Community | January 31, 2009 | 6 comments

Dumping Crops at Sea = Answer to Global Warming?

source: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/01/30/carbon-sequestration.html

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crazykatlady
A new study suggests there is a second harvest to be had from America's vast bread basket, too -- one that could be an answer to global warming.

Sucked from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and sequestered in leftover husks and stalks are 150 million tons of carbon. Scientists now claim that all we need to do is toss them to the bottom of the sea, and a huge quantity of greenhouse gases be banished at a stroke.

Simply harvest about 30 percent of the straw and corn stalks left on the field after harvest, ship it out to sea on barges, weight it down, and dump in by the ton into the cold, dark depths of the Gulf of Mexico.

If the process is mimicked for farms and crops around the world, Strand and Benford estimate their method would remove a total of 600 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year. That takes into consideration fossil fuels needed to transport the plant mass, which they think will emit 8 tons of carbon for every 100 tons they bury at sea. Worldwide, humanity's penchant for burning fossil fuels emits 8 billion tons into the atmosphere a year.
  1. groups:
    Community,   Green,   Science
  2. tags:
    News,  Green,  Science,  Global Warming
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6 comments // Dumping Crops at Sea = Answer to Global Warming?

  • TabulaRasa
  • everydayxangels
    • 0
      everydayxangels  

    • This seems dangerous. I'm not an expert on global warming, but I am familiar with the fact that when we try to fix things, we over compensate and end up in a worse position than before. We know so little about oceans, particularly the deepest depths of them. We always seem to act to hastily without thinking things through.

      The sea soaks up so much carbon already. Plankton eat up the carbon from the atmosphere. Too much carbon in the oceans already is the reason why coral reefs are becoming bleached.

      Global warming is a big cycle, and we seem to be thinking only of the tiniest portion of it. This seems very risky.

    • 3 years ago
  • TReaper405
    • 0
      TReaper405  

    • I read about the tubes in this article from Popular Science.

      Also now that i go back and read up on them again I'm not so sure they would be good applied here.

    • 3 years ago
  • seamoore420
  • TReaper405
  • seamoore420
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