What will we do for Carbon , for life and plant growth?

[Guest]

if these whacked out chrysters were ever to pull this "zero carbon" pipe dream ??????
we need a lot more now than the earth needed a hundred thousand years ago

[6V53]

Buy it from Agrium,just like sulphur.

[blackpowder]

When everyone poor enough back to burning wood I guess.

[TSIPP]

Cost me five grand for a nice wood stove in March, I’ll be nice and toasty when people can’t even buy toilet paper.

[6V53]

I've been burning grain for the last 15 years. 80 bushels a winter. Do the math. Still use some natural gas, but not much.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

First of all, don't lower yourself to Chuck's level or IQ, it is CO2 he is supposed to be paranoid about, not elemental Carbon, even though he gets it wrong every time, and fails to comprehend that they aren't the same thing.
But you bring up a very valid point. Earth has benefited to greatly from these slightly elevated levels of CO2, and eventually, we will have liberated all the easy sources ( burning hydrocarbons, even after we have moved on to more sustainable energy sources, we will likely have to keep burning hydrocarbons just to liberate the CO2), and have no cheap, non energy intensive ways to maintain levels high enough to feed the high population.
There is very little academic work on this topic, yet this should be a much higher priority than figuring out how to eliminate CO2.

Just trying to figure out what level would be ideal from a sustainability point of view ( ie. the energy required to release is and the amount of source rock available), compared to the benefits of ever higher levels, hasn't hardly been considered. Given the logarithmic relationship of temperature with CO2, those benefits peaked out almost 200 ppm ago, so that is irrelevant from here forward, plants continue to be net beneficiaries at many multiples of today's concentration,and it doesn't become even slightly harmful to humans until above 10,000 ppm.

Figuring out what level we should maintain, and how to do it should be our first priority, even before we worry about what energy source is coming next, in fact we may need to design our next energy source around this most important goal.

Regarding winter wheat, CO2 at 968 proves to be optimal, but benefits from levels much higher when compared to our current starvation levels.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26253981 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26253981

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Buy it from Agrium,just like sulphur.

Actually, that is an even bigger issue. Nearly all of the Sulphur we currently use as fertilizer comes from fossil fuels, sour gas and sour oil. As one U of C professor puts it, this is what keeps him up at night, how do we replace this vital nutrient without oil and gas extraction?

In fact it is already an issue. Thanks to the frac'ing revolution, we are no longer pursuing sour formations. Sour gas plants in this area which have been shipping out sulphur for decades are switching over to processing only sweet gas. The local residents certainly aren't complaining, but the residents of planet earth may eventually take exception.

In fact, our grey wooded soils are chronically short of S. Back when flaring and emissions were common from all the sour wells and processing, the deficiency wasn't as noticable. We cleaned up our industry, and now need to add copious amounts of S to grow canola or alfalfa. Our health likely appreciates it though.

[tweety]

Actually, that is an even bigger issue. Nearly all of the Sulphur we currently use as fertilizer comes from fossil fuels, sour gas and sour oil. As one U of C professor puts it, this is what keeps him up at night, how do we replace this vital nutrient without oil and gas extraction?

In fact it is already an issue. Thanks to the frac'ing revolution, we are no longer pursuing sour formations. Sour gas plants in this area which have been shipping out sulphur or decades are switching over to processing only sweet gas. The local residents certainly aren't complaining, by the residents of planet earth may eventually take exception.

What??? We don't have unlimited resources easily accessed for everything our opulent lifestyle requires?

[the big wheel]

Cost me five grand for a nice wood stove in March, I’ll be nice and toasty when people can’t even buy toilet paper.

Exactly what I m doing Toasty and you can always use the bark!!

[AlbertaFarmer5]

What??? We don't have unlimited resources easily accessed for everything our opulent lifestyle requires?

Now here is something we can agree on. Nothing we do is sustainable. No resource extraction, no energy source, no agriculture etc. Yet we devote all of our energies to fighting CO2, while ignoring all the other actual elephants in the room. And in the process, we are finding "solutions" which are less energy dense, require more land area, more resource extraction of finite materials, instead of looking at the big picture.

I have a lot of faith in human ingenuity, but finite is finite no matter how creative we are.

[6V53]

What??? We don't have unlimited resources easily accessed for everything our opulent lifestyle requires?

Soylent Green extracted from algae grown in recycled grain bags. All inputs supplied by Agrium. One pill will be equivalent to a whole turkey dinner.

[chuckChuck]

Did you arm chair “geniuses” forget that there is a natural carbon cycle capturing and releasing carbon? Where is the evidence that we are going to run out of carbon.? LMAO.
It’s the most common element on planet earth.

Is it being lost to space? Not in any significant amount. The idea that we need to keep burning fossil fuels to maintain carbon is loony. The opposite is true which is we need to lower carbon emissions into the atmosphere to prevent out of control global warming and Climate change!

And I know the difference between CO2 and carbon. The phrase low carbon is used to cover energy sources that don’t release CO2 into the atmosphere.

Our science education must have really missed the mark with some of the class dullards! LOL

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Did you arm chair “geniuses” forget that there is a natural carbon cycle capturing and releasing carbon? Where is the evidence that we are going to run out of carbon.? LMAO.
It’s the most common element on planet earth.

Is it being lost to space? Not in any significant amount. The idea that we need to keep burning fossil fuels to maintain carbon is loony. The opposite is true which is we need to lower carbon emissions into the atmosphere to prevent out of control global warming and Climate change!

And I know the difference between CO2 and carbon. The phrase low carbon is used to cover energy sources that don’t release CO2 into the atmosphere.

Our science education must have really missed the mark with some of the class dullards! LOL

Wow Chuck, I am really proud of you, you just acknowledged so many scientific facts all in one post. I am so proud. The science lessons have seemed so futile all this time, and the student so hopeless, and suddenly you just understood multiple simple concepts all at once. And you also discovered the shortcomings of our global warming indoctrination system formerly known as schools.

Perhaps now that you have mastered some simple concepts, we can attempt to have a more technical discussion, rather than the typical flat earth and soot comments?

Yes, there is a natural carbon cycle, constantly sequestering and releasing CO2 into the atmosphere and oceans. Most of it ending up buried in ocean sediment. Which is really fortunate for us, because a small amount of that sequestered Carbon eventually ended up as the hydrocarbons we use to power our modern society. And like virtually all chemical reactions, when you increase the concentration of the limiting reactant, the reaction increases, so unfortunately, by increasing our CO2 output, we are depleting our easily available reserves even faster. At 280 ppm, the system was very close to being in balance, but at over 400, the earth is sequestering much more of what we continue to add, leaving less and less for our long term benefit.

No one is concerned about running out of CO2 ( and certainly not worried about running out of Carbon, the 15th most abundant element on earth) on any human time scale, although on geologic time scales, atmospheric concentrations are slowly headed for levels so low that photosynthetic life will cease to exist.

What any rational, forward thinking person is concerned about, is that without burning fossil fuels, CO2 levels will quickly fall back to their preindustrial near starvation levels( and eventually, and inevitably, much lower), however, populations, and their expectation to maintain their current diets will not immediately fall back to preindustrial levels. This will be even worse if it happens to coincide with the next cyclical cooling event, which causes the oceans to naturally sequester more CO2 as they cool down.

The challenge will be to continue to produce enough food without the very real, very measurable benefits of the slightly increased levels of beneficial CO2 that we have grown accustomed to, and one of the reasons why so many (all) previous apocalyptic predictions of humans demise have failed so miserably.

We either need to find a way to maintain these elevated levels by liberating it from limestone, or we need to find a balance that stretches our predicted fossil fuel reserves out as long as possible to keep levels at the best compromise, until we figure out a better way. None of this is being discussed in official circles, no plans are being made, and we aren't even making an effort to decide what the optimal level might be. If fossil fuels are infinite, then we should likely aim for closer to 1000 ppm, if fossil fuels are nearly exhausted already, then 350 ppm or less is likely a good compromise.

[fjlip]

Wow Chuck, I am really proud of you, you just acknowledged so many scientific facts all in one post. I am so proud. The science lessons have seemed so futile all this time, and the student so hopeless, and suddenly you just understood multiple simple concepts all at once. And you also discovered the shortcomings of our global warming indoctrination system formerly known as schools.

Perhaps now that you have mastered some simple concepts, we can attempt to have a more technical discussion, rather than the typical flat earth and soot comments?

Yes, there is a natural carbon cycle, constantly sequestering and releasing CO2 into the atmosphere and oceans. Most of it ending up buried in ocean sediment. Which is really fortunate for us, because a small amount of that sequestered Carbon eventually ended up as the hydrocarbons we use to power our modern society. And like virtually all chemical reactions, when you increase the concentration of the limiting reactant, the reaction increases, so unfortunately, by increasing our CO2 output, we are depleting our easily available reserves even faster. At 280 ppm, the system was very close to being in balance, but at over 400, the earth is sequestering much more of what we continue to add, leaving less and less for our long term benefit.

No one is concerned about running out of CO2 ( and certainly not worried about running out of Carbon, the 15th most abundant element on earth) on any human time scale, although on geologic time scales, atmospheric concentrations are slowly headed for levels so low that photosynthetic life will cease to exist.

What any rational, forward thinking person is concerned about, is that without burning fossil fuels, CO2 levels will quickly fall back to their preindustrial near starvation levels( and eventually, and inevitably, much lower), however, populations, and their expectation to maintain their current diets will not immediately fall back to preindustrial levels. This will be even worse if it happens to coincide with the next cyclical cooling event, which causes the oceans to naturally sequester more CO2 as they cool down.

The challenge will be to continue to produce enough food without the very real, very measurable benefits of the slightly increased levels of beneficial CO2 that we have grown accustomed to, and one of the reasons why so many (all) previous apocalyptic predictions of humans demise have failed so miserably.

We either need to find a way to maintain these elevated levels by liberating it from limestone, or we need to find a balance that stretches our predicted fossil fuel reserves out as long as possible to keep levels at the best compromise, until we figure out a better way. None of this is being discussed in official circles, no plans are being made, and we aren't even making an effort to decide what the optimal level might be. If fossil fuels are infinite, then we should likely aim for closer to 1000 ppm, if fossil fuels are nearly exhausted already, then 350 ppm or less is likely a good compromise.

Wow that is worth repeating AF5, you are right on the bit ! LIKE your answers!

[edl]

Carbon can not be created or destroyed it just cycles around at one time all the carbon in the ground on earth was on the surface