HR: 1205h
AN: U42A-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Carbon Sequestration via Wood Burial
AU: * Zeng, N
EM: zeng@atmos.umd.edu
AF: University of Maryland, Dept. of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science and Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, College Park, MD 20742, United States
AB: To mitigate global climate change, a portfolio of strategies will be needed to keep the atmospheric CO2 concentration below a dangerous level. Here a carbon sequestration strategy is proposed in which forest dead wood or old trees are harvested via collection or selective cutting, then buried in trenches or stowed away in above-ground shelters. The largely anaerobic condition under a sufficiently thick layer of soil will prevent the decomposition of the buried wood. Because a large flux of CO2 is constantly being assimilated into the world's forests via photosynthesis, cutting off its return pathway to the atmosphere forms an effective carbon sink. It was estimated that the carbon sequestration potential of forest wood harvest and burial is 10GtC y-1 with an uncertainty range of 5-15 GtC y-1. Based on data from North American logging industry, the cost was crudely estimated at $50/tC, significantly lower than the cost for power plant CO2 capture with geological storage, a carbon sequestration technique currently under most serious consideration. The low cost is largely because the CO2 capture is achieved at little cost by the natural process of photosynthesis. The technique is low tech, distributed, safe and can be stopped or reversed at any time. The relatively low cost may soon be competitive enough for large-scale implementation in a world-wide carbon trading market. In tropical regions with ongoing deforestation, wood burial instead of burning will immediately reduce that portion of the anthropogenic CO2 emission.
DE: 0400 BIOGEOSCIENCES
DE: 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE
SC: Union [U]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting