• NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.orgOP
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    1 month ago

    I’ve not made the time to get all up in my fungals, but i know a lot more understanding is coming out. Whats the deal?

    So I might be wrong here, I have no formal training in the carbon cycle and am not nor have ever been a biologist but I was under the impression that coal basically no longer can be made as it comes from a time before lignin (the stuff what makes plants woody) could be broken down by organisms. Now, barring unusual geological events, plants die and fall into the soil where the vast majority of their substance is metabolised by fungi which use it for energy emitting co2 in the process.

    So if you take some area and forest it, there is now a mass of carbon bound into plant stuff, but since it reaches a steady state quickly it isn’t really sequestering any after that. This is why carbon capture is sort of a farce, as captured carbon in its ideal form is coal.

    • Gorgritch_Umie_KillaM
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      1 month ago

      Oh gawd. Lignin and fungi i’d forgotten all about that. Biology was never my strong suit!

      carbon capture is sort of a farce

      Yeah, i like your phrasing here. By no means a bad thing to promote, but not the simple silver bullet solution to net zero/GHG reduction the marketing departments of large emitting companies make it out to be.

      • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.orgOP
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        1 month ago

        My apologies I lied to you.

        That information is wrong, coal is still being formed today. Although mostly in bogs, which provide an environment where decay doesn’t happen.

        About a million to 10 million times slower than we are using it though, and the rate is declining relatively as bogs are cleared or mined for peat/moss and our coal use increases year on year.

        • Gorgritch_Umie_KillaM
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          1 month ago

          All good! I thought about peet bogs, but its been so many years since i went through the formation of coal, i wasn’t sure enough to suggest it.