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by BurningFrog 975 days ago
There is only so much ground that can be covered with trees, and it stops those areas being used for other purposes.

There are no practical limits for how much CO2 you can store underground!

3 comments

"There are no practical limits for how much CO2 you can store underground! "

Energy cost is the practical limit.

There is already enough land available for enough new native trees to capture more CO2 than is emitted into the atmosphere each year. This is before considering recovery of additional brownfield sites, becoming more efficient with industrial and agricultural land usage, and setting more land aside for planting additional trees.

With the full potential unlocked, we'd be able to plant so many trees that they'd capture 2x or more of the total CO2 emissions (total emissions, not just the airborne excess) which means we'd start capturing the past excess emissions as well.

> There is already enough land available for enough new native trees to capture more CO2 than is emitted into the atmosphere each year.

Since land is finite and the number of new years is not, that can only be true for a finite number of years.

Also, we need to capture more CO2 than is emitted to get down to natural levels.

There is already enough land available to capture enough CO2 to bring us down to natural levels if we plant those trees.
Silvopasture exists. We are becoming reacquainted with better farming practices. Homes, offices, and other kinds of buildings are built in forests all the time. Plenty of opportunities for recreation.

CO2 stored underground in the form of plants dying and rotting for the benefit and use of other plants is also "carbon capture".

There are also other uses for captured CO2. Better concrete, carbon nanotubes, etc.