Forest scientists have determined that degraded forests sequester more carbon than mature forests. Fully mature forests are losing carbon at about the same rate as they absorb carbon. But clearcut forest, 20 years after cutting, absorbs 11 times as much carbon (3.05 Mg C ha−1 yr−1) as old growth (0.28 Mg C ha−1 yr−1). Although this is not a popular solution. Might it work?
Poorter, L., Bongers, F., Aide, T. M., Almeyda Zambrano, A. M., Balvanera, P., Becknell, J. M., ... & Rozendaal, D. (2016). Biomass resilience of Neotropical secondary forests. Nature, 530(7589), 211-214.
You're making a mistake in analysis here, unless you have more evidence. The source you give is a study of tropical forests, so you can't extend it to the boreal forests that Rockstrom is writing about above. Furthermore, the study you cite claims that "considerable uncertainty remains about the rate of biomass recovery in secondary forests" [in the tropics] and that "Aboveground biomass recovery after 20 years varied 11.3-fold (from 20 to 225 Mg ha−1) across sites, and this recovery increased with water availability (higher local rainfall and lower climatic water deficit)." Thus, hard to draw a massive generalization from this study.
It is likely tht boreal forests would show a slower rate of recovery after clear-cutting, as opposed to tropical forests. Other than that the model should fit. Yes, there is uncertainty, but the result makes logical sense given what we know about growth rates of immature vs mature forests.
I wouldn't bet on it, because of the much slower rate and the fragility of the ecosystem--clear cutting may wipe out a lot of the microbes, plants, and fungi that add to a forest system's capacity to store carbon.
But old growth forests have nearly zero net carbon sequestration because decomposition rate matches addition of wood. trees stop growing vertically when they reach canopy.
The only way to overcome Odums paradox is to change the inputs, at the moment we are changing them for the worse but a change for the better will by definition allow for a new equilibrium to be reached, I would not even be looking at the forests but the degraded and semi arid land which are all part of the hydraulic, heat and nutrient cycle. It is easier in some regards to change the dynamics here for the better and the flow on effects will change the dynamics for all interrelated systems. Simple low levee water spreading and slow release levees on flat semi arid areas allow greater water penetration and biomass accumulation enhancing the bioprecipitation cycle and cooling the planet. These levees some less than a foot high are being trialed in inland NE Australia with great success boosting soil co2 many fold and rehydrating huge sections and are set to be expanded to hundreds of thousands of acres. Think of all the semi arid flat land around the world and if we add selective seed to animals supplementary food we could help direct revegetation in the most desirable directions. What much of our grazing land lacks is timely precipitation and this as a focus through prioritizing water as a key ingredient could allow for increased productivity and subsequent reforestation without the loss of output. Our atmospheric rivers are our best remedy and we need to both enhance their viability and learn how best to interact with them for more preferential biological inputs.
Great to hear more voices that balance GHG mitigation with biosphere regeneration, Ugo!
A few points.
First, let's distinguish 'plantations' (same age, monoculture, often sprayed with chemicals) from 'forests' (bio-diverse, mixed age, no spray). As the climate has started warming, plantations are burning like tinder. Not a good sequestration strategy.
Second, forests are about more than GHG mitigation, as Ugo elaborated in previous posts. A parking lot with a few piles of logs may store the same carbon as a mature forest, but all climate variables behave differently (temp, evapotranspiration, albedo, clouds). Changing these climate variables means changing the climate - totally separate from the GHGs. More attention is needed to how our actions are changing the climate variables directly. If landuse causes urban heat islands, desertification, continental heat domes, that is also climate change. As our world is warming, I'd rather live in a region with old-growth forest than in desert/monocultures/concrete. It's cooler.
Third, too many climate activists (not you, Ugo!) are arguing as if GHG mitigation and "vibrantly living climate landscapes" are either-or pathways. PIK has a relatively narrow mandate to talk about GHG concentrations; they define climate change mainly as "human GHG emission-driven global warming". Unfortunately, many policies that are derived from such "GHG tunnel vision" now promote desertification/deforestation in the name of GHG mitigation. For example, biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel, aviation fuel, wood pallets) are currently driving global demand for land conversion - population demand for food and feed is met by yield increases, so land demand without biofuels is actual decreasing. That's bad for Agro-Profits, and for land speculation profits. So forests are being converted - due to flawed accounting around biofuels, and corrupt policies that turn (self-cooling) forests into (runaway-heating) bare soil mono-cultures. We really need to pay more attention to these interactions, and stop hiding behind our political affiliation.
So yes - mitigation is key and reforestation cannot do it all. Let's make sure we don't mitigate at the expense of biosphere vibrancy. Forests are more than carbon sinks - they are also airconditioning units, biodiversity havens, and a core organ of Gaia.
There is one other issue: We still need a lot of trees: as materials . Energy is not our problem, in a fossil fuel free era, but materials are , among others to collect and store energy. The only option is then to start with trees, to collect a energy source from outside a closed system to create food, energy and materials, as a start . As it has always been, direct of indirectly.
Producing materials from CO2 via polymerization is in its early stages but promising already. Prioritizing that technology can leave the forests intact.
If US oligarchs were to develop all suitable land in Death Valley, the region could potentially support up to 140 GW of solar power capacity under optimal conditions.
This is a rough estimate and assumes maximum feasible land use, solar panel efficiency, and ideal weather conditions. Real-world figures could vary due to factors like terrain, construction limits, grid connection, and environmental considerations.
Would you like to dive into some more specifics about how this might affect energy supply or the broader implications of such a large-scale project?
---
Final Estimate for the Atacama Desert Using Molten Salt Thermal Solar:
If 80% of the Atacama Desert (84,000 km²) were used for thermal solar power using molten salt storage, it could potentially generate up to 612 GW of installed capacity under ideal conditions.
Key Advantages of Thermal Solar with Molten Salt:
Energy Storage: Molten salt can store thermal energy for several hours to days, allowing the plant to generate power even at night or on cloudy days. This solves the problem of intermittency seen with photovoltaic panels, where energy production is directly tied to sunlight availability.
Higher Efficiency: CSP with molten salt is generally more efficient for large-scale energy generation because it can achieve higher temperatures (up to 1000°C), increasing the efficiency of the steam turbines that generate electricity.
Dispatchable Power: Because molten salt can store energy and release it when needed, thermal solar plants can provide consistent, dispatchable power. This means they can be a reliable source of baseload power, unlike some renewable sources like solar and wind, which are subject to weather patterns.
---
3. Comparison:
The cost of the Atacama thermal solar power project is $3.06 trillion USD, which is higher than global military expenditure in 2023, which stands at around $2.2 trillion USD.
Atacama Project vs. Global Military Expenditure:
3.06 trillion USD
2.2 trillion USD
≈ 1.39
This means that the Atacama Desert thermal solar power project would cost approximately 1.39 times more than the total global military expenditure for one year.
4. Context:
Global military expenditure covers the costs of maintaining and operating militaries across the world, including the development of weapons, personnel, infrastructure, logistics, and more.
The Atacama thermal solar power project would be a one-time investment for a massive renewable energy infrastructure, providing long-term benefits such as energy production and carbon emission reductions for decades to come.
True, such projects also require a fresh look on transportation of power. As this would be a long term project, undersea cables could be used and there's enough experience to scale them up.
European distances of 137 to 460 kilometers are entirely dwarfed by the one that would be needed to connect the Atacama desert project to the southern US-border. Imho, technically or feven financially (the US having to shoulder a debt of about 34 T USD) not feasible, neither by land, nor by sea. Maybe Musk et.al. can get into it and offer some potent force-fields & laser-beams using satellites as a relay station in stationary orbit (jus in case he survives physically during the next 4 yrs...) ...
But let's get the US education system fixed in the 1st. place ...🤞🤞🤞
Btw: another desert project, having Europeans dreaming about Sahara-based PV-fields either in Algeria or Libya was discarded due to transmission problems/cost; even having much shorter distances.
These simplified models may give us some guidance as to what's possible, but real life will be completely different--the complexity of these types of projects make them hard to predict up front. Much smaller prototypes would be the logical first step.
Right now, my understanding is that flawed GHG mitigation policies (wood-to-energy, biofuels) have become the main driver of biodiversity destruction (forest conversion, soil degradation). Because these flawed policies are tipping land markets from "saturation" to "infinite demand for land". That's good for land speculators and bad for nature.
Meanwhile, we all experience that a parking lot or bare field is hotter than a nearby forest. That's shading, transpiration cooling, and - at scale - cloud interferences by the forest. We are literally turning our forests into a parking lot, claim that this is necessary as a "climate mitigation policy", and are in denial of how deforestation changes regional climate. We need to call this denial out. Cow manure!
Forest scientists have determined that degraded forests sequester more carbon than mature forests. Fully mature forests are losing carbon at about the same rate as they absorb carbon. But clearcut forest, 20 years after cutting, absorbs 11 times as much carbon (3.05 Mg C ha−1 yr−1) as old growth (0.28 Mg C ha−1 yr−1). Although this is not a popular solution. Might it work?
Poorter, L., Bongers, F., Aide, T. M., Almeyda Zambrano, A. M., Balvanera, P., Becknell, J. M., ... & Rozendaal, D. (2016). Biomass resilience of Neotropical secondary forests. Nature, 530(7589), 211-214.
You're making a mistake in analysis here, unless you have more evidence. The source you give is a study of tropical forests, so you can't extend it to the boreal forests that Rockstrom is writing about above. Furthermore, the study you cite claims that "considerable uncertainty remains about the rate of biomass recovery in secondary forests" [in the tropics] and that "Aboveground biomass recovery after 20 years varied 11.3-fold (from 20 to 225 Mg ha−1) across sites, and this recovery increased with water availability (higher local rainfall and lower climatic water deficit)." Thus, hard to draw a massive generalization from this study.
It is likely tht boreal forests would show a slower rate of recovery after clear-cutting, as opposed to tropical forests. Other than that the model should fit. Yes, there is uncertainty, but the result makes logical sense given what we know about growth rates of immature vs mature forests.
I wouldn't bet on it, because of the much slower rate and the fragility of the ecosystem--clear cutting may wipe out a lot of the microbes, plants, and fungi that add to a forest system's capacity to store carbon.
But old growth forests have nearly zero net carbon sequestration because decomposition rate matches addition of wood. trees stop growing vertically when they reach canopy.
The only way to overcome Odums paradox is to change the inputs, at the moment we are changing them for the worse but a change for the better will by definition allow for a new equilibrium to be reached, I would not even be looking at the forests but the degraded and semi arid land which are all part of the hydraulic, heat and nutrient cycle. It is easier in some regards to change the dynamics here for the better and the flow on effects will change the dynamics for all interrelated systems. Simple low levee water spreading and slow release levees on flat semi arid areas allow greater water penetration and biomass accumulation enhancing the bioprecipitation cycle and cooling the planet. These levees some less than a foot high are being trialed in inland NE Australia with great success boosting soil co2 many fold and rehydrating huge sections and are set to be expanded to hundreds of thousands of acres. Think of all the semi arid flat land around the world and if we add selective seed to animals supplementary food we could help direct revegetation in the most desirable directions. What much of our grazing land lacks is timely precipitation and this as a focus through prioritizing water as a key ingredient could allow for increased productivity and subsequent reforestation without the loss of output. Our atmospheric rivers are our best remedy and we need to both enhance their viability and learn how best to interact with them for more preferential biological inputs.
Any economy that burns fossil fuels will overrun any economy which does not.
We will have to adapt to the consequences of that.
We can preserve and start to expand forests within that reality of human political economy.
It is up to each of us to do what we can personally do.
Great to hear more voices that balance GHG mitigation with biosphere regeneration, Ugo!
A few points.
First, let's distinguish 'plantations' (same age, monoculture, often sprayed with chemicals) from 'forests' (bio-diverse, mixed age, no spray). As the climate has started warming, plantations are burning like tinder. Not a good sequestration strategy.
Second, forests are about more than GHG mitigation, as Ugo elaborated in previous posts. A parking lot with a few piles of logs may store the same carbon as a mature forest, but all climate variables behave differently (temp, evapotranspiration, albedo, clouds). Changing these climate variables means changing the climate - totally separate from the GHGs. More attention is needed to how our actions are changing the climate variables directly. If landuse causes urban heat islands, desertification, continental heat domes, that is also climate change. As our world is warming, I'd rather live in a region with old-growth forest than in desert/monocultures/concrete. It's cooler.
Third, too many climate activists (not you, Ugo!) are arguing as if GHG mitigation and "vibrantly living climate landscapes" are either-or pathways. PIK has a relatively narrow mandate to talk about GHG concentrations; they define climate change mainly as "human GHG emission-driven global warming". Unfortunately, many policies that are derived from such "GHG tunnel vision" now promote desertification/deforestation in the name of GHG mitigation. For example, biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel, aviation fuel, wood pallets) are currently driving global demand for land conversion - population demand for food and feed is met by yield increases, so land demand without biofuels is actual decreasing. That's bad for Agro-Profits, and for land speculation profits. So forests are being converted - due to flawed accounting around biofuels, and corrupt policies that turn (self-cooling) forests into (runaway-heating) bare soil mono-cultures. We really need to pay more attention to these interactions, and stop hiding behind our political affiliation.
So yes - mitigation is key and reforestation cannot do it all. Let's make sure we don't mitigate at the expense of biosphere vibrancy. Forests are more than carbon sinks - they are also airconditioning units, biodiversity havens, and a core organ of Gaia.
The amount of 11 Gt/y CO2 addition by human activity might be too optimistic. An AI mentions 22Gt and the article below, 51 Gt.
https://pics.uvic.ca/gigatons-carbon-dioxide-able-be-stored-ocean-basalt/
There is one other issue: We still need a lot of trees: as materials . Energy is not our problem, in a fossil fuel free era, but materials are , among others to collect and store energy. The only option is then to start with trees, to collect a energy source from outside a closed system to create food, energy and materials, as a start . As it has always been, direct of indirectly.
Producing materials from CO2 via polymerization is in its early stages but promising already. Prioritizing that technology can leave the forests intact.
https://www.prescouter.com/2020/03/carbon-dioxide-based-polymers-turning-carbon-emissions-into-plastic/
where does the energy come from ( without fossils) ?
Copying a few lines from AI:
---
Final Estimate:
If US oligarchs were to develop all suitable land in Death Valley, the region could potentially support up to 140 GW of solar power capacity under optimal conditions.
This is a rough estimate and assumes maximum feasible land use, solar panel efficiency, and ideal weather conditions. Real-world figures could vary due to factors like terrain, construction limits, grid connection, and environmental considerations.
Would you like to dive into some more specifics about how this might affect energy supply or the broader implications of such a large-scale project?
---
Final Estimate for the Atacama Desert Using Molten Salt Thermal Solar:
If 80% of the Atacama Desert (84,000 km²) were used for thermal solar power using molten salt storage, it could potentially generate up to 612 GW of installed capacity under ideal conditions.
Key Advantages of Thermal Solar with Molten Salt:
Energy Storage: Molten salt can store thermal energy for several hours to days, allowing the plant to generate power even at night or on cloudy days. This solves the problem of intermittency seen with photovoltaic panels, where energy production is directly tied to sunlight availability.
Higher Efficiency: CSP with molten salt is generally more efficient for large-scale energy generation because it can achieve higher temperatures (up to 1000°C), increasing the efficiency of the steam turbines that generate electricity.
Dispatchable Power: Because molten salt can store energy and release it when needed, thermal solar plants can provide consistent, dispatchable power. This means they can be a reliable source of baseload power, unlike some renewable sources like solar and wind, which are subject to weather patterns.
---
3. Comparison:
The cost of the Atacama thermal solar power project is $3.06 trillion USD, which is higher than global military expenditure in 2023, which stands at around $2.2 trillion USD.
Atacama Project vs. Global Military Expenditure:
3.06 trillion USD
2.2 trillion USD
≈ 1.39
This means that the Atacama Desert thermal solar power project would cost approximately 1.39 times more than the total global military expenditure for one year.
4. Context:
Global military expenditure covers the costs of maintaining and operating militaries across the world, including the development of weapons, personnel, infrastructure, logistics, and more.
The Atacama thermal solar power project would be a one-time investment for a massive renewable energy infrastructure, providing long-term benefits such as energy production and carbon emission reductions for decades to come.
Atacama desert.
Nice project, but in Northern Chile whereas its most voracious consumers reside in the US ...
True, such projects also require a fresh look on transportation of power. As this would be a long term project, undersea cables could be used and there's enough experience to scale them up.
https://www.youris.com/energy/gallery/undersea-hvdc-cables-discovering-some-of-the-worlds-top-power-interconnections.kl
Many thanks for the link !!!
European distances of 137 to 460 kilometers are entirely dwarfed by the one that would be needed to connect the Atacama desert project to the southern US-border. Imho, technically or feven financially (the US having to shoulder a debt of about 34 T USD) not feasible, neither by land, nor by sea. Maybe Musk et.al. can get into it and offer some potent force-fields & laser-beams using satellites as a relay station in stationary orbit (jus in case he survives physically during the next 4 yrs...) ...
But let's get the US education system fixed in the 1st. place ...🤞🤞🤞
Btw: another desert project, having Europeans dreaming about Sahara-based PV-fields either in Algeria or Libya was discarded due to transmission problems/cost; even having much shorter distances.
These simplified models may give us some guidance as to what's possible, but real life will be completely different--the complexity of these types of projects make them hard to predict up front. Much smaller prototypes would be the logical first step.
Real world example:
https://reneweconomy.com.au/worlds-biggest-csp-plant-with-tallest-solar-power-tower-inaugurated-in-dubai/
again: where does the energy and material come from, without using fossil fuels?
to construct it, in case that was not clear
How far in the history of the universe you want to go back?
Right now, my understanding is that flawed GHG mitigation policies (wood-to-energy, biofuels) have become the main driver of biodiversity destruction (forest conversion, soil degradation). Because these flawed policies are tipping land markets from "saturation" to "infinite demand for land". That's good for land speculators and bad for nature.
Meanwhile, we all experience that a parking lot or bare field is hotter than a nearby forest. That's shading, transpiration cooling, and - at scale - cloud interferences by the forest. We are literally turning our forests into a parking lot, claim that this is necessary as a "climate mitigation policy", and are in denial of how deforestation changes regional climate. We need to call this denial out. Cow manure!