House Republicans are searching for solutions to climate change without restricting American-produced energy that comes from burning oil, coal and gas.
Crude oil is 85% carbon.
Dry wood is about 50% carbon.
Average oil production worldwide in the last 20 years is about 73million barrels per day or 26.6 billion barrels per year.
So just in oil, we produced around 26.6*20 = 532 billion barrels of oil.
At a weight of 136kg/barrel, that equals 72billion tonnes of oil.
Because it’s 85% carbon, that equals 61.5billion tonnes of pure carbon.
Converting this into wood would require 123 billion tonnes of wood.
At an average density of 650kg/m3 for Oak, which grows reasonably fast, that equals 189 billion cubic meters of wood.
That’s a solid 1 meter thick square of wood with an edge length of 434km that we would need to STORE indefinitely to offset just the crude oil of the last 20 years.
That’s 53% of the surface area of Germany in 1 meter thick wood and every year we’d additionally need to grow, harvest and store enough wood to cover 46% of Wales in 1 meter of solid dry wood.
“Just think of all that lumber our donors can produce!”
Good idea maybe
Grow a trillion fast growing trees, and store the lumber someplace where it can’t release its stored carbon, climate change solved.
Let’s do the math.
Crude oil is 85% carbon. Dry wood is about 50% carbon. Average oil production worldwide in the last 20 years is about 73million barrels per day or 26.6 billion barrels per year.
So just in oil, we produced around 26.6*20 = 532 billion barrels of oil. At a weight of 136kg/barrel, that equals 72billion tonnes of oil. Because it’s 85% carbon, that equals 61.5billion tonnes of pure carbon.
Converting this into wood would require 123 billion tonnes of wood. At an average density of 650kg/m3 for Oak, which grows reasonably fast, that equals 189 billion cubic meters of wood. That’s a solid 1 meter thick square of wood with an edge length of 434km that we would need to STORE indefinitely to offset just the crude oil of the last 20 years. That’s 53% of the surface area of Germany in 1 meter thick wood and every year we’d additionally need to grow, harvest and store enough wood to cover 46% of Wales in 1 meter of solid dry wood.
Seems doable 🤣