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Re: Closed loop/open loop Carbon Dioxide?
I wasnt clear enough...
Your correct, Co2 is Co2. Plant life sucks it up.
Here is the deal tho. Plant life can only suck up SO MUCH. Now, if you ONLY use fuel that comes from plants that are alive today, and you replace those plants when you harvest them, then as you burn the fuel, th new plants will absorb the Co2 you are creating from the old plants. Its a closed loop. The Co2 you make is counter-acted by the plants you replaced.
Now, with digging fuel out of the EARTH, you are basically tapping into a PAST carbon cycle. Those plants died off years ago, and when you burn them, you are creating MORE Co2 than you can reclaim!
This creates a run-a-way effect, because the more carbon you dig out of the earth and burn and pump Co2 into the air, the more plants you need on the surface to reclaim the Co2. But if your already maxed out on reclamation, then the Co2 just builds up in the atmosphere.
If we all stopped burning fossil fuels for a few years and let nature take its course, we could let a few generations of plant life grow, absorb the Co2, die, and get burried and that would effectively close the loop.
But we cant do that, so the loop stays open, and science starts looking for way to MANUALLY reclaim the excess Co2 and bury it into the earth as giant blocks of dry ice! (among other ways)
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