Steve Thackery wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

If you go for I THINK anaerobic decomposition, the carbon in the tree
or plant eventually becomes carbon, or hydrocarbon..typically methane.

OK, but how's that gonna happen? Trees are surrounded by air, so there
is no way - in their natural environment - that there'll be much
anaerobic decomposition taking place.

Mind you, you definitely don't want any methane - it's a very potent
global warmer.

That is after all what carbon based fuels are..old swamps. silted over
and left to fester for a few million years.

Agreed, although the climatic conditions were very different back then.
I don't think there's much new peat or coal being formed these days,
although if you've got some links to supporting research, that would be
great.


Oh peat definitely is formed all the time in any suitable place. Its
very slow though.

One of the major worries in East Anglia, where I live, is the continual
oxidation of the Fens since drainage. The ground level has dropped IIRC
about a meter since they were first drained over a couple of hundred
years ago.

Google 'bog oak' for the first steps in coal production as well.



No, you can store it where it wont be subject to oxidation, thats all.

Typically underwater.

I don't think you mean "oxidation", do you? Anyway, didn't you say that
anaerobic decomposition would produce methane?


Ther are nay ways that wood will change over time..normal way is that
the wood is subject to fungal and bacterial attack. That does seem to
need air for the species I am most familiar with in the garden. Old wood
rots, shrinks, becomes fibrous and eventually forms an organic compost.

heat it aneaerobically, and you get charcoal. Which with a bit of
compression, is nearly coal (but not quite: Coals still has the tars in it )

Stick it under water and silt, and it doesn't degraded organically at
all as it were. I dont know the correct word.

But swamps rot differently, and you get the sort of reactions that lead
to methane and peat and eventually oil.


Whatever - I think we can both agree that thinking trees will absorb CO2
to any significant extent is wrong, and designing environmental policies
around it is wrong, too. Whilst *some* of a dead tree *might* end up as
peat or carbon, most of it goes straight back to CO2.

Oh yes, planting trees wont save the planet until a few million years
have passed..

I will say though, that it does actually happen more than you might expect.

I cut down an acre of scrub - mainly hawthorn and blackthorn, about 50
years old. The leaf mould was about 4-6" thick, and was what is
generally termed 'good topsoil' and clearly different from the subsoil
(pure yellow and blue clay) underneath.

I would say that the layer of sol that in general covers this part of
the world - originally boulder clay from the terminal moraines of the
last ice age - is on average about a foot thick. Its very much full of
organic type stuff. You probably get about an inch of carbon rich soil
every thousand years or so, as a final rate of buildup. It actually
happens faster than that, but erosion, farming and leaching and so on
take a lot out. Where there are fairly old woods here, the soil is rich
and deep - the farmland is much less so.

Aerable Farming does tend to almost completely halt soil formation it
seems, and in the fens, leads to its reduction.

I made a raised plateau of subsoil dug out to make a pond. That wasn't
even dignified with any topsoil. Just planted with grass. Its got almost
half an inch of what looks like topsoil on it after 6 years. Mainly leaf
mould as its overhung by trees.




SteveT