Carbon Offsetting

The Carbon Offsetting Company – CO2Co™

It is becoming popular for public figures to buy “carbon offsets.”  These are compensations for having burned carbon in private jets, SUV’s and other internal combustion extravagances.    
   

The usual offset is tree planting, but few are documented and many such operations are suspected to be fraudulent.  We expect new legislation on that point soon as none of these organizations will be able to show dedicated tree plantings adequate to offset carbon in the manner advertised. 

           The prototype tree planted is a pine because they are fast growing, but from seedling to a significant tree is ten years.  They live about 60 years and are then harvested for wood, pulp for paper or peeled for plywood.

            In its' prime a pine tree is from one to two feet in diameter and grows about a foot a year.  It is a long cone shape and has about an equal volume of limb and twig wood.  The total volume of grown wood is about six cubic feet or 186 pounds of it which includes a little over 80 lbs of captured carbon.

            The average US automobile burns about 1,000 gallons of gasoline per year putting about 5000 pounds of carbon in the air.  If a tree sequesters 80 pounds it takes 63 trees to account for one automobile.  And, the typical family has two plus uses enough energy to account for another one or two. Thus, the idea of "planting a tree to account for your carbon footprint," is ridiculous.  For a typical family we would need to plant 250 trees and there is not enough land for growing trees to take care of the 60 million vehicles and 75 millions homes.  With planting and tending costs of only $20 per tree we would need $5,000 per family to account for their carbon footprint dealing with it in this manner.

            Where so many buyers of such offsets are public figures this could become a source of many scandals, but most of the carbon offset buyers are left-wing liberals so the press will quash the stories.  There is a limit to how many trees can be planted securely or in a way that guarantees maturity.  Anything short of this will constitute fraud.

             Precipitated carbon black is perfect for offsetting as it can be buried for soil amending and guaranteed to remain in perpetuity.  It does not oxidize.  This should ameliorate the guilt of any private jet owning green or limousine liberal as well as comprise an easily documented business. 

              The Carbon Offsetting Company can sell certified carbon offset documents stating that it has put a certain amount of elemental carbon into bad soil of a certain location for a named client in return for X dollars.  The certificate should be suitable for framing and may be put on the wall of the properly shamed carbon “bigfoot” in order that he may feel welcome at Sierra Club meetings.  Publication of client names should drive customers to the rolls of Carbon Offsetting, Inc.

The Economics

A gallon of gasoline contains almost exactly five pounds of carbon.  It the average car owner drives 15,000 miles/year getting 15 miles/gallon in his SUV then he is using 1,000 gallons and putting 5,000 pounds of carbon in the air.  We can offset his carbon footprint by burying 5,000 pounds of carbon recovered from a chimney for a charge of $1 per pound burying and mixing it in Nevada alkali soil, give him a very nice certificate with a gold seal on it for his office wall, the landowner a big bill for recovering his land and everybody is happy.

Permanent CO2 Delivery Installations

We recommend installing a manifold and ranks of underground tubing in the manner of a drip system, but under ground for alternating CO2 and water distribution.  A 12 to 18 inch depth seems ideal as seeds are installed at a few inches.  The actual depth varies from one plant species to another, but the CO2 must be released at a depth sufficient to insure capture by moisture present in the soil.   The technology of the new systems is sufficiently like the old above-ground systems that no great difficulties are anticipated installing the systems.

            We have designed a stomata-like valve for CO2 and water dispensing with the idea it will make very long lines for crop rows practical.  The ideal crop row is long because there is time loss with equipment having to turn around at the end, but very long water and gas delivery lines give much more to the end near the source than at the end of the line.  Our valve is made with a permeable plastic that swells shut after a certain amount of water or gas passes through.  If we can design these valves sufficiently well they will all shut when the correct amount of gas or fluid has passed and we can use the rise in pressure to signal a shutoff.

Plants give good indication of their condition with color and curl of leaves.  The broad-leafed plants are easy to read.  If they need water or CO2 the leaves will curl at the edges obviously.  Corn and wheat are not such good indicators.  The leaves curl when they are distressed, but it is harder to see as they are normally curled.  If they turn brown the plant is pretty well gone so we will have developed monitoring systems to determine the frequency and quantities of water and gas needed for optimum growth.

Gas The Pests

Drip systems save water by controlling weeds dehydrating them only inches from watered plants.  An underground design would control weeds, rodents and insect pests if row crops were planted directly over the watering and CO2 fertilizing tubes.  The gas will chase or suffocate rodents and insects in the root perimeter.  Water and gas are dispensed in a way and in quantities that limit both to the area normally covered by the roots. Cutting water beyond the plant root perimeter dries weeds to extinction for total pest and weed control as a benefit.  

The Donut Valve

        Taking a cue from stomata, a donut-shaped valve of permeable plastic that swells on soaking with carbon dioxide or water could be used in a large field system employing long underground tubes or pipes for carbon dioxide gas or water.  Water and carbon dioxide molecules have charge polarity, but water has a boiling point for a molecular weight of 100 grams/mole.  This suggests a water allotrope with five or six water molecules as the likely form. Other properties, like expansion on freezing and crystallization patterns indicate the existence of molecular allotropic forms to support the idea.

          Micropore Plastics of Tucker, GA makes a plastic that will probably work in this application, but it has not been tested for the CO2 reaction.  A plastic permeable to such a large water molecule should behave similarly to carbon dioxide where water is 509 times as dense as CO2.  The gas will more easily enter the plastic.  Such material should swell on exposure to water or CO2 and constrict or stop the flow after sufficient exposure to entrain enough water or gas.  When dispersal stops diffusion will empty the donut and open the valve in due course.

In use the openings near the source manifold would soak first and swell shut as long as the gas or water continued to pass as it progressively constricted to reduce flow so the bulk of the gas or water in the tube would continue on.  This would permit the tubes to be several hundred feet long and function well enough to water or gas the area evenly from one manifold instead of many thus reducing cost of installation and maintenance.

          For fixed injection applications the use of carbon powder slurry is not recommended for the water/CO2 manifold system.  Elemental carbon does not migrate as it is insoluble.  All carbon amendments to soil should be done before piping is put in place or between the rows if advantageous.  Accurate end markers could guide robot seeding, weeding and spraying equipment to place seeds directly over the tubes in the soil.

Robot Farming

  With accurate field navigation controlled by row end posts it will be possible to service SCAF fields by keeping rolling injectors in the channels between the rows with the work done entirely by tractor robots.  This will be less expensive at the onset of carbon dioxide supplementation, but once the concept is profitable it will be advantageous to install permanent underground systems as they place the gas or water directly under the plants at lower servicing cost.

 Weeds and pests can better be controlled with gas and water injection under the plants as this keeps the row areas between dry and unfertilized.  But, equipment working between the rows can be made inexpensively to get the concept in the fields.  Of necessity it will use more CO2 as areas between the plants will have to be saturated with the gas in order to insure diffusion to the plants.

  In the case of recovering soils we will need to plow and treat the entire field once for carbon amending.  Where carbon does not migrate or diffuse we cannot achieve amending without full deep plowing.  Once settled the field can be set up for robot farming with stakes or whatever positioning technology is available.

Soil Recovery

  

Soil poisoned by alkali can be recovered by the addition of carbon and carbon dioxide where the latter lowers soil pH toward neutral when H2CO3 acid is formed.  It also forms insoluble carbonates from calcium, iron and heavy metal salts further sequestering carbon as well as keeping poisonous ions from plants in a double benefit.  CO2 injection will recover soil lost to years of irrigation salt accumulation by forming insoluble carbonates with H2CO3.  There are thousands of such acres in the south western United States.  

           The online publication, “The Future Pundit” issue of 2/17/2004 has a statement by Dr. William Schlesinger, Professor of Biochemistry and Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences.  He wrote: “One advantage the plants may have in dry years is that with more CO2 in the atmosphere the leaves do not have to open their pores as much to let in the CO2.  This reduces water loss from evaporation and allows plants to grow in dry environments.  This explanation has been put forward to explain plant growth into the Negev desert in Israel.”  Following that lead we found the following by Randall Parker in “Engineering Environmental,” a professional publication.

“Rehovot, Israel — May 8, 2003 —  The Negev research station is the most arid site in a worldwide network (FluxNet) established by scientists to investigate carbon dioxide absorption by plants.  ….the Yatir (desert) forest is growing at a relatively quick pace, and is even expanding further into the desert.

         Why would a forest grow so well on arid land, countering all expect-ations (“It wouldn’t have even been planted there had scientists been consulted,”) the answer, the team suggests, might be found in the way plants address one of their eternal dilemmas. Plants need carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, which leads to the production of sugars. But to obtain it, they must open pores in their leaves and consequently lose large quantities of water to evaporation. The plant must decide which it needs more: water or carbon dioxide. Yakir suggests that the 30 percent increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the start of the industrial revolution eases the plant’s dilemma. Under such conditions, the plant doesn’t have to fully open the pores for carbon dioxide to seep in – a relatively small opening is sufficient. Consequently, less water escapes the plant’s pores. This efficient water preservation technique keeps moisture in the ground, allowing forests to grow in areas that previously were too dry.”

        In a study published by Jurik, et al in 1984, experiments with Big Tooth aspen leaves showed that CO2 supplemented plants had much higher heat tolerance than those in the then normal 325 ppm CO2 environment.  Where most of the land we recover for agriculture will be in drier hotter lands this is a very important finding.  (See Stomata Function for the details.)

Concept Confirmed

          This fits in perfectly with what we have observed experimentally and found in the literature.  Where SCAF puts carbon dioxide to soil moisture the demand for water will be substantially reduced as transpiration falls in response to root borne carbon dioxide.

National Security

Without benefits like those from SCAF, carbon sequestration will bring a great depression on the United States and Europe just as did the Smoot-Hawley legislation in 1929.  China, India and all of Africa are exempt from carbon sequestering under the Kyoto Treaty and gain a large economic advantage.  Therefore, SCAF has serious national security, economic and political implications.  Without this process it is clear to us that America would collapse under the weight of international socialist environmental treaties. 

           It is now clear that we have a faction of the Democrat Party that seeks defeat and collapse for America thinking the people will turn to them after we have failed.  History shows that never happens.  From the collapse of the Weimer Republic Germany fell to Hitler.  Earlier Tsarist Russia fell to the communists and Josef Stalin. Such are the rules of statecraft since Rome. With SCAF, we have not only a new and exportable technology but one to continue our lead in the world.

           There are no greater weapons than food, fiber and fuel.  They are what wars are all about.  They are the basis of world commerce.  It is the value of grain in terms of local currency that sets the value of foreign currency.  If a bushel of corn sells for $4 in America and 500 Yen in Japan then the Dollar is worth 125 Yen or four Deutshmarks where a bushel of corn costs 16 Dm and so on around the world.  No longer is gold the standard.  Grain is what makes the world work and SCAF could factor our grain production by three to five between the improved outputs of existing lands, the recovery of lost lands and farming of lands never before in production.

                                            Atomic Metering

 Carbon 14 is generated in air from nitrogen by cosmic rays knocking a proton out of nitrogen atoms to leave an unstable carbon isotope, C14.  Half of it decays in 5700 years.  This fact is used to date material that has lived as the radiation declines at a regular rate. Radiation from C14 is so weak the dating procedure is usable only to 38,000 BC.  At that point the C14 decay product alpha particle count drops below the shieldable background count and this stops the “clock” for all date determining purposes.

The rate of carbon 14 production was constant until nuclear weapons were used in the atmosphere.  Fission and fusion explosions create carbon 14 from nitrogen much as do cosmic rays from space. In the 50’s the amount of C14 in the air was doubled.  Nuclear bomb test C14 spikes are thus discounted in carbon 14 dating.  The technology is calibrated on the amount of carbon 14 present in samples of known age.  From data curves are plotted, equations written and projections made.  Test sample radiation counts are compared with data curves to estimate the sample’s age.

Carbon 14  SCAF Efficiency Metric 

Carbon dating technology overlooks any carbon not coming from the atmosphere.  This is the case because carbon dioxide from fossil fuels has no isotopic C14.  Materials including such carbon appear to be much older than they actually are as they produce less radiation and are thus placed further down the decay data curve.  But, we can use this to determine SCAF effectiveness by reading the radioactivity of contemporary plants fertilized by sequestered carbon and comparing it with untreated controls.

Measuring Effectiveness

            A greater relative decline in C14 indicates more carbon dioxide is delivered to the plants as what we deliver has no radioactivity. The procedure only requires looking at the data from a known age and then defining carbon acquisition the variable.

Row Crop Fertilization

Deep subsoil plows have up to seven spikes separated by three feet to cut a 21 foot swath in each pass.  This unit is normally pulled through fields at three miles per hour covering an acre one hour.  The CO2 needed per growing season is 8.2 tons/acre in two or three applications, 4.1 tons/hour in two or 2.73 tons for three.  The machines will thus need between 22 and 33 tons of CO2 per day for corn.

A subsoil plow can be used with carbon powder or slurry putting CO2 in to a deep level, but the material should be distributed at all levels.   We would expect this treatment to be done only once as carbon does not oxidize or migrate in soil. The presence of the elementary carbon will help water and CO2 retention as it is one of nature's better adsorbers.  We have no standards for carbon amendment, but suspect any working soil can take up to 10% without any trouble, but never expect to see that amount applied other than experimentally.

            Subsoil plows are used to loosen deep soil, bring it up and channel moisture to lower levels in the early season.  Existing subsoil point plows need little more than trailing edge gas nozzles to deliver the CO2 and carbon powder or slurry.

Articulated Intra-Row Injectors

               Field and row crops could also use mechanized injectors designed to run between rows with wheel-mounted articulated nozzle injectors entering and leaving the ground as the wheel rolls forward.  These could be used during the growing season to maintain soil carbon dioxide levels while doing a weeding or low level insecticide spraying operation.  And, they could be an entry-level system for farmers wanting to experiment before they believe what they’ve seen on television and read in agricultural publications.

          We expect to find that the plants can take advantage of additional carbon dioxide feedings during the growing season. It is a simple matter to compute what a field should be able to use of CO2 because every plant's dry mass is 44% carbon. These will have to be done between the rows with articulated dispensers like that conceptually illustrated here.  We feel that we are going to find that permanent underground systems like those installed for drip water delivery will be economically advantageous.  This would mean the grower would only need the gas to be delivered periodically after the first installation as he would use the system to deliver water more often than gas.  This would be the case until we have genetically engineered plants that use 96% less water than today, but need substantial carbon dioxide from the ground.

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