Sequestering carbon by land restoration and reforestation in Iceland

[KarenRei]

Someone suggested Venmo - I was going to look into that tonight, would that work for people?

If I can't get the trees for any cheaper than ~$2 each (I'll try to do better via some shopping around among countryside suppliers and bulk buys, since the amount of donations has increased!), it should be about $20/t at typical planting densities if I go with the smallest seedling size available. But if I can get them cheaper, then that would linearly reduce costs (e.g. $1/tree = $10/t, etc), discounting the nonlinear aspects (e.g. soil restoration... clover seed plus innoculants is ~$1-2k for all 8ha, manure or fertilizers to add phosphorus (and some additional nitrogen) would be another couple thousand, etc). No labour or transport costs, as I'm doing that all myself

Going with larger tree sizes would increase costs, but decrease the sequestration time. Restoring soil starts storing carbon fast, but young seedling trees take a long time before their carbon uptake becomes significant, particularly here in Iceland (in the picture in my first post, you can see the results of a neighbor's past reforestation efforts in the distance... probably about 2 decades ago, and still plenty more to grow). In the long term, of course, forest holds significantly more carbon than grassland. So there's the tradeoff between total vs. rate.

 

[RubberToe]

Will be contributing shortly, I did find the following interesting with lots of pictures:

Why Are There No Trees in Iceland? | All About Trees in Iceland

 

[Duffer]

$4.99 is probably about as low as fees are going to get, unfortunately. :Þ The delay is fine, I'll front the money myself until then.

For anyone donating who might be visiting Iceland - let me know when you're coming, I'll take time to show you your trees! (as mentioned, it's just a short drive north of Reykjavík... the first valley north of Esja that's out of sight of the city) If you have a preference on species or planting size (e.g. more area planted but slower to get to a sequestration size, vs. less area planted but sooner to get to a sequestration size), just let me know - as mentioned I'll be picking them up on Monday.

If you have an area that, due to planting conditions etc, would benefit more from a particular size/species of tree feel free to plant accordingly.

Looking forward to visiting "Duffer's Grove" in a few years.

 

[KarenRei]

Just sent out inquiries to Lífland and four tree suppliers that I've not checked into before, asking about prices and bulk discounts. Hopefully I'll be able to get a much better deal than in the past via bulk purchases

(I love how much this is turbocharging things! I had thought I was done for the year, having spent all that I could afford this year a couple months ago)

I was told by someone who asked about Venmo that actually Venmo won't work for them. So I'm looking into bitcoin (have never touched it before). Some googling suggests that this site is legit for transferring bitcoin to paypal (is it, as far as you know?)

Transfer Bitcoin to PayPal USD | Unichange
https://unichange.me/order/bitcoin_paypal_eur

Is there another site that would be better? Sorry, total n00b here

 

[VValleyEV]

I just sent a donation using paypal and your email address. No special requests beyond photos and progress updates whenever the mood strikes.

 

[KarenRei]

Will do!

 

[jbcarioca]

I just sent some money via PayPal. Name as shown is J C Green.
My two reasons for donating:
1. I have flown over Iceland multiple times when stopping there to refuel. It has been distressing to see such deforestation in a countryI admire so much.
2. Your posts have consistently been well-informed and very useful. You merit my support as I can give it.

 

[KarenRei]

Went out and weeded around previously planted trees yesterday after work. Will be off tomorrow, so it'll be "acquire clover seed and/or trees at the lowest possible bulk price" day. Maybe even get some planting in too if I can.

 

[Brando]

H2 is pretty hard to export. What we do instead is import aluminium ore, refine it, then export the aluminium

I'd nationalize the aluminium industry - my biased view - I think Iceland was taken advantage of by bankers and aluminium industry.

Must say it is really great that you are helping to bring back the trees.

 

[winfield100]

Went out and weeded around previously planted trees yesterday after work. Will be off tomorrow, so it'll be "acquire clover seed and/or trees at the lowest possible bulk price" day. Maybe even get some planting in too if I can.

@KarenRei
im curious, what is cost of bulk red clover seed? Johnnies Seed in central Maine is ~$316/50lbs (23kilos), but shipping, import fees etc
Mammoth Red Clover - Organic Seed | Johnny's Selected Seeds

 

[SageBrush]

Perhaps inspired by Karen, we just brought home two maple saplings. By the fall I hope to acquire ~ 30 trees of perhaps a dozen varieties. We will keep them in our atrium over the winter and plant them outside next spring. It is done this way to save money -- when on sale trees are 1/4 the non-discounted price.

 

[KarenRei]

@KarenRei
im curious, what is cost of bulk red clover seed? Johnnies Seed in central Maine is ~$316/50lbs (23kilos), but shipping, import fees etc
Mammoth Red Clover - Organic Seed | Johnny's Selected Seeds

Translating from the Lífland catalogue and convering ISK to USD and adding an assumed 26% VAT:

Catalogue ID / Name / kg per ha / kg per bag / $ per bag / Description
90600 Hvítsmári (white clover) UNDROM 7-11 10 1.053 $106 Old cultivar; long used in the country; good harvest
90612 Rauðsmári (red clover) YNGVE (2n) 12-14 10 1.549 $156 Diploid; durable; high yield; good winter survivability
90614 Rauðsmári (red clover) TORUN (4n) 12-14 10 1.549 $156 Tetraploid; high yield; has come out well in tests
90619 Bacterial inocculant for clover in 10 kg 0,1 $23 One bag suffices for 10kg of clover seed

So let's see... ($156+$23)/10*23.... $412 for the amount at Johnnies Seed. But remember that these prices I calculated include VAT. And, of course, don't need shipping and seed permits (White clover is cheaper than red, but it's also very small, so not as much aboveground mass and easier to shade out... although of course the goal is for the land to become healthy enough that any clover gets shaded out eventually Tetraploid vs. diploid, AFAIK tetraploid puts on mass faster, which is good, but produces less seed, which is bad. Either way, the local bumblebees will be thrilled )

Wish I could find a spot that sells tree seedlings as cheaply as some places in the US :Þ I plan to message a neighbor this evening to see if she knows of any places that I don't. I got a reply back from one nursery in the countryside... their prices were a little better than the place I've been going to in Reykjavík, but not by a lot. I expect more replies on Monday, since most places are closed over the weekend.

 

[KarenRei]

BTW, if anyone wants to get a good visual sense - here's a Google Maps view of my land - between the river and the road, from just south of the neighbor's forest on the left to where the other neighbor's driveway starts on the right.:

So in addition to noting that, yes, reforestation is possible (because neighbors have done it!), note the landscape colours. The brownish patches on my land are gravel pans (although thankfully not as bad as the neighbor to the south's! They use that as a gravel quarry). The dark green areas are marshland / peat bog. The light green areas are nutrient-depleted grassland - rather sparse, short, and not very green. Compare it to the colour of the land of the neighbor to the right - that's rich grassland (they've spread manure there ).

My land doesn't have a single tree of size - a couple scrubby dwarf birch managed to avoid sheep by growing on cliff faces - but I'll fix that Right now, the largest of the trees I've planted in the past has only gotten up to about the height of the grass. At least least after another year or two they'll be big enough that I'll no longer have to keep the area around them clear of grass to avoid them being shaded out Until then, lots of weeding to do for the trees in the grassy areas (gravel-pan trees are low maintenance ).

 

[KarenRei]

OMG - you guys are awesome!

I may need to bring my truck tomorrow rather than my car to fit all of the seedlings

 

[KarenRei]

Found a source of trees for around $1,25 each if bought in bulk. Næs.

 

[nwdiver]

Exaggerating how much carbon dioxide can be absorbed by tree planting risks deterring crucial climate action

 

[KarenRei]

Exaggerating how much carbon dioxide can be absorbed by tree planting risks deterring crucial climate action

So high-grade taiga forest doesn't store 117t/ha aboveground plus 205t/ha underground, aka 322t/ha?

https://www.researchgate.net/figure...und-soils-by-biome-type-kg-m-2_tbl1_200032823

Times 8 hectares (8,35, actually) is 2688,7 tonnes, Minus the minimal carbon currently sequestered. Even mid-grade taiga forest should sequester nearly 2k tonnes at maturity. And we're not accounting for tamarack forest at the bogs permanently sequestering carbon as peat.

Having trouble picturing that much carbon in that much area? You can see some calculations for a not-that-large sycamore tree here. At 12m tall and 56cm wide, it has an aboveground carbon content in its biomass of 3/4ths of a tonne. 117t/ha would be the equivalent of ~156 such trees per hectare, aka 64 square meters each, aka equivalent to a circle 9 meters diameter for the branches of this 12-meter tall tree, which is perfectly reasonable. And remember, we're not talking about spectacularly large trees in this calculation. There are south Iceland forests with trees nearly 30 meters tall.

Reforestation is considered to be the most cost-effective way to sequester carbon. Land available for reforestation projects (e.g. without impacting food production) has the potential to absorb a quarter of the carbon currently in our atmosphere.

The global tree restoration potential

All issues of habitat restoration and stopping erosion aside (want to see pictures of the area on my land that had a landslide about a decade ago? Or the place where a couple years ago I had to fix a sheep-exclusion fence I had just built because a boulder fell into it? I can't even get a stretch on one side of the land fenced because the ground is just simply too unstable; the remains of my past attempts have all slid to the bottom of the canyon, awaiting yet another futile attempt)

Nobody is saying "keep burning fossil fuels". You're on a Tesla forum, for crying out loud. But we've already dumped huge amounts of carbon into our atmosphere, and will continue to do so even as we wean ourselves off of our old fossil fuel addiction.

You may not want to try to help remove the carbon we've already dumped (and continue to dump) from our atmosphere. That's fine. I do.

 

[nwdiver]

So healthy taiga forest doesn't store up to 117t/ha aboveground plus up to 205t/ha underground?

https://www.researchgate.net/figure...und-soils-by-biome-type-kg-m-2_tbl1_200032823

Reforestation is considered to be the most cost-effective way to sequester carbon. Land available for reforestation projects (e.g. without impacting food production) has the potential to absorb a quarter of the carbon currently in our atmosphere.

The global tree restoration potential

Nobody is saying "keep emitting fossil fuels". You're on a Tesla forum, for crying out loud. But we've already dumped huge amounts of carbon into our atmosphere, and will continue to do so even as we wean ourselves off of our old fossil fuel addiction.

You may not want to try to help remove the carbon we've already dumped (and continue to dump) from our atmosphere. That's fine. I do. Forestry projects aren't fast, but

The point is that by promoting the removal of CO2 via tree planting you're creating a path for people to falsely believe the transition away from fossil fuels is less urgent. This is a well documented psychological effect. 'Moral Licensing' or 'Mitigation Deterance'.

We can't squander our moral capital.... the focus MUST be on reducing the use of fossil fuel. FULL STOP.

 

[guidooo]

I don't want to think how tomorrow looks if we focus on fossil fuel reduction only and willfully unlearn ourselves howto cooperate with the environment we are part of.

So if it gives anyone some peace of mind: I would not even consider putting an extra drop of gasoline in my EV or change my eating-, heating- or clothing habits because of a newly planted Icelandic tree. When the tree lives carbon is taken out of the atmosphere, it's as simple as that to me.

 

[nwdiver]

I don't want to think how tomorrow looks if we focus on fossil fuel reduction only and willfully unlearn ourselves howto cooperate with the environment we are part of.

So if it gives anyone some peace of mind: I would not even consider putting an extra drop of gasoline in my EV or change my eating-, heating- or clothing habits because of a newly planted Icelandic tree. When the tree lives carbon is taken out of the atmosphere, it's as simple as that to me.

You’re probably not ‘most people’; Most people will be less likely to invest in reducing their use of fools fuel if they just planted 100 trees. Sad but true....