LET'S STOP BEING FOOLED WITH TREES

(and explain it to all your friends)

The United States and most affluent Western societies produce about twenty tons of carbon dioxide per year, per head of population. And the numbers are. A new growing forest produces about twenty cubic metres of wood per year, per hectare. Timber growth in rain forests can reach forty cubic metres, but all the tropical rain forests are already saturated and can't absorb any more CO2. Old trees are dying and rotting and turning back into carbon dioxide as fast as new trees sprout. Stability has been reached. That dump is full and can take no more. If a rainforest kept absorbing carbon, then after a few thousand, or even a few hundred years the forest floor should be metres deep, yards deep in carbon, but it's not. There is not even much humus in the soil. ( Forest Soils and Nutrient Cycles by Dr. Peter Attiwill and Prof. Geoffrey Leeper. University of Melbourne. Australia).

Wood has twice as much carbon as carbon dioxide but it's porous and less dense - that's why it floats. So we need to start a new forest and grow twenty cubic metres of wood per year to compensate for the twenty tons of CO2 we each produce.

In about thirty years the old trees start dying off. So forest growth stabilizes and ceases absorbing CO2. As a CO2 sink, our forest is full.

At age thirty each of us would need another empty hectare of land to plant and grow more trees for our next thirty years of CO2 production. Then the next generation would need their couple of hectares.

Humans on average have about 0.8 ha or two acres of agricultural land to live on and grow all their food and fiber. Trees as a carbon sink is a giant PR fabrication that suits the fossil fuel industries and the brain dead masses that believe their fiction and hug a tree.

"The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.".. Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf 1925.

But I prefer Lincoln "--- but you can not fool all of the people all of the time".

TREE AND FOREST CARBON SEQUESTRATION,

WORLD USE NUMBERS FOR WOOD, OIL, COAL AND BIOFUELS .

(Numbers and quantities are based on per year production or usage)

OIL

World petroleum production is 85,000,000 barrels per day

4.7 billion cubic metres per year

Oil composition, typical 85% Carbon. 12% Hydrogen. Density 0.85

REPLACED with ethanol: production from sugarcane and African Palm oil (ordinary common palm oil)

7500 litres per ha per year

Yield 4 tons per hectare of oil. Density 0.91 (algae gives even better yields)

4400 litres per ha per year

Biodiesel is a chemical blend of ethanol with a vegetable oil. To grow all the World's liquid fuel requirements, that's petrol, diesel, turbine fuel etc. would require the equivalent of a paddock 2600 kilometres square. (6,750,000 sq km)

We would need a 2600 km square

COAL

World coal production

4.4 billion cubic metres per year

Coal composition typical 85% Carbon, zero Hydrogen. Density 1.25

REPLACE mainly with nuclear energy. Zero carbon dioxide,

We would need negligible land area .

TIMBER

World commercial timber usage

1.7 billion cubic metres per year

World burnt for fuel, cooking, etc.

2.3 billion cubic metres per year

Total wood use

4 billion cubic metres per year

Planted forest wood production is approximately 20 cubic metres per ha (tropical rain forests 44 cubic metres per ha per year) To produce all the World's commercial timber requirements requires the equivalent of a paddock 900 km square (850,000 sq km)

That's 0.015 hectares per human being. We use and need a 900 km square

CARBON DIOXIDE SEQUESTRATION WITH TREES

OIL . Sequester carbon into trees you need to grow, THREE litres of wood for every ONE litre of coal consumed. The World would need a paddock 2650 km square of newly planted trees

That's 1.00 hectares per human being . We would WASTE a 2650 km square

COAL Sequester carbon into trees you need to grow, FOUR litres wood for every ONE litre of coal consumed. The World would need a paddock 3000 km square of newly planted trees

That's 1.5 hectares per human being. We would WASTE a 3000 km square

To do this for coal and oil, world wood production becomes

32 billion cubic metres per year

With total usage only

4 billion cubic metres. per year

That means growing every year 18.8 times world commercial timber requirements .

That's 17 times over supply every year .

Or eight times all the World's total wood use .

COST Cheap timber costs about $150 per cubic metre, that's 15 cents per litre

15 cents times three, then times 159, adds an extra $71 to the price of a barrel of oil.

15 cents times four times 1000 adds $600 to the price of a cubic metre of coal

A paddock big enough to grow the trees necessary to sequest our petroleum use for one thirty years period, is big enough to replace them with biofuels for ever.

It's illogical, it's fictional and it's dangerous to believe that trees and forests can ever be a meaningful carbon sink.