Branson & Gore : planetary engineers

[kenneal - lagger]

By incorporating the carbon in the soil it becomes bio-available. The purpose of the Branson Project is to take the carbon out of the biosphere so that it can no longer affect the climate cycle. Eventually that buried carbon will be cycled back into biomass again.

I should have been more specific and specified agricultural waste, although any suitable sorted wasted could be used.

The char in the Terra Preta soils of the DODGY TAX AVOIDERS has been there for at least five hundred years and possibly more than a thousand. Modern agriculture has driven soil carbon out, thereby reducing fertility. If we replace the carbon in the soil, not only do we improve fertility, but we lock that carbon up again for five hundred to a thousand years, maybe more.

But, yes, I agree. We do need to reduce our consumption drastically.

[ianryder]

It just came to me in a blinding flash

Ian, I think it might work better with leaves on.

It was an early prototype, v2.0 should include them

[biffvernon]

It was an early prototype, v2.0 should include them

Release date, Springtime, I presume?

[ianryder]

Release date, Springtime, I presume?

In beta right now, you may see a few early examples out there now

[Vortex]

You should really wait for Microsoft Tree 3.1.

It may crash down a lot but rest assured that Microsoft will send out fixes each month.

A beta copy of Microsoft Tree with a bug fix in place.

[ianryder]

Here's the cut down version

[Andy Hunt]

I prefer the look of the cut down version, although Branson will probably still be looking for logging accuracy in the technology.

If Branson managed to hijack a tree genome, could you call that a 'lumberjack'?

[Keepz]

There's such a simple solution, and it really pisses me off that people like Greenpeace are afraid to say it -- let's just turn a lot of things off! No carbon trading. No personal carbon allowances, we just stop them. The driver for carbon emissions is economic growth -- as Lord Lawson quite clearly outlined on the R4's The Week in Westminster on Saturday, and it was for this reason he opposed do anything to significantly reduce carbon emissions .

If you want to cut carbon emissions, cut the material excess from our lives. The best way I've seen of doing this is living in a small space -- if you don't have a big house, you can consume to fill it, and a smaller space takes less energy to build and run (see http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/wolfe92.html).

Even if the UK were to stop all carbon emissions tomorrow, we are such a small contributor to global emissions that we'd make no difference to climate change unless our example inspires other countries to follow. They're hardly going to be inspired by a demonstration that reducing carbon involves imposing ruinous costs on business and hardship on individuals. A less ambitious (in carbon terms) but more sustainable (in economic terms) approach by the UK is more likely to succeeed in persuading others to follow and thus to make a real difference to the global problem - if everybody does a little, more gets done overall than if one does a lot.

[ianryder]

Even if the UK were to stop all carbon emissions tomorrow, we are such a small contributor to global emissions that we'd make no difference to climate change unless our example inspires other countries to follow.

This is one of my biggest annoyances - that's only the case because most of OUR emmissions have been outsourced to China. They wouldn't be building a power station every week if we didn't buy so much plastic crap!

Somehow this myth that everything that happens in China is purely a Chinese thing has been said so many times now that nobody questions it. We've got a roughly similar sized economy so we can probably take as much blame. If we stopped tomorrow, most of China would go bankrupt tomorrow as well so maybe it would have an effect

[ianryder]

I prefer the look of the cut down version, although Branson will probably still be looking for logging accuracy in the technology.

If Branson managed to hijack a tree genome, could you call that a 'lumberjack'?

Andy, that's taken things down too many levels...we were already scraping the barrel!

[Andy Hunt]

I prefer the look of the cut down version, although Branson will probably still be looking for logging accuracy in the technology.

If Branson managed to hijack a tree genome, could you call that a 'lumberjack'?

Andy, that's taken things down too many levels...we were already scraping the barrel!

On a more serious note, I remember reading recently about a new solar panel technology based on photosynthesis. The idea would be to use enzymes modelled on chlorophyll to synthesize liquid bio-fuels directly from sunlight, water and atmospheric CO2.

Now THAT would kill two birds with one stone . . . remove atmospheric CO2 and also provide liquid bio-fuels for transport.

We could re-fill the empty oil reservoirs, and reverse climate change . . .

[mikepepler]

On a more serious note, I remember reading recently about a new solar panel technology based on photosynthesis. The idea would be to use enzymes modelled on chlorophyll to synthesize liquid bio-fuels directly from sunlight, water and atmospheric CO2.

Now THAT would kill two birds with one stone . . . remove atmospheric CO2 and also provide liquid bio-fuels for transport.

We could re-fill the empty oil reservoirs, and reverse climate change . . .

I wonder how they deal with the fact that most plants are only 1% efficient at converting solar energy? Sugar cane is among the best at 4%. Are they doing something to get a higher efficiency?

Seems to me that although plants are not that efficient at converting solar energy, they do have the amazing advantage that they build themselves!

[clv101]

I wonder how they deal with the fact that most plants are only 1% efficient at converting solar energy? Sugar cane is among the best at 4%. Are they doing something to get a higher efficiency?

I don't think area efficiencies are all that critical - there is plenty of physical space on the planet. I think cost per Wp is far more important then area efficiency for many applications.

[biffvernon]

It's a curious failure of science that we seem to have failed to work out the details of how photosynthesis actually works. If we put the same effort into this as we have into nuclear....

[Keela]

I think the scientists have a reasonable idea how photosynthesis works. Just they can't come anywhere near making anything half as efficient.

Millions of years of evolution are hard to beat!