Reduce greenhouse gas emissions has become a vital target to prevent a planetary climate catastrophe. One of the biggest problems in achieving this goal is applied carbon removal methods are insufficient and expensive. Two American scientists have proposed an unusual solution to remove carbon from the atmosphere: salt and bury crops. They make sure it works.
The authors of the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, argue that their recommendations are necessary. “easy and cheap” technologiesand this will allow the carbon to be stored for thousands of years.
Researchers suggest grow biomass to capture atmospheric carbon, with salt to keep dry and prevent microbial influence and decomposition and after burying harvested vegetation in biological dumps Dry is designed for this purpose. This is what the study authors say.agricultural kidnapping‘.
Eli Yablonovitch, lead author and professor at the University of California at Berkeley, says the result is “carbon negative,” and that this system is a potential game changer in the fight against global warming.
“The right engineering can solve the climate crisis 100 percent at a manageable cost,” states Yablonovitch. Because if this carbon sequestration method were applied on a global scale, Not only will current carbon dioxide emissions be eliminated, but also “emissions from previous years”..
In other words: while all current efforts are focused on achieving the goal’zero emissions‘, net carbon neutrality, method proposed by North American researchers” net negative carbon”.
The results of the research are extremely encouraging: For each ton of dry biomass it will be possible to separate approximately two tons of carbon dioxide..
A technique from the Bronze Age
The idea of embedding biomass to sequester carbon is not new. It has even gained popularity in recent years, and there are groups fighting climate change by burying everything from plants to wood in the ground.
The problem is, even if these tanks are deoxygenated, anaerobic microorganisms continue to move and break down biomass into CO2 and methane.this makes separation approaches carbon neutral at best.
Californian scientists went a different route. They started from the assumption that all life forms, including anaerobic ones, need water and moisture.
They confirmed Life stops when “internal water activity” (similar to relative humidity) drops below 60%. Living cells must pass nutrients and water-soluble wastes through their cell walls in order to survive. A decrease in water activity below 60% paralyzes these metabolic processes.
How do you get this dryness percentage? Scientists inspired by tradition: An ancient technique for preserving food, known for at least more than 3,000 years in the Bronze Age: salt.
“The method we propose is stably retains carbon in dry salty biomass for thousands of years“This is less costly and higher carbon efficiency than other air capture technologies,” said Harry Deckman, co-author of the study.
In addition to being stable in the long run,agricultural kidnapping‘ suggested by Yablonovitch and Deckman snowy. Agricultural and biological landfills cost up to a total of 54 euros per tonne of carbon dioxide captured. It is ten times less than some atmospheric CO2 capture strategies in use today.
biological dumps
One advantage of this solution is that there is no need to encroach on or compete with the land used to grow food. Because heBiomass can be grown on marginal grassland and forest land, and even on fallow farmland..
Although it takes a lot of farmland to remove all carbon released from the atmosphere, there is actually enough “underutilized” land available, according to the authors.
The authors compiled a list of more than one person. 50 high efficiency plants It can be grown in various climates of the world with its high dry biomass yield and enormous carbon sequestration capacity.
The idea is to salt these plants and bury them. dry engineered bio-landfillstens of meters below the ground, safe from human activities and natural disasters.
The researchers based the design of these ‘farm burials’ on practices already used in modern landfills, such as adding two nested, two-millimeter-thick layers of polyethylene surrounding the biomass to ensure dryness.
“‘agrosecuestro’ is technologically readyDeckman, says Deckman. Also, farmers can quickly switch to biomass farming. Writers, it will take about a year to convert existing farmland to biomass farming.
“Our approach to farm confiscation offers many benefits in terms of cost, scalability and long-term stability,” says Yablonovitch. “It also uses existing technologies at known cost to provide a practical way forward. removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and solving the problem of climate change“, To add.
“However, society should continue its efforts in this direction. decarbonizationDeveloping and installing solar and wind technologies; and revolutionizes energy storage,” concludes the scientist.
Reference report: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2217695120
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