FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How much room is needed to store all the biomass?

We store dry densified wood waste aboveground in modular containers, because aboveground storage is surprisingly compact. For example, in a container that's 25 feet tall, we can store ~125,000 tons CO2e (~71,000 dry tons of wood) on just 2.5 acres.

How can biomass decomposition be prevented?

There are many examples, in nature and in archaeology, of dead biomass that has been passively preserved for millennia under the right environmental conditions. These conditions are sufficiently dry, sufficiently wet and anoxic, sufficiently saline, and/or outside the optimal temperature window for decomposition. Such conditions inhibit the fungal and microbial activity that causes biomass to decay into CO2 and methane. We prevent biomass from decomposing by storing it in a dry environment.

Where will you get the waste wood (biomass) and how much of it is available?

One attractive source of wood waste is from forest thinning operations, during which excess biomass is removed from forests to reduce the intensity of wildfires. In California alone, planned increases in forest thinning to mitigate wildfires are expected to generate 15.1 million dry tons/year of wood waste (equivalent to 27.2 million tons CO2/year). (Source: Getting to Neutral: Options for Negative Carbon Emissions in California, Jan. 2020, available at https://gs.llnl.gov/sites/gs/files/2021-08/getting_to_neutral.pdf.)

Does forest thinning weaken/harm the forest ecosystem?

No. In fact, public officials have come to understand that forest thinning is essential for healthy forests. The combination of aggressive fire suppression, inadequate forest thinning, and a megadrought in the western United States has resulted in increasingly dangerous wildfires that are destroying thousands of homes, burning millions of acres and releasing vast amounts of carbon every year. Forest thinning is the best tool we have to bring that wildfire problem under control.

What if some of the biomass decomposes?

Previous scientific research, as well as our own demonstrations, show that biomass does not measurably decompose when kept sufficiently dry. However, even if some biomass decomposes in storage, CO2 will still be sequestered because less biomass will decompose under dry conditions than if it were left to decay in its natural environment. Inhibiting decomposition increases the residence time of the carbon in the biomass, which means we still achieve a net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.