There is one way of storing carbon in the soil for the long term: biochar[0]. Biochar is organic matter heated anaerobically (pyrolysis) until it turns into something like charcoal. Biochar is stable for a long time. You can then bury that in the soil... it seems to improve the soil by providing surface area for soil micro-organisms and to store nutrients. This could be done on a very large scale, and pyrolysis can actually be energy positive because you can burn the hydrogen that's released to perform the pyrolysis and still have energy left over.
This may be one of our best options, and we should accelerate more research in that area.
> Our review shows there are not enough data to draw conclusions about how biochar production and application affect whole-system GHG budgets. Wide-ranging estimates of a key variable, biochar stability in situ, likely result from diverse environmental conditions, feedstocks, and study designs. There are even fewer data about the extent to which biochar stimulates decomposition of soil organic matter or affects non-CO2 GHG emissions. Identifying conditions where biochar amendments yield favorable GHG budgets requires a systematic field research program. Finally, evaluating biochar's suitability as a climate mitigation strategy requires comparing its effects with alternative uses of biomass and considering GHG budgets over both long and short time scales.
Why do you believe that micro-organisms will not break down biochar?
From the article:
> Yes, soil is enormously varied. And it contains a lot of carbon. But there’s no carbon in soil that can’t, in principle, be broken down by microorganisms and released into the atmosphere.
It doesn't automatically improve all soil, does it? As I recall it increases the pH level, which may or may not benefit the soil in that biome, or for the given use of the soil if you're growing food there.
Another example of an article selectively picking bits and pieces to support a sensational and false conclusion. The discussion of oxygen exposure was conveniently left out.
Why focus so much on the concept of recalcitrant carbon when microbes will break down rock and even petrochemicals under the right conditions?
Oxygen is a dominant factor in accelerated decomposition. Carbon is continually sequestered in healthy soils where plant roots will die back periodically, both seasonally and from grazing action. Much of the spent root carbon is sequestered in the soil as the limited local oxygen is used in partial decomposition, replaced with gases that serve to preserve and dilute whatever small amount of oxygen may later infiltrate the soil, depending on depth in soil.
This is the same concept seen when lacto-fermenting vegetables in a jar. Enough salts would effectively halt decomposition, but just a fraction of the salt is needed when the CO2 generated from the lacto bacteria flushes out the oxygen. The rising acid and falling oxygen gradually drive the microbial activity toward zero.
Lack of oxygen may make it even worse. Evolution of methane from decaying organic matter in soil in an anoxic environment would be much worse than CO2 in terms of global warming.
"One teaspoon of healthy soil contains more bacteria, fungi and other microbes than there are humans on Earth. Those hungry organisms can make soil a difficult place to store carbon over long periods of time."
The natural respiration of soil microbes is small compared to how much carbon can be naturally sequestered in healthy soil due to sustainable agricultural practices.
Healthy soil is well-known to hold substantial amounts of carbon, right along side such organisms. The development of unsustainable agricultural practices (monocultures, single-planting seasons, letting fields lie fallow, tilling, chemical sprays, essentially Monsanto's entire business model) has destroyed soil biodiversity and health. Healthy soil can absorb an inch of rain every few minutes. Fields flood (and crops are subsequently lost) because the ground is hard and crusty, preventing soil absorption. If more cropland soil had the healthy consistency of cottage cheese, flooding wouldn't be an issue.
Yes, forced carbon sequestration might not work in the presence of healthy soil. However, fixing the deficient soils created across the world from unsustainable industrial agriculture practices will naturally sequester carbon. I would love to know exactly how much carbon no longer is trapped in our soils that once was due to the last 100+ years of unsustainable industrialized agriculture.
As someone who has practiced (or tried to) sustainable agriculture in the tropics, I have to say that I've long ago become dubious about the whole idea of storing carbon in the soil. I think in cold climates, under dense forest growth, maybe more carbon accumulates than the microbial life can consume, up to a point, but in the tropics that sure doesn't seem to be the case. Most of the soils I've seen have essentially no carbon content below the first few centimeters... all the nutrients are in the litter layer above the soil, and most of the native plants will grow their feeder roots right into that litter (mulch). With a lot of effort and a lot of mulch, you can start to accumulate a bit more carbon in the soil, and a lot of crop plants sure appreciate that, but by far most of your mulch is going to disappear amazingly fast if you don't keep applying more, and then that bit of soil carbon quickly disappears, too. You can't build those deep, black, "healthy" soils you see in temperate climates in the tropics. At a guess I would say 99% of the carbon in tropical rain forests is in the living matter.
And the problem is that with global heating, the tropics are on march toward the poles.
«But over the past 10 years or so, soil science has undergone a quiet revolution, akin to what would happen if, in physics, relativity or quantum mechanics were overthrown.
...
Soil researchers have concluded that even the largest, most complex molecules can be quickly devoured by soil’s abundant and voracious microbes. The magic molecule you can just stick in the soil and expect to stay there may not exist.
...
The consequences go far beyond carbon sequestration strategies. Major climate models such as those produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are based on this outdated understanding of soil. Several recent studies indicate that those models are underestimating the total amount of carbon that will be released from soil in a warming climate. In addition, computer models that predict the greenhouse gas impacts of farming practices — predictions that are being used in carbon markets — are probably overly optimistic about soil’s ability to trap and hold on to carbon.»
This is being used beneficially at some superfund sites- they basically wait for some natural microbe to emerge that neutralizes or otherwise treats the prevailing contaminant, sample it, figure out how to maximize it's metabolism, then devise a way to assist the in situ conditions to become ideal. Maybe some wells, pumps, plants, or chemicals are installed/introduced, and then it's just a monitoring expense.
It lasts for at least a couple thousand years, and is considered a long-lasting soil amendment.
The presence of biochar creates habitats for those microbes and conserves nutrients, making the soil fertile, even in areas like the Amazon where rainfall normally washes away nutrient accumulations. It can be made with processes that sequesters carbon, both in the charring stage (via gassifier designs optimized towards sequestering) and during the inoculation stage where it can capture greenhouse gases emitted by a compost pile.
The soil exhaustion per a kilowatt hour given the planet's primary energy consumption is problematic and doesn't shift.
3-5% of all natural gas is used for nitrogen fertilizer production and 50% of the food mankind eats requires it.
When all the folks keen on approaching mankind's environmental problems think from a framework of minimizing CO2 emissions, they often miss out on things like nitrogen trifluoride and sulfur hexafluoride, which have significant global warming potential and are used more frequently as institutions use the objective function of (min(CO2 emissions)).
GM bio CCS using aquatic life is the way to go because the carbon can be easily sunk fown into deep trenches without worrying about it returning the the carbon cycle.
Lets bury our carbon waste using plants, not address the issues that we're burning fossil fuels and creating carbon waste at an increasingly alarming rate or focus on renewable clean recyclable energy...
Hm. I perfectly understand cynicism, because I'm very good at it myself. (At least I think so.)
However, in this case I'm of a different opinion. Let's put aside the sluggishness of going totally green/eco/sustainable/whatever for a moment and think about what would happen if we managed to do it in an instant, like now.
Then this would still be a usable and sensible thing to do, because right now it looks like we are very, very late to the game, and every little thing counts.
In my opinion this would even make sense if produced as sort of artificial zeolites produced by atmospheric carbon capture by whichever industrial process, even nuclear powered.
> Indeed, radioactive dating measurements suggest that some amount of carbon can stay in the soil for centuries.
This is the only quote that matters. We literally know it works.
Yet the world is so so broken the facts don't matter.
We have the observable working model, but the environmental industrial complex needs to keep its minions in a constant state of panic which allows it to keep its control.
A healthy human being would see this article as how amazing our understanding of soil science is getting.
Just last week there was an article on increasing plant root length and increasing productivity that's working in field tests. Increasing soil depth just a little in farmland is a huge change. Nothing is upended. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-00982-9
[+] [-] jbotz|4 years ago|reply
This may be one of our best options, and we should accelerate more research in that area.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar
[+] [-] brandmeyer|4 years ago|reply
> Our review shows there are not enough data to draw conclusions about how biochar production and application affect whole-system GHG budgets. Wide-ranging estimates of a key variable, biochar stability in situ, likely result from diverse environmental conditions, feedstocks, and study designs. There are even fewer data about the extent to which biochar stimulates decomposition of soil organic matter or affects non-CO2 GHG emissions. Identifying conditions where biochar amendments yield favorable GHG budgets requires a systematic field research program. Finally, evaluating biochar's suitability as a climate mitigation strategy requires comparing its effects with alternative uses of biomass and considering GHG budgets over both long and short time scales.
From https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
[+] [-] mleonhard|4 years ago|reply
From the article:
> Yes, soil is enormously varied. And it contains a lot of carbon. But there’s no carbon in soil that can’t, in principle, be broken down by microorganisms and released into the atmosphere.
[+] [-] steve_adams_86|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chris_va|4 years ago|reply
... if it's dry biomass.
Too much humidity might tip that the other way, unless I am doing the math wrong. Looking at CA's forests right now, that might not be a problem :/
[+] [-] ashtonkem|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strait|4 years ago|reply
Oxygen is a dominant factor in accelerated decomposition. Carbon is continually sequestered in healthy soils where plant roots will die back periodically, both seasonally and from grazing action. Much of the spent root carbon is sequestered in the soil as the limited local oxygen is used in partial decomposition, replaced with gases that serve to preserve and dilute whatever small amount of oxygen may later infiltrate the soil, depending on depth in soil.
This is the same concept seen when lacto-fermenting vegetables in a jar. Enough salts would effectively halt decomposition, but just a fraction of the salt is needed when the CO2 generated from the lacto bacteria flushes out the oxygen. The rising acid and falling oxygen gradually drive the microbial activity toward zero.
[+] [-] Robotbeat|4 years ago|reply
However, I’m not a soil scientist.
[+] [-] waterheater|4 years ago|reply
The natural respiration of soil microbes is small compared to how much carbon can be naturally sequestered in healthy soil due to sustainable agricultural practices.
Healthy soil is well-known to hold substantial amounts of carbon, right along side such organisms. The development of unsustainable agricultural practices (monocultures, single-planting seasons, letting fields lie fallow, tilling, chemical sprays, essentially Monsanto's entire business model) has destroyed soil biodiversity and health. Healthy soil can absorb an inch of rain every few minutes. Fields flood (and crops are subsequently lost) because the ground is hard and crusty, preventing soil absorption. If more cropland soil had the healthy consistency of cottage cheese, flooding wouldn't be an issue.
Yes, forced carbon sequestration might not work in the presence of healthy soil. However, fixing the deficient soils created across the world from unsustainable industrial agriculture practices will naturally sequester carbon. I would love to know exactly how much carbon no longer is trapped in our soils that once was due to the last 100+ years of unsustainable industrialized agriculture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUmIdq0D6-A
https://microbiometer.com/improving-soil-health-and-carbon-c...
[+] [-] jbotz|4 years ago|reply
And the problem is that with global heating, the tropics are on march toward the poles.
[+] [-] nine_k|4 years ago|reply
«But over the past 10 years or so, soil science has undergone a quiet revolution, akin to what would happen if, in physics, relativity or quantum mechanics were overthrown.
...
Soil researchers have concluded that even the largest, most complex molecules can be quickly devoured by soil’s abundant and voracious microbes. The magic molecule you can just stick in the soil and expect to stay there may not exist.
...
The consequences go far beyond carbon sequestration strategies. Major climate models such as those produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are based on this outdated understanding of soil. Several recent studies indicate that those models are underestimating the total amount of carbon that will be released from soil in a warming climate. In addition, computer models that predict the greenhouse gas impacts of farming practices — predictions that are being used in carbon markets — are probably overly optimistic about soil’s ability to trap and hold on to carbon.»
[+] [-] beerandt|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hosh|4 years ago|reply
It lasts for at least a couple thousand years, and is considered a long-lasting soil amendment.
The presence of biochar creates habitats for those microbes and conserves nutrients, making the soil fertile, even in areas like the Amazon where rainfall normally washes away nutrient accumulations. It can be made with processes that sequesters carbon, both in the charring stage (via gassifier designs optimized towards sequestering) and during the inoculation stage where it can capture greenhouse gases emitted by a compost pile.
[+] [-] throwaway894345|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kumarski|4 years ago|reply
3-5% of all natural gas is used for nitrogen fertilizer production and 50% of the food mankind eats requires it.
When all the folks keen on approaching mankind's environmental problems think from a framework of minimizing CO2 emissions, they often miss out on things like nitrogen trifluoride and sulfur hexafluoride, which have significant global warming potential and are used more frequently as institutions use the objective function of (min(CO2 emissions)).
[+] [-] Jenkins2000|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legulere|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kickout|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8note|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LargoLasskhyfv|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omegaworks|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doggodaddo78|4 years ago|reply
GM bio CCS using aquatic life is the way to go because the carbon can be easily sunk fown into deep trenches without worrying about it returning the the carbon cycle.
[+] [-] goatse-4-this|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] danecjensen|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adam0c|4 years ago|reply
Lets bury our carbon waste using plants, not address the issues that we're burning fossil fuels and creating carbon waste at an increasingly alarming rate or focus on renewable clean recyclable energy...
[+] [-] LargoLasskhyfv|4 years ago|reply
However, in this case I'm of a different opinion. Let's put aside the sluggishness of going totally green/eco/sustainable/whatever for a moment and think about what would happen if we managed to do it in an instant, like now.
Then this would still be a usable and sensible thing to do, because right now it looks like we are very, very late to the game, and every little thing counts.
In my opinion this would even make sense if produced as sort of artificial zeolites produced by atmospheric carbon capture by whichever industrial process, even nuclear powered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeolite
edit: thinking about it, though slightly off-topic in this context is another path to carbon sequestration I remember:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Vesta via spreading this stuff on beaches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivine
Green Beaches!
For your amusement: The Fifth Element-Green 1m4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFeLDc2CzOs
Word Up? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZjAantupsA 4m39s
[+] [-] phkahler|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CorrectHorseBat|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbotz|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron695|4 years ago|reply
This is the only quote that matters. We literally know it works.
Yet the world is so so broken the facts don't matter.
We have the observable working model, but the environmental industrial complex needs to keep its minions in a constant state of panic which allows it to keep its control.
A healthy human being would see this article as how amazing our understanding of soil science is getting.
Just last week there was an article on increasing plant root length and increasing productivity that's working in field tests. Increasing soil depth just a little in farmland is a huge change. Nothing is upended. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-00982-9
This is interesting around invasive species https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.15769
[+] [-] DennisP|4 years ago|reply