An acre of Douglas firs aborbs 11,000 lbs of CO2 a yr. Considering the miles of inter-states and

[JohnWxy]

the open ground between and flanking each side of these inter-states and other open ground in cities and suburbs, I wonder how many acres of trees we could plant in the U.S.? (naturally, you wouldn't plant the trees next to inter-states too close to the traffic lanes, but the areas beside the lanes are pretty wide and could accomodate some portion of the area planted in trees).


http://www.scientificblogging.com/science_mom/i_wanna_go_green_so_show_me_the_math

Each year, an acre of Douglas fir trees can absorb 11,308.7 lbs of carbon dioxide.

[pinto]

1. Planting trees on the median strip between lanes seems a great idea.

Blocks on-coming headlight glare and inadvertant, usually disastrous, cross-over head on crashes.

:thumbsup:

[XemaSab]

9. That's what the azaleas in California are for

but I think they are switching over to ceanothus now. :)

[Kaleva]

2. An interesting idea. Rec'd.

[KT2000]

3. Douglas Firs grow very tall

Here in the Pacific Northwest, the ones that grow near the highways are cut down because they keep the road in the shadows all day. This is fine except in winter when the sun can never melt the ice. Then you get black ice which causes alot of serious accidents.
We would have to allow for the extreme height of the trees.

Traveling the highways around here, the clear cuts of Douglas Firs are obvious everywhere. Adopting methods of logging that do not strip an area clean may also help. Instead of removing an entire area that is capable of removing CO2, leaving trees to continue that job would be in everyone's best interest.

[JohnWxy]

6. Sounds like Douglas firs are not a practical choice for urban and highway sites.

something much shorter and perhaps faster growing would, I think be much better. Especially in the urban and suburban plantings in the available spaces. Just wonder how much this would add up to. I'm thinking it would end up being surprisingly large area. Plus trees planted right in the area where the CO2 is generated is putting them right where they are needed.

[JohnWxy]

18. Douglas Firs would be great for the clear cut areas in the U.S. I wonder how many

square miles of clear cut there are in the U.S.?


http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/fish6554.htm

[Sinti]

4. This, or something like it, is a great idea

It would also help to create jobs. Very nice :thumbsup:

[JohnWxy]

10. 65,000 miles of inter-state highways; 4.1 millon acres of arable land for carbon sequestration.

65,000 iles of interstae highways

With a grass width of 52 feet, and 5,280 feet to the mile, we find that we have about 6.35 acres of tillable land for each mile of interstate.

65,000 miles times 6.35 acres gives you 4.1 million acres. At the second link (above) they talk about planting swichgrass for making ethanol (not yet commercially feasible) but you could plant a fast growing variety of tree there and harvest it (and replant of course) and they could be used in ethanol production or other industrial applications which are starting to use bio-mass as a fuel source.

An acre of Tulip trees (Liriodendron tulipifera) planted in New York, stores about 12,826 lbs (or 5,830 kiloGrams) of CO2 per yr so the 4.1 million acres would store 567 Billion lbs of CO2 per year (or 283 million tons).

According to the Environmental Defense Fund transortation emissions of CO2 comes to 302 million metric tons of CO2 per year, which I believe translates into 332 million English/American (2,000) tons.

NOte 283 million tons of CO2 stored each year by the tree plantings along inter-states as caculated above comes to about 85% of the total transportation emissions per year. And that works out to about 4% of the World's total carbon emissions.

Hm-m-m-m-m. IF my calculations are right this sounds promising.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. I'm not sure how you got the lbs of CO2 per acre per year figure

You appear to be using column W, row 321 - "Carbon storage (kg)". I think that's the total carbon stored by the one tree in its life so far. Certainly, there's no reason to assume that's a 'per acre' value - all the other measurements are metric, for instance. I think we might arrive at a rough figure using the canopy area (telling us how close such a tree could be to its neighbour) and the carbon sequestration per year figure.

From that spreadsheet, we have 3 tulip trees - rows 319-321:

Canopy area  kg carbon/year  kg carbon/sq.m./year
(column S)   (column Y)
591.0        43.88           0.07
 45.6         7.72           0.17
378.3        62.26           0.16

Taking the best 0.17kg carbon/sq.m./year figure, at 4047 square metres per acre, that gives us a maximum of 685 kg/acre - in practice, perhaps 600 kg per acre, because you can't pack them perfectly. That would be about a tenth of the value you worked out.

However, many of the other trees given in that spreadsheet work out considerably better for their "sequestration per square metre" value - the best being a 4 year old red maple at 1.27 kg/sq.m./year. However, you really have to be able to work out the practical planting density and harvesting rate you'll be able to achieve - for this to work as sequestration, the biomass must either be preserved forever (or centuries, at least), or used as a replacement for fossil fuel. You can't let it rot anywhere, or the carbon will return to the atmosphere without having done anything.

So I suspect this approach of picking the values of one tree in New York and applying it to a commercial harvesting operation isn't that useful. In any case, an explanation of what those figures in the spreadsheet really mean is needed (how do they arrive at 'carbon sequestratrion per year'? Are they measuring 'carbon', or 'carbon dioxide'? And so on)

On edit: another error in your mathematics: you have 6.35 acres per mile of interstate, and 65,000 miles of interstate (I notice your link reduced that to 40,000 miles, to allow for urban interstate without the median or sidestrips). 65,000 * 6.35 = 412,750 acres, not 4.1 million acres. You have arrived at a figure too big by a factor of 10.

:(

On further edit: The EPA says you can get up to 1.5 tonnes of carbon per acre per year with biofuels (that's about 3,300lbs of carbon, or 12,100 lbs of carbon dioxide, so that roughyl matches the douglas fir figure in the OP).
1.5 tonnes * 412,750 = 619,125 tonnes of carbon per year. That's what we can compare to the 302 million tonnes of carbon from US vehicles.

It's about 0.2%.

[JohnWxy]

13. You raise some very good points.

The Carbon Storage figure I thought was per year, BUT it doesn't say kilograms per year, as the Carbon Sequestration column does. I was moving too fast when looking at that table.

I looked at the Red Maple and it IS the best at Carbon storage (5,126 kg/acre/yr). When you compute that for 40,000 miles it comes to about 1.4 million tons, which is a tiny fraction of what cars and trucks produce.

That's a good question though ... How does Carbon storage relate to CO2 absorption? CO2 weight is greater than one carbon atom. The atomic mass of Carbon is 12. The atomic mass of Oxygen is 16. So CO2 should come in at 44. So does that mean a kilogram of stored Carbon equates to 3.67 kGm of CO2?

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html

"Emissions expressed in units of C can be easily converted to emissions in CO2 units by adjusting for the mass of the attached oxygen atoms, that is by multiplying by the ratios of the molecular weights, 44/12, or 3.67."

But even multiplying by 3.67 you still get a very small percentage. I wonder how much CO2 coud be absorbed if every homeowner planted 2 trees? I look at suburbia and see a lot of areas that could add quite a lot of trees. Probably still not a huge percentage but it would still be of help.


Regarding recycling, I know Coskata is starting to produce ethanol from wood chips and other materials, but also there are some companies (just few) which are using biomass for fuel for heat and to power various processes. This would replace other fossil fuels, mainly coal and natural gas.


.... So, we still need to import more ethanol from Brazil to combine with the domestic production if we want to quickly get up to replacing say, 20% of the gasoline being burned (then shoot for 30% in a few more years, perhaps with cellulosic coming on line). The thing is we need to start getting some more results in the next few years or Global Warming will be beyond our ability to reign in. Waiting 20 years for electric cars to give us 20 to 30% reduction in GHG emissions just isn't going to be enough, soon enough.

[kristopher]

16. His "very good points" show your thinking for the self serving

crock that it is. You are on a mission to promote ethanol and you care nothing for the facts.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x215110#216172

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[JohnWxy]

14. Let's consider planting trees in residential yards..

According to the http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/rfs/2001detailedtables/tab1_1a.html">Census Bureau there are 83.5 million residential properties in the U.S.

If 2 trees (Tulip) were planted on each residential property that would be 166 million trees.

One tulip tree sequesters 62 kG of Carbon a year (according to the excel ss showing data for NYC).

That would give you 22.6 billion pounds of carbon sequestered per year, which (if that equals 3.67 times as much CO2 pulled from the air) would mean 83 billion lbs of CO2 taken from the atmosphere or, 41.5 million tons. That would be about 12.5% of the total annual CO2 emissions from the Transportation sector. Not bad.

Add the CO2 taken in by trees around the interstates and that would be about 14% - 15% of the total Transportation emissions.


After twenty years of Carbon sequestration you could cut down the trees and use the wood for manufacture (e.g. furniture) or biomass fuel and plant some more. Low tech, cheap and pretty efficient. Plus, for all those years the trees would provide shade and reduce A/C demands on electric utilities and help lower heating costs a bit in the winter (for homes in norther climes). I don't know how much savings in fuel and emissions that would produce, but it would help. Not too bad.

Now this is assuming 2 trees per property. Many properties could plant more than that. Perhaps you could plant on average 3 trees per property (on average). That would turn 12.5% into 19%. Add in the sequestration by the inter-state trees and that gets you to perhaps 21% of the total CO2 emissions for the transportation sector.

Not too bad.

on Edit: The California Energy Commission’s Consumer Energy Center says the right type of tree, planted in the right spot, can reduce your summer cooling costs by 20 to 40 percent. http://www.greenrightnow.com/wabc/2009/02/17/slideshow-trees-that-can-help-cut-your-energy-costs/ ... which means you would be reducing your power demand by that much in the summer months.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. It would be a major bit of land

If we take the rate biofuel can be sequestered from the EPA site, 41.5 million tons is 41.5/1.5 = 27.7 million acres at the 1.5 tons/acre rate. That's a third of an acre per household. More than most people have, I'd think.

Remember that the plane tree that sequesters 62kg of carbon has a canopy area of 378 square metres - even if they worked that out as the width of the canopy squared (which I suspect they did, looking at the the guide to the data), that's about 64 foot across. Plant 2 of those, and you've taken a lot of a typical garden - and you have to wait many years to get to that point.

Planting trees may help a little, but decreasing the amount of fuel used in transport will do far more, and sooner too.

[JohnWxy]

17. of course it's not a case of one or the other. If you consider a typical property to be 60 x 120 ft

that would give you 800 sq yrds. mInus the house you would have about 660 sq yds to play with.

And you are right, it would take a long time for a tree to get to it's full canopy size (378 sq mtr in the case of the tulip tree). And there is no rule that says you must wait until the tree gets to absolute full size to harvest it. You could harvest it years before it reached it's full size.

When it comes to carbon sequestration, the growth rate is very important. The tree you picked out (Red Maple) is only 4 yrs old and has a canopy size of .3 sq mtr. Actually, you couuld plant a few Red Maples and they grow fast. THis fast growth is what gives it the high CO2 absorption rate. You could actually plant more of them as it would be years, as you correctly point out, till they would reach full size. When they get large enough, you harvest them (say in 20 years) and plant anew!

You would probably get even more sequestration than I computed with smaller faster growing trees like one of the Maple varieties. Since it would be years till they reach full size perhaps you could actually plant more than 2 trees per yard (on average) with smaller trees (which wouldn't achieve the canopy size of the Tulip tree).


Now, regarding replacing fuel, I'm glad to hear someone else point out the value of replacing the fuel we burn. I have been preaching that for a long time here. My favorite dictum is: "You can replace the fuel faster than you can replace the cars that burn the fuel." I'm glad to have someone else realize the value of replacing the fuel we burn.


And as I said of course, fortunately, it's NOT a case of "either - or". I have mentioned the growing of trees as simply something else which can be done that, as I said before, is relatively cheap, low tech, and efficient. (No R&D required either).


And as I pointed out above, in addition to the Carbon sequestration, the shade from the trees will lower utility demands and produce fuel consumption reductions. Note that I pointed out that a California group has said you could lower your summer utility bills (and fuel usage) by 20% to 40% by just shading your A/C unit! In the winter trees help reduce the heating demands on houses as they cut down the full effect of wind on houses. With houses not being airtight the wind exploits small gaps in window frames and door frames and this causes you to use your furnace more. THus, more use of fossil fuels.

By not including the utility savings, I actually under-estimated the full GHG reduction impact planting trees would have. And it's easy. They grow by themselves!

It's one more thing that we can do. ...in addition to replacing the fuel we burn in cars (and for electricity) as fast as we possibly can.

[ashling]

5. Good idea, but not just for Doug Firs

They are not appropriate for most of the miles of interstate in the U. S.

[pscot]

7. The downside is

that you end up with an acre of Douglas fir.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

8. LOL. well put. eom

[Fledermaus]

11. I have been drive around North Carolina the last three week. All I see are trees.

I think it would work in certain areas. Other types of plants would be better in other types of climate.