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Carbon Sequestration

Reducing the carbon footprint:
The Greening Theory states: "Much of the research on CO2 increase and plant growth is done under the rubric of "sequestration" of carbon. Those who view the CO2 increase as a threat due to climate change see sequestration as a possible way to mitigate this threat by taking CO2 out of the air. Sequestration assumes the truth of the Greening theory. The biggest confusion is that people talk of CO2 as fertilizer. Fertilizer is to plants what vitamins are to people. CO2 is not fertilizer, it is food, the principle food of plants."

As reported by the EPA: "Carbon sequestration is the process through which plant life removes CO2 from the atmosphere and stores it in biomass. Over the course of a year, plants remove and release CO2 and net sequestration results if the rate of removal is higher than the rate of release. Young, fast-growing trees in particular will remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than they will release. Agricultural and forestry practices can enhance the rate of carbon sequestration, or cause net emissions, depending on the overall balance. The term "sink" is a broader term used to describe agricultural and forestry lands or other processes that absorb or sequester CO2, and other chemical processes that remove other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (e.g., methane). "The largest source of CO2 emissions globally is the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas in power plants, automobiles, industrial facilities and other sources."

As an industry, agriculture is a very large contributor to global warming in the conduct of tilling the soil, planting and harvesting (all done principally with diesel or gas powered equipment). The hydroponics methods of ATG greenhouses do not require using any such equipment.

An Internet search reveals numerous websites wherein one can participate in combating global warming by making donations to organizations that plant trees to lower CO2. Examples are Plant-A-Tree; BeGreenNow; TreeHugger; The Nature Conservancy; The Adirondack Council). But those initiatives are of intangible value, and cannot compare to the benefits to be derived from a network of ATGs wherein all the CO2 from burning biomass is absorbed to feed plants. Confluent Energies, Inc. grows food for people and at the same time sequesters carbon. Additional carbon reductions are realized by avoiding the energy needed for long distance transportation from farm to market…ATGs produce "localvore"… foods grown within a local area, rather than imported or transported from great distances.

 

Carbon cycle (from "Exploring the Environment")

The movement of carbon, in its many forms, between the biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and geosphere is described by the carbon cycle, illustrated in the adjacent diagram. The carbon cycle is one of the bio-geochemical cycles. In the cycle there are various sinks, or stores, of carbon (represented by the boxes) and processes by which the various sinks exchange carbon (the arrows).
We are all familiar with how the atmosphere and vegetation exchange carbon. Plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere during photosynthesis; also called primary production, and release CO2 back in to the atmosphere during respiration. Another major exchange of CO2 occurs between the oceans and the atmosphere. The dissolved CO2 in the oceans is used by marine biota in photosynthesis.