Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per acre

Re:Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per ... by inetknght on Friday August 02, 2019 @02:57PM (#20595606)

> When the tree dies, it will release 99% of the stored carbon back to the atmosphere.

It's not the tree which does that. It's the organisms consuming the tree during the decomposition process which do that. And that doesn't happen all at once. Indeed, if you grow another tree then you're likely to still be net-positive.

If you use the tree for other purposes -- construction, for example. Or burning for energy production -- then it becomes a useful part of the lifecycle.

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Re:Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per ... by ska on Friday August 02, 2019 @03:35PM (#20595905)

> Or burning for energy production

Doesn't that just release the C02 again? Construction purposes might help, or any other way of sequestering.

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Re:Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per ... by ac29 on Friday August 02, 2019 @05:13PM (#20596698)

Yes, but its net-zero carbon, so still an improvement over using fossil fuels.

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Re:Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per ... by robocat on Friday August 02, 2019 @06:05PM (#20597021)

Net-zero CO2.

Probably other factors are small, but hard to predict (particulates, volatile chemicals, other effects of growth). Might be positive or negative.

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Re:Empress trees absorb about 103 tons of carbon a year per ... by ska on Monday August 05, 2019 @02:56PM (#20617323)

Fair, so that implies it doesn't really help, but at least isn't actively making things worse.

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