Ecologist Thomas Crowther’s research inspired countless tree-planting campaigns, greenwashing, and attacks from scientists. Now he’s back with a new plan for nature restoration.
I might be dum dum, but seems like you need to combine cutting down trees with planting them, furniture and houses are carbon sinks for 100 years. Forest sans intervention doesn't actively sink carbon that much, its in balance via forest fires. (Not active deforestation, but combining forest fire fighting with using the damn things)
Although usa does build those weird 6 storied wooden buildings
In theory you can sink carbon rapidly by converting less carbon-sink-y land to forest and getting a bunch of carbon absorbed into new plants before it eventually reaches a new, lower-atmospheric-C steady state where some carbon is being drawn into long-term carbon sinks like humates and the rest is turning over. But the math on that is really iffy and requires actually establishing a forest rather than putting in a bunch of seedlings that will be mostly dead in 3-5 years.
Mass timber is a good option for making them better forms of carbon sequestration but that's going to be a relatively minor contribution to the amount we'd need to draw down to stay in the atmosphere's good graces.
I wonder how much CO2 the world could sink in a few decades if the rest of the developing world went on a Chinese-style construction boom but with mass timber instead of concrete. 🤔
Based on this life cycle assessment, a single 12-story, roughly 8,000 sq meter mass timber building would sequester nearly 2 tons of CO2, and per the Fed (ymmv), China's been producing roughly 50 MM sq m/month, which works out to ~139 kilotons/year.
I might be dum dum, but seems like you need to combine cutting down trees with planting them, furniture and houses are carbon sinks for 100 years. Forest sans intervention doesn't actively sink carbon that much, its in balance via forest fires. (Not active deforestation, but combining forest fire fighting with using the damn things)
Although usa does build those weird 6 storied wooden buildings
In theory you can sink carbon rapidly by converting less carbon-sink-y land to forest and getting a bunch of carbon absorbed into new plants before it eventually reaches a new, lower-atmospheric-C steady state where some carbon is being drawn into long-term carbon sinks like humates and the rest is turning over. But the math on that is really iffy and requires actually establishing a forest rather than putting in a bunch of seedlings that will be mostly dead in 3-5 years.
Those 4- and 5-over-1s are mostly petroleum
Mass timber is a good option for making them better forms of carbon sequestration but that's going to be a relatively minor contribution to the amount we'd need to draw down to stay in the atmosphere's good graces.
I wonder how much CO2 the world could sink in a few decades if the rest of the developing world went on a Chinese-style construction boom but with mass timber instead of concrete. 🤔
Based on this life cycle assessment, a single 12-story, roughly 8,000 sq meter mass timber building would sequester nearly 2 tons of CO2, and per the Fed (ymmv), China's been producing roughly 50 MM sq m/month, which works out to ~139 kilotons/year.
Oh, that's nothing. 😅
Whoops, I misread. It's 1.84 kilotons per building, so 154 megatons per year, plus roughly the same in mitigated emissions. Exponents amirite
Out of like 30 gigatons annually so still nothing 😭