Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK landscape

Re:Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK la... by BlueTemplar on Wednesday March 13, 2024 @12:10PM (#39693300)

You seem to be assuming that the carbon will stay locked in the construction materials. But I doubt that it will, what will happen to it after the building is destroyed ? Either it will have been by fire, or as waste, will likely be back in the atmosphere after wood-eating life is done with it.

I wonder how feasible it would be to put wood (from particularly dense species ?) on the bottom of the expanding anoxic ocean zones ? That seems to be one of the rare locations where the only thing that could possibly degrade it are sulphur-"breathing" bacteria, which seem to have trouble digesting lignin ?

But even here, it might still be easier to just stop burning fossil fuels ? EDIT : ninjaed

P.S.: For an opposite example, see how concrete reabsorbs over decades back up to half of the CO2 exhaled during its production.

P.P.S.: Supposedly, soil-buried charcoal is also decently stable, I guess even fungi find it unpalatable ??

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Giant sequoias are a rapidly growing feature of the UK la... by therealdrag0 on Thursday March 14, 2024 @02:22AM (#39701048)

The thing is humans build more and more. Any destruction or burning is replaced with more building. So in that sense construction with wood has aligned incentives and is more economical than just burying carbon with is purely a cost. But construction seems unlikely to be sufficient alone. Tho most of the world prefers concrete which is also releases carbon iirc so them switching to wood may help.

[ Parent | on HN ]