By Bob Yirka
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. and Singapore has found that adding bioenergy crops or reforestation would both substantially increase CO2 sequestration, but the former would lead to major water shortages. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their analyses and comparison of the two climate mitigation strategies.
Scientists around the world are searching for carbon removal strategies to address the continued emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. One possible solution is to expand on the use of bioenergy crops; another is to massively replant forests. In this new effort, the researchers looked at both approaches and compared them as possible methods to capturing and sequestering CO2 already in the atmosphere.
The idea behind using bioenergy crops as a capture and sequester technique involves planting CO2-absorbing crops that are reaped and burned as an energy source and capturing and sequestering the CO2 that is released during burning by pumping it underground. Reforestation can be used as a means of sequestering carbon because trees naturally pull CO2 from the air and hold onto to it until they die.
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