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18784 |
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Date: September 08, 2023 at 12:07:09
From: chatillon, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Cut Down Forests to Save the Planet (NT) |
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjETxyqdStY |
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Responses:
[18788] [18793] [18794] [18789] |
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18788 |
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Date: September 08, 2023 at 13:46:47
From: Eve, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Cut Down Forests to Save the Planet (NT) |
URL: https://dogwoodalliance.org/2023/05/why-dead-trees-matter-more-than-you-think/ |
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That same channel host again? no can do...The way I understand it is it's about harvesting dead trees and burying them
not harvesting living trees and burying them. Did you explore this beyond the channel hosts opinion of which you share
link presentation?
https://dogwoodalliance.org/2023/05/why-dead-trees-matter-more-than-you-think/
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Responses:
[18793] [18794] [18789] |
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18793 |
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Date: September 09, 2023 at 09:17:48
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Cut Down Forests to Save the Planet (NT) |
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correct...they are trying out an idea of burying "dead"
trees, not live ones--to reduce co2 emissions from
decaying tree.
Will it work?
Is it scaleable?
I have my doubts, but at least they're trying. We
seriously need more ideas..not all will work, but we
won't find ones that do unless they're tested out.
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Responses:
[18794] |
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18794 |
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Date: September 09, 2023 at 09:55:31
From: Eve, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Cut Down Forests to Save the Planet (NT) |
URL: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/deceptively-simple-technology-carbon-removal |
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It troubled me as the channel host does not comprehend that the plan is to harvest dead trees and bury them and is confused and spreading misinformation and viewers believe him. He was making
assumptions based on an article that was quoting parts of another article that made it sound otherwise than it is. I thought to myself who is going to agree with cutting down forests to save the planet
that makes zero sense. Anyways, I found another article at Kodama Systems web site https://kodama.ai/ that explains the concept further which is copied below. Just sharing for clarity, thanks for
responding Redhart. ~Eve
A deceptively simple technology for carbon removal
How a hole in the ground became an engineered solution to climate change
By Jesse Klein
What comes to mind when you hear the term engineered climate technology? For me, it’s usually an expensive metal machine sucking carbon out of the air with a lot of moving parts, a lot of engineering
schematics and a lot of complicated chemical explanations.
A less popular image of carbon removal is a hole in the ground filled with tree trimmings. But biomass burial, the technical term for this hole, is one of the most promising and uncharacteristically
simple engineered approaches to removing carbon from the atmosphere.
"We call this a hybrid nature engineering method," said Ning Zeng, professor at the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science and the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center at the University
of Maryland. "It doesn't really fall neatly into any particular big boxes they have defined."
But it is, in fact, an engineered solution to climate change. Burying wood trimmings about 6.5 feet underground prevents the decomposition process, as it preserves the carbon in the wood instead of
releasing it into the atmosphere.
"[Without biomass burial], you waste all that photosynthesis capacity from a carbon point of view," Zeng said. "The plants pump CO2 into their body, but then they die, it goes back [into the
atmosphere]."
Nature’s already tackled the hard part of capturing CO2 from the atmosphere, leaving us to configure a storage solution. But how durable that storage is depends on engineering the wood vault where the
trimmings are stored in a specific way, and using materials that create an anaerobic (oxygen-free) environment.
The vault itself can be created from the soils at the site of burial if the soil can insulate from termites, fungi and water. According to Daniel Sanchez, chief scientist for biomass carbon removal and
storage at Carbon Direct, dense, nonporous soils such as clay, silt and sand are the best for keeping an underground environment stable in this way.
"You absolutely need to think about how you design different vaults," he said. "They're going to have different considerations and different abilities. The science of the wood vault is still really
evolving."
But with good engineering, the carbon stored in wood vaults can be preserved for thousands of years, according to scientific models. That number has pricked the ears of companies, investors and
sustainability experts alike. And the carbon crediting machine has already started lurching into motion on biomass burial. Puro.Earth has a few biomass burial projects listed on its marketplace,
including the Potomac Project of Carbon Lockdown a startup founded by Zeng’s demo projects in Montreal where the carbon removal is selling for $170 a ton. And last March, Puro released a methodology for
biomass burial, specifying where the wood can come from, how to ensure additionality and making sure to remove other greenhouse gasses such as methane.
Biomass burial is one of the most promising and uncharacteristically simple engineered approaches to removing carbon from the atmosphere.
Of course, the climate tech startup ecosystem has already started roaring to life around this technology, including newcomer Kodama Systems. They are hoping to go beyond carbon accounting and solve three
problems at once — decreasing the amount of carbon in the air, reducing wildfire risks and increasing the workforce for forest management, a woefully understaffed career track. The company is working
with U.S. Forest Service partners for tree thinning and burying the waste materials from forest thinning operations in a wood vault in the Nevada desert.
"The reason we need to restore these forests is we've actively suppressed wildfires for the past 100 years," Kodama CEO Merritt Jenkins said. "Many forests are overstocked beyond their natural carrying
capacity and there literally aren't enough people to do the work that needs to be done in these forests."
According to Jenkins, the company is planning to bury small diameter trimmings that would have been burned without Kodama’s project. The company is working on using automation to support workers to cover
the vast amount of acres that need managing.
"Carbon management is a waste management problem," Jimmy Voorhis, head of biomass use and policy at Kodama, said. "We think forestry residue management is functionally right now a waste management
problem and we really need to be driving towards solutions that are scalable and don't have a lot of negative externalities."
The pilot project will bury 4,500 tons of wood from the Eastern Sierras near Mammoth Lakes, and remove around 3,200 tons of CO2 when accounting for the possible emissions losses. The project has promised
the first tranche of carbon credits to Frontier for $250,000 if they hit certain baselines.
Of course, this begs the question: Why not repurpose these waste materials into a tangible product or for energy generation in lieu of their subterranean future?
"There are economic challenges to building facilities that can turn this biomass into a product," Jenkins said. "And the main economic challenge is that centralized facilities are high [capital
expenditure]."
It is very expensive for a biofuel or manufacturing facility to create building material out of these small trimmings. To secure bank loans, would-be entrepreneurs need to prove their access to a long
term supply of trimmings. And then there is the matter of trying to build a facility on fire prone land, all to make the best emissions-saved to emissions-released ratio. According to Voorhis, there is
always going to be more emissions released from making energy out of biomass than a biomass burial project, where the target is around a 90 percent conversion. The burial method makes much more economic
and environmental sense and is more easily scalable than other engineered carbon removal options.
Many more engineered carbon removal technologies are still in their infancy, in need of decades for maturity. And, according to Zeng, we don’t even know if those ventures will succeed. He prioritizes the
relatively secure investment into this technology that can take advantage of the wood residuals that are otherwise creating a forest fire threat.
"[Biomassburial] does not require unknown technology and it can be scaled up immediately," Zeng said.
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Responses:
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18789 |
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Date: September 08, 2023 at 14:17:20
From: Eve, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Cut Down Forests to Save the Planet (NT) |
URL: https://www.mrtreeservices.com/blog/how-cutting-down-trees-can-help-the-environment/ |
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Okay it's not just dead trees my bad..but it does not seem it's about felling entire mature forests either...here is more in this article pertaining to the topic. ~Eve
How Cutting Down Trees Can Help the Environment
Nov 18, 2020
It is generally a widely accepted fact that the preservation of trees is vital to the health of our earth and the warming and cooling balance of our atmosphere. We know that millions of acres of
forest land across the world get destroyed on an annual basis, largely due to the continued growth of urban areas in developing nations, as well as economic and agricultural pursuits.
A fair amount of this can be worrisome to the environment, as deforestation contributes heavily to the release of large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which has a major warming
effect on the planet at large. For this reason, environmental organizations and governments within the United States and across the globe have worked tirelessly to pass regulations and provide
market-based incentives to reduce deforestation and encourage the planting of a significant number of new trees every year. It is nearly universally believed that taking these types of proactive
measures is not only greatly beneficial for the environment but also essential for the long-term survival of both the United States and the planet.
However, what if that was only one part of the larger story?
What if there are tree removal measures—exceptions to the measures we have been told are necessary for decades—that could also help the environment in surprising ways?
What if there are tree removal measures—exceptions to the measures we have been told are necessary for decades—that could also help the environment in surprising ways?
While it’s not what you would expect to hear when it comes to bringing positive change to the atmosphere, as tree professionals, such as those at Mr. Tree Services may reliably inform you, there
actually is evidence that cutting down trees can have some important environmental benefits.
Why is this the case?
--Global Cooling--
We know trees naturally convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, so cutting trees down can bring about a large increase in greenhouse gas emissions, resulting in global warming. However, it should be
noted that cutting down trees in various snow-covered places could potentially lead to a net benefit for the climate due to the cooling effect of the snow.
This is because surfaces that are covered in snow are white, which means they reflect sunlight. If you’re dealing with a surface that’s darker in color, such as a forest, it will absorb more
light and therefore be warmer than a light surface. The albedo effect is the term used to represent the concept of how much solar energy reflects off a surface. Light versus dark contrast is key
to this, as a light-colored surface, such as white snow, acts as a mirror reflecting heat off it and bouncing it back into space.
There are some areas across the world, including in the United States, where an abundance of snow exists, which opens up space where the sun can have its energy reflected by that snow. This may
not only cancel out the amount of carbon dioxide in a tree, but may also exceed the environmental benefits derived from a standing tree’s carbon dioxide conversion.
It’s Complex
While in a vacuum trees are more valuable standing than being cut down in terms of carbon dioxide reduction, the issue is far more complex. The carbon dioxide/oxygen aspect can be outweighed by
the overall impact of a surface’s characteristics of its landscape.
When a forest has high elevations and a large amount of snow, this tends to keep trees growing at an incredibly slow pace. Because of this, the potential for carbon dioxide intake is limited,
but the albedo effect comes into play in these instances due to the solar energy reflected off the white surface of the snow.
When accounting for the albedo effect, it has been found that shortening rotation periods in harvesting and planting certain tree species in designated snow-filled areas can have a net-positive
effect on the environment. Ultimately, this creates a system that incentivizes reforestation while likewise incentivizing efforts to curtail deforestation.
--Competition for Resources--
There’s also the competition aspect among trees that live together in a crowded forest area. When trees are in their growing stages, they absorb food and water and store them in the roots,
leaves, branches, and trunks. This makes forests important assets to nations across the globe.
However, if trees get too crowded, they end up competing against each other for water and light. Physically distressed trees become especially prone to insect attacks, disease, and drought.
Removing some trees, particularly the ones that are physically distressed, can relax the competition among trees and allow the remaining trees to grow healthy and large in the process.
Thinning can help this process enormously, but the key to carrying this out properly is early thinning, which must be completed before trees begin to fight over light and water. If this is
done correctly, the remaining trees can grow faster. It’s difficult to thin older, more run-down trees because they have already begun to be weakened by the competition. So it’s crucial to act
as quickly as possible.
--Other Benefits--
But carbon dioxide storage, the albedo effect, and competition among trees aren’t the only reasons to cut down trees in targeted areas across the United States and the world. There are plenty of
ecological reasons for cutting trees down.
When trees are cut down, it improves habitats for many species that reside in forest areas. It also maintains the health of the forest while properly shapes the forest for the future.
Believe it or not, processing and manufacturing wood products has a lower environmental impact than most raw materials, so saving a tree only to use an environmentally inferior raw material
would not only make for the production of an inferior product, but it could very well have a net negative environmental impact as well.
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