A Carbon Keeper: Crop Waste Sunk to the Ocean Deep

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/science/earth/03obcrops.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=crop%20waste%20sunk&st=cse

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine <levinebar@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:17 PM
Subject: re: A Carbon Keeper: Crop Waste Sunk to the Ocean Deep
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

    The insight of Strand and Benford that cellulose--rather than carbon dioxide--is the most promising form in which to sequester carbon for geologically meaningful periods is key; it is not new. People have advocated "anthropogenic peat" for decades. What has been lacking is the political will to reverse two centuries of pumping carbon from fossil stores into the atmosphere and oceans. Schemes to trap carbon dioxide from power plants and sequester it on the seabed might ameliorate global warming, but at an unacceptable cost in ocean acidification.

    Sequestering cellulose is not without potential problems. Depending on how it is buried, there might be methane evolved which we will have to entrain to keep it from entering the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. 

Barry Levine