Why can’t we just sequester CO2 into plants we eat or forests?

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I saw a youtube video about how Japan burns materials that can’t easily be recycled to produce energy and captures the CO2 produced from the process. The CO2 is then sold to some local factories to produce various things like fire extinguishers, and some algae farms (I googled this and algae is used to produce food and oil).

I googled that at sea level, CO2 in the atmosphere is at 350 PPM, but certain plants thrive at 1500 PPM.

It got me thinking – why can’t we pump CO2 into indoor farms, plantations or forests to sequester more carbon?

Would that even work? Is the carbon just released into the air again once the plants are eaten or broken down?

In: Biology

23 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Cellular respiration generally looks like this

C6H12O6 + 6O2 -> 6CO2 + 6H2O

So yes, trying to sequester CO2 by putting the carbon into plants that we eat would just result in us breathing that carbon right back out into the environment

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