The promise of Organic Carbon Capture

What if we could solve the climate-change issue painlessly?  Profitably?  Organically?  If we could, wouldn't that be nice!  Well, perhaps we can--by not only being green, but actually planting green.  According to the Rodale Institute, 

If we converted all global croplands and pastures to regenerative organic agriculture we could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions.

In other words, according to Rodale, we could achieve the stated goals of Al Gore, and many Green New Dealers, in a "soft path" manner, not disrupting the economy, including leaving in place familiar carbon-based fuel production.  And yet we could still stabilize, and even reduce, carbon dioxide emissions.   Not bad!

We can call this Organic Carbon Capture.  If carbon capture by any mechanism is good, then Organic Carbon Capture is better--it's certainly greener.

After all, anything organic is part carbon, and if the carbon is an organic life form, then it's not in the atmosphere.   As such, the organic thing is what's known as a carbon sink.

Admittedly, the carbon-capture approach will not alleviate the concerns and passions of all.  Some greens argue, for example, that we need a fundamental change in the economy, aiming to not only decarbonize but also to change economic relations overall.  Of course, that's an enormous challenge, one that most Americans don't support.  Therefore, more pragmatic greens, focused on CO2 above all, might be more interested in a solution that can actually work, without enormous blowback at the ballot box.  As Bismarck said, "Politics is the art of the possible."  And Organic Carbon Change is obvious possible.  For pragmatists, if not purists, that's a supreme virtue.

As it happens, I've been writing about carbon capture for years.  For instance, on November 10, 2012, I published an article for The Spectator (UK), entitled, "America's Carbon Clash," in which I described the pro-environment and pro-energy forces in society as akin to an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.  In other words, a big collision was coming.  And yet amidst all that possible collateral damage, there was still the prospect of an actual solution.  As I wrote: "What’s missing from the debate, so far at least, is the environmental equivalent of the aeroplane or the tank — that is, the battlefield game-changer that turns the static into the dynamic." 

Yes, renewable energy was, and is, a possible solution, and yet as I wrote seven years ago--and it's still true today--there's a serious question as to whether or not renewable energy can be ramped up enough to fly airplanes and make steel. 

So why not something even fresher?  Something that both both climate-conscious Massachusetts and energy-rich Texas could deem as a win?  That is, a win-win for both sides?  As I wrote back in 2012: 

Or perhaps someone will come up with a cool new approach to carbon sequestration, so that carbon dioxide never enters the atmosphere. A US company called Novomer knows how to turn CO2 into usable plastic, albeit so far only on a limited scale. Could that technology be scaled up? And if so, for how much? Or how about, as another possibility, giant trees? After all, wood is a carbon sink. Could we bioengineer monster trees, as seen in the movie Avatar? Could we make trees that could perhaps double as the ultimate eco-tourist attraction?

In the years since, I've continued writing about carbon capture, including this piece for The American Conservative on March 9, 2017. 

Two years later, in May 2019, I published another article for TAC, making the same point, focusing yet again on carbon capture.  In particular, I pointed to a company called Necternal, located in Idaho Falls, ID; Necternal seems to have a big part of the solution to the climate problem in its grasp.  I quoted an adviser to Necternal, Steve Milloy, saying that one of the problems with current agriculture is that the roots of plants don't grow deep enough, because current fertilizers tend to harden the soil.  With better fertilizer, Milloy continued, the soil could be kept softer and more water-absorbent.  Thus with better fertilizer, in addition to increasing farm yields, we would see a decrease in water runoff.   Moreover, Necternal believes it can show that its products enlarge root growth--and roots, too, are part of the carbon-sink.  Indeed, since the roots of a plant are often larger than the above-ground plant itself, that’s a lot of possible carbon-sinking.

Milloy noted that in 2018, the United States emitted 5.2 gigatons of CO2. He calculated that more abundant growth in farms and forests, above and below ground, could sequester about 40 percent of that annual CO2 emission.  So we can see: Milloy's calculations on behalf of Necternal fit nicely within Rodale's calculations on behalf of all American agriculture.  

Thus we can step back and consider the vast promise of Organic Carbon Capture.  That is, capturing carbon organically, through plants.  There are plenty of other ideas for carbon capture, including turning carbon and CO2 into concrete, plastic, and even landfill.   All of these ideas might have their merits, and their champions, and yet none area as intuitively satisfying as having green plants suck up  the CO2

In yet another 2019 article for TAC, I was even more explicit: "Want More Energy and Less Climate Change? Plant Trees."  In that piece, I recalled my first foray into the topic, more than a quarter-century ago, when I worked as a mid-level policy aide in the Bush 41 White House.  

The whole field of carbon capture is new.  And yet even as many Democrats push their idea of a Green New Deal, there's growing interest among Republican office-holders, too, as they see the need to do something about carbon.  For instance, here's a 2019 article I wrote for Breitbart on the efforts of Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who is pushing what he calls the Green Real Deal.     

In a similar vein, here's Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, as reported by The Baltimore Sun on October 15, 2019.  The headline concerns Hogan's plans for combating climate change, and the article includes this bullet point from Hogan’s plan: 

Incentives for farmers to maintain “healthy” soils, that better store carbon that could otherwise reach the atmosphere

So we can see: Maryland is exploring Organic Carbon Capture. 

Indeed, as I have argued for Breitbart, there's a huge opportunity for Republicans to cooperate, on selected terms, with advocates of the Green New Deal, with an eye toward making sure that red Republican states are part of the solution.   Once again, this could be a win-win; blue and red working together on behalf of green.  That is, green environment and green money. 

I have elaborated on these points--about the potential for economic stimulus included in the more realistic versions of the Green New Deal--in a recent pair of articles for The Daily Caller, on October 4, and October 18.