American Airlines burying sawdust to combat climate change | Hacker News Reader

American Airlines burying sawdust to combat climate change

wsj.com

10 pointsalbertwang11 comments

I’ve said this multiple times: a co2 removal system that turns co2 into a useful building material would be society changing.

Read between the lines: I’m saying figure out a better way to grow wood or make bricks.

Sawdust is not a waste material though, burying it is waste. Make paper or particle board out of it.

Bamboo, it's the most efficient plant at doing what you want. The challenge is harvesting and processing it, and it's considered an invasive species many places so you kinda gotta grow it where it's already

For good paper you need some wood with long fibers. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulp_(paper)#Wood_pulp

> While in theory any tree can be used for pulp-making, coniferous trees are preferred because the cellulose fibers in the pulp of these species are longer, and therefore make stronger paper.

Makes sense. Is that needed for toilet paper (which will buried anyway)

You need strong toilet paper so it doesn't break in your hand. I'm not sure for which applications strength is not important, perhaps the cardboard that protect electronic equipment inside the boxes(?).

That's already a thing: https://www.livingcarbon.com/post/photosynthesis-enhanced-tr...

Basically though, more carbon needs to go into the ground than the air. AA (in this specific instance) is pushing carbon in the right direction.

Haven't carbon-capture bricks been a thing for years? Not at much scale, but don't they exist already?

Except that making paper or particule board requires energy and chemistry, which releases CO2...

So it all makes "economic" sense, and of course it is completely mental. But this is what late-stage, ultra-financiarized capitalism is all about (the same kind where they would destroy a good completed movie (Acme vs. Coyote) for tax purposes): pushing numbers.

These efforts always seem so expensive in terms of time and effort per ton of sequestered carbon. Isn't there a more straightforward approach? Consider the following:

1) Get an agreement from the federal government to cut free timber on federal lands[1]. Prioritize timber that's nearest to the lee-side of a given range. Replant, obviously.

2) Transport your timber (downhill, hurray!) to one of the many adjacent deserts [2]. (Extra points for using hybrid trucks + regenerative braking).

3) Pile loosely. Deserts and fungus don't mix, so your carbon will stay put.

There's no new business model, no new market to create, no upstream bottlenecks, no moving dirt. Just cutting and stacking free carbon sticks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_lands#/media/File:Map_... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_deserts...

http://archive.today/9HkLP

Let's make the wood into paper and put it in orbit instead: https://snafuhall.com/p/earthwrap.html

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