Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla...
by EGreg on Thursday October 21, 2021 @01:52PM
(#28948324)
Not to mention all that carbon released when the wood decomposes - no ?
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Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla...
by mikeg8 on Thursday October 21, 2021 @01:59PM
(#28948440)
No expert here but I believe it depends on how it decomposes. If wood rots at the surface, my understanding is more carbon is released into the atmosphere but if it is buried or decomposed using fungi or soil microbes, more carbon is captured into the soil.
Forests have a lot of decaying and decomposing deadfall wood but still seem to be a carbon sink so it may be a layering thing...
Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla...
by spfzero on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:13PM
(#28948670)
That's the reason you use wood chips and bark for mulch in a garden; to add carbon to the soil.
Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla...
by psd1 on Thursday October 21, 2021 @06:17PM
(#28951507)
It isn't the usual primary reason. You use these things to provide a mulch layer over the top of tilth; it suppresses weed germination.
If all you want is to add organics, you'd probably fork in manure.
Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla...
by noselasd on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:02PM
(#28948492)
It was captured from the air when the wood was grown though - so as long as you maintain the forrest you took the wood from it works out.
Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla...
by mensetmanusman on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:37PM
(#28949070)
No, not all carbon is released as gas during decomposition. If it were, we wouldn’t have diamonds :)
Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla...
by burnished on Thursday October 21, 2021 @09:50PM
(#28952934)
I don't know enough about diamond formation to properly dispute this, but I thought they didn't form from organic, locally sourced carbon?
Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla...
by ajnin on Thursday October 21, 2021 @03:20PM
(#28949616)
Yes, that's why planting trees to offset carbon emissions is not really as good an idea as it seems, trees can live a long time but they're not immortal, and when they die they release their carbon back into the environment.
Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla...
by pxndx on Thursday October 21, 2021 @03:47PM
(#28949948)
If you turn what now is barren land or grasslands into a forest, it absorbs CO2 as it grows, and that CO2 stays captured for as long as that land is a forest, it doesn't matter if individual trees die and decompose.
Re:Hardened wood as a renewable alternative to steel and pla...
by robotresearcher on Thursday October 21, 2021 @03:41PM
(#28949860)
If you leave them alone to make baby trees, they can be an amortized constant capture or better.
Meanwhile they liberate oxygen, which I enjoy daily.