be left to eat each other.   Our lovely planet will reject us, rebalance itself and there will be very few if any to see it.  

  Just imagine, 100 starving dogs in a pit... 1 steak droped into the pit...  We are 6 billion and growing far to fast, soon it will be our pit !  We need to change.... very soon...

.

[Tom in NH]

I'm no expert, but here's my take on the subject. Yes, trees would take carbon out of the atmosphere in large quantities. Think about it, Wood is mostly carbon with a little hydrogen mixed in. The annual weight of wood produced by a forest would be taken out of the atmosphere as part of the growth process. That's the good news.

The bad news is all that carbon is returned relatively quickly to the atmosphere when the trees die and decompose, or when they are burned. How long might the cycle take? A few hundred years or whatever the lifespan of the tree is? But sequestering that carbon would help even if only for a short time.

Now think about petroleum and coal. This represents the carbon of that was taken out of the atmosphere to grow trees and other plants over a span of millions of years. Humans have mined it, or will have mined it, and burned almost all of it in just the last couple centuries comprising the industrial age. That's a lot of carbon released all at once. We need to find ways to sequester it for more than just a few hundred years. We need to think BIG, almost on the scale of continents. There's limestone, calcium carbonate, and coal and shale. Or maybe we could make frozen methane, called methane hydrates, could be stored at the bottom of the ocean where it occurs naturally. Do you think humans are able or willing to build islands the size of Greenland out of carbon taken from the atmosphere? --tom

 

[Gordy]

Well I ain't smart enough to build a machine to take CO2 out of the air, But I am smart enough to park the 10 mpg 3/4 ton and drive the 32 mpg Mazda, and I have been planting trees on my 9.6 acers sence april of 88. I lost count 3500 to 4000 seedlings over the years, and pail's full of nuts blackwalnut, butternut, acorn, ect.

I have found out that I have to protect the trees though, by harvesting as many deer and rabbits as posible while the trees are young That and keep a couple cats fed just enough to keep them around for the rodents.

Gordy

[fishfarm]

Researchers find substantial wind resource off Mid-Atlantic coast

"The scientists' estimate of the full-resource, average wind power output of 330 gigawatts over the Middle Atlantic Bight is based on the installation of 166,720 wind turbines, each generating up to 5 megawatts of power."

http://www.physorg.com/news89650495.html

[Tom in NH]

Gordy, you are to be commended. Estimate how much weight your trees have put on and that will be your (or is it the tree's) contribution to carbon sequestration.

Fishfarm, I've been noticing the pretty colors representing high winds on this map:

http://www.weather.gov/forecasts/graphical/sectors/newhampshire.php?rollover=OFF#tabs

I find this site helpful as I wait for the gol-danged wind to blow hard enough for me to test the new stator I put in my VAWT. Maybe today... Anyway, check it out and zoom out to the view showing the northeast coast. There's a lot of wind out there over the water. I find it troubling that an apparently large group of people are opposed to developing this resource. It sure would be a lot better that off-shore oil rigs. When I think about our looming energy crisis I wonder what crack these opponents have their heads in. OK the editorial is over. It's back to doing something productive. -tom

[RogerAS]

E-Daddy,

Actually the photoplankton, and other microscopic life forms, do lock up CO2 for a very long time. When they die their bodies fall to the ocean floor. Most have a calcium cabonate "shell" and this is what forms the thick layers of limestone now exposed in many places around the world (ie cliffs of Dover, England). The activity of photoplankton in the absorbson of CO2 has been going on since life formed on this planet. Some of the limestone formations here in Arkansas are over 300 million years old and several hundred feet thick. No trees or coal beds I know of are as dense in carbon content as these limestone deposits. If this CO2 chain is broken it will not only be humans that suffer, but most all life on this blue marble as well, aquatic and land based. True life will find a way, but it may take several hundred thousand years for any stable ecosystem to adapt.

My $.02 worth.

[Norm]

Things were going pretty good till the big wide

pic came a long...then after that even when I put

in the smallest text in a couple of instances

I had to scan over about 46 columns and if only the

individuals would get in the habit of hitting

return after about 10 or 15 words?

   not complaining just rant and raving....I'm

nowhere perfect either.

    TomW may have spotted this and shrunk the pic

but we shouldn't depend on him all the time !

JMSO    

 ( :>) Norm

[Jon Miller]

Hi all just my thoughts,

As is being proven, if we want to stop an increase in production of CO^2 then we need to work with China and India seeing as these two countries contain almost half the worlds population!  

If we want to stop current CO^2 production then sorry but the USA has to play its part, around 5% of the worlds population using around 25% of the worlds primary energy.  The world average for primary oil consumption per person per day is about 5 litres per person, European average is about 10 litres per person but the USA is around 25 litres of equivalent energy in oil per person per day!  Around 5% tax on road fuels, 82% in the UK currently.  

Like has already been said, trees are a short term measure not a real alternative to simply stopping production of CO^2.  The worlds oceans are suffering from acidification where the PH of are worlds oceans has decreased by around 0.7 within the last 30 or so years.  No I won't get started about Global dimming as that's an area in its own right, but yet another area of concern!  

I write this been as much to blame as the next 'average Joe' but yet I am trying to do my bit, car sharing, less usage of motor vehicles, owning a car with better mpg, using a bag for life instead of plastic carrier bags, recycling, shopping locally buying local goods.  

I know I have come way of topic but this sort of post doesn't come around on this board very often.  

Google any of the above to find out more!!

[Stonebrain]

I've been planting mainly wallnut trees since 1980.

Those trees are producing more kwh/year then a rather

big windmill just by the growth of the wood.Soilconservation and heaps

of wallnuts as bonus.What do you want more.

Ok,every wood returns as co2 one day,

but if you burn wood in place of petrol,there is a positive impact on co2

Wood can be probably one of the most available REresource if only we take care

of the trees and forests.

cheers,

stonebrain

[RUFUS]

Hey Norm:

    Tell me how to shrink um?

i aint real swift on this thing,

but you tell me how to do it and

i'll peck at it till i get it right

                             Rufus

[Norm]

Ok Rufus....

really nice pic BTW

Take a look at the program that came with your

camera....

The program that came with mine gives me the

option to download from the camera any size I want

If I have too large of a picture originally like yours...

I put your picture in a folder ...went to

my program and clicked on image utilization and

down to image resize and resized it to 640 x 480.

Your camera's program should be similar.

I have windows 98 and FinePix by Fujifilm

   Let me know how it turns out

             ( :>) Norm.

[zap]

Rufus,

As Norm has already mentioned, have a look at any software that may have come with your camera. Some will have built in tools for things such as resize, red eye removal, etc.  If your program seems to be too much for you to handle then try searching online for tutorials for your specific program.

Irfanview is a good basic program that has been mentioned here a few times.  It's a free download and you can find many tutorials for it online.  Here is Irfanview's website http://www.irfanview.com/

Here is a basic 'resize' tutorial using a slightly older version of Irfanview. http://www.somewhere-in-time.net/tutorial/irfanview/

Irfanview can do many other things beside resize.  Here is a picture that our host posted of a recent jam session.



Here's the same image using Irfanview's 'Image-->Inhance Colors...', then tweaking the 'Brightness' and 'Contrast' sliders, then using 'Image-->Sharpen'. (Why the actual physical size came out bigger, I'm not sure, even though the 'memory size[file size] is smaller)





Irfanview has many presets for resizing photos and changing the DPI(Dots Per Inch) which will let you decrease the images 'file (amount of memory) size'.

Here is your photo resized using Irfanview's 'Image-->Resize/Resample' then using the preset '640x480' and a DPI of 72



Nearly the same picture quality as yours but the size went from your original file size of 334KB down to under 64KB.

Hope that helps...

[asheets]

My personal belief is that ethanol production contributes to increased CO2 levels.  Here is my reasoning:

1.  In Brazil, which does most of the world's ethanol production right now, performs slash-n-burn agriculture (a huge CO2 release mechanism) on the rain forests (a known CO2 absorber) to create farmland.
   
2. The crops that produce the ethanol do not absorb CO2 from the atmosphere at the same rate as the forest biota they replace.
   
3. The crops do not restore nutients to the land as the original biota do -- therefore the land is abandoned at regular intervals and not reseeded with new-growth biota (which would actually accelerate CO2 uptake over old-growth biota)
   
4. Ethanol is energy-negative compared to the product it is supposed to be replacing.  I would submit that, combined with production, ethanol ends up releasing more CO2 than gasoline for the same effect.
   
   

My recommendations for CO2 mitigation would include the following:

1. large-scale planting of new growth trees.  This could coincide with the harvesting of old-growth (where some studies have shown that old-growth uptake of CO2 is far less than that of new-growth) at a 5:1 or 10:1 ratio.
   
2. genetic engineering of trees, algae, and other biota for the explicit purpose of CO2 uptake
   
3. planting of the above near locations of high CO2 concentration and CO2 point sources (population centers, power plants, etc) for both absorption purposes AND later harvesting for industrial needs.
   

[Bruce S]

Alan;

   I would second many of your ideas.

There are a couple items though. One of the good things is that the US is almost doubling their plantings of new growth of trees every year. As the real Christmas tree purchases increase every year, the growers are required to plant 2 trees for every 1 tree they cut down. Around St.Louis there are always places asking for the cast offs , even places where you can drop them off. They then put the trees into ponds and lakes for the fish. This holds the carbon in and feeds the fish along with giving them a habitat.

 I am all for planting more trees. I like the shade which would also help with an unnumbered habitats, including a cool place to sit under:-)

Brazil's crops, are mainly sugarcane and does about 2x as good as corn does. They are really good at this and the US would be too if just one state would take the reigns and go with it.

IMHO: The CO2 released by using ethanol is better than the particulates but out by using straight petrol. The added plus being that the Alky also serves as a cleaner to keep the internal parts of the engine running cleaner and thus reducing the garbage coming out of the tail pipe.

By last count the US now has 5 times the number of trees growing than we did in the 70s. This of course was a government count so who knows the real numbers, but the Sierra club did not discount the report.

just my .01 worth

Bruce S

[electrondady1]

i think forest practices around the world are due for a rethink

 i mean out side the box rethink.

in light of our impending doom and all.

 it would  be wise to start planting  like,a lot of trees.

as in ,"green the sahara"

or

 as in ,the entire middle east must have maybe two trees.

up north ,as the perma frost comes out, trees should be planted right away.

we don't have time for mother nature to take ten thousand years to re establish a new ecosystem.

this monoculture tree farm  thing is handy for harvesting but a tree farm is not a forest and thats what we need, right now !

shell oil made 16 billion last year.i want two billion to get started.

have we got the guts to ask for the money!

or are we gonna watch our kids cook.

[RUFUS]

Hey Norm, you too Zap

    i'm using a fuji 2650 behind windows xp 2000

i didnt care much for the fine pix layout and use

microsoft photo editor, i just ran all that down

and the ms program chops them up pretty good, 1st

try was a bomb but i'll keep pecking at it

  thanks you guys

my appologies to all for getting so far off topic

                                            Rufus

[nailed]

Speaking of planting trees...

I have 5 acres that I don't plan on ever using.  I would like to plant trees but I don't want plant soft wood.  I can have the forest serves come in and plant pines for free.  What do you suggest I don't want to spend but so much money?  I need to call the forest serves back and ask if they will plant something else If I pay for the plants.  

And once it's planted I don't want to ever think about then again.  

[finnsawyer]

Well, if your area permits it plant Black Walnuts.  You can get the nuts for free in the fall and you can then forget them.  Let me tell you a little secret.  The thing they don't like is hard pan.  If you have that don't plant them.  Here in in the U.P. of Michigan I planted ten Thomas Black Walnuts one year.  Only one survived.  Too much pan.  Yet half a block from my girl friend's is a small grove of them growing on a steep hillside.  Yeah, and half a block from a mine site.  Go figure.  And somewhere in Laird township there is supposed to be a grove of mature ones.

[Countryboy]

Too much pan?  LMAO.

Fragipans and hardpans aren't measured on quantity.  The only measurement you need to be concerned about is depth from the surface.

A fragipan or hardpan is simply a layer of extremely hard solid material, which roots can't penetrate.  Bedrock is actually a form of a hardpan.  Usually it is a clayish material, reminding you of a cheap pottery.

I've seen fragipans 1/8 inch thick - it doesn't matter how thick they are.  If they can stop root penetration, you have a problem.  

Dig a hole 4 or 5 feet deep, and look at the side of the hole.  If you have a hardpan, the roots will stop right at the hardpan, and there will be be no roots underneath the hardpan.  The hardpan often blends in (color) with the surrounding soil.  Another easy way to find a hardpan is to stick a pocketknife blade about 1/2 inch into the dirt, and run the knife down the side of the hole.  You'll feel a hardpan if it is present.

You can generally ignore hardpans deeper than 40 inches.  If you have a hardpan shallower than 40 inches, you may want to talk to a local farmer and see if they have a subsoil ripper you can use.  A deep ripper will crumble the hardpan into pieces, and the roots can then penetrate around the broken pieces of the hardpan.

[TAH]

Why would you want black walnuts? They taste bad, they poison the soil, they kill most other plants and trees, they drop slimy black nuts all over the place and the wood is somewhat toxic. I have thousands of the nuts laying around every fall and not even the squirrels will pick them up.

[electrondady1]

i think black walnut is highly prized as a source of veneer for furniture.

i recall a proposal that if you planted a bunch of them when you were young ,by the time you retired they would be worth a fortune.

"in light of our impending doom " it might be wise to plant something you could eat as well.  

 

[finnsawyer]

In the case of Black Walnut trees 40 inches is too shallow as the tap root will go down 12 feet or more.  When the tap root hits the hard pan it will go sideways, which will weaken the tree.  Apparently, though, the trees will accommodate when growing on a steep hill side.  That is, the tap root while being forced sideways somewhat will still be able to grow downwards.

[ghurd]

Doubt that hold true any more.

My grandfather bought a 100+ acre complete working farm in '39.  Houses(2), tractors, cows and everything.

He cut walnut out of a 6~10 acre patch in late '42 / early '43 (for WWII rifle stocks), and paid off the balance of the mortgage.

Sold the farm ~3 years ago for 7 figures.  That's a LOT of walnut!

G-

[Gordy]

TAH,

Squirrels won't pick them up??? Then the nuts are bad (with bugs, or something).

I planted a bunch (B W's)in 88, they have been bearing some nut for about 4 years now. The squirrel's clean them up just fine even with acorns, and a corn feild, and bird feeder's with in 50 feet.

Gordy

[Gordy]

Nailed,

My tree scoarce has been my local Soil and Water Conservation District office. I buy 150 to 200 a year and plant my self to save money. Trees last spring were $0.80 each, and varied with specise from 18" to 24".

As to what you plant depends on what's common to your area, and your climate. Your SWCD will give you the info you need. If you have one (SWCD)in your area.

Gordy

[electrondady1]

gordy, looks like your way out in front on this .

after that crack i made about the middle east being kind of short of trees

i got  curious .

apparently the whole area was once covered in vast forests

but it all got cut down.

 by 3000 b.c.!

 in fact you can trace the rise and fall of the different civilizations with the disappearance of there timber resources.  

[nailed]

I'm in VA right off the partway.  I do need to call Soil and Water Conservation office but don't have the local info on them.  This land has been a dump of dead animals, cow manure, old hay, and what ever else the farmers would toss out there.  There was 5 tons of scrap metal I also moved.  

I have owned the land for the last 5 years.  It took 3 years to flatten it all out and to clean up all the visible stuff.  I don't want to produce anything on this land because who knows what all is out there (under the top that I haven't seen).  

[finnsawyer]

"I believe the law reads something like... "Energy can not be created or destroyed only changed in its physical form""

It's my understanding that physicists have now thrown that law out.  It has to do with an energy loss due to the expansion of the universe.  The ubiquitous microwave radiation that permeates space supposedly started out as light radiation with 1100 times as much energy per photon.  As the universe expanded, so did the wavelength of light.  As the wavelength got longer, each photon lost energy.  They say it's gone, lost, kaput.  So, there you have it.  That law is repealed.  The expanding universe lost one hell of a lot of energy, which didn't show up in another form.  Wait!  What about dark matter?  Could it be.....?