[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by ken0042

One of the episodes explained this really well. Basically you are right, as a plant or tree grows it takes CO2 from the air and uses the carbon to grow, and releases oxygen. However when a plant dies and decomposes, it releases the CO2 back into the air. Even if an animal eats the plant, the plant eventually turns back into CO2 as the animal burn the energy.

Where we get coal from is that when trees first evolved, it took millions of years for organisms to evolve that could break down the wood. So trees would die, fall, and eventually get buried. They would never get a chance to release their CO2 back into the atmosphere. Until now, when we humans dig it back up and proceed to burn it.

Same thing with oil and gas. They are all deposits of plants that never got a chance to release their CO2 back. Then we go and dig them up and start burning them.

Ideally we could capture the carbon and sequester it as CaCO3.