Carbon dioxide (CO2), water and sunlight are the three key ingredients for the photosynthetic process by which plants create their own “food.” These three building blocks, combined with some soil nutrients, are what plants need to grow roots, stems, branches, leaves, fruit and nuts.
The primary byproducts of photosynthesis are water and oxygen (O2) – the very oxygen we and other animals breathe. So without plants we’d have neither food nor lumber nor other plant-derived commodities … nor life-giving oxygen.
Plants respond favorably – stronger root systems, healthier stems and branches, and more and healthier fruit and nuts – when exposed to higher levels of CO2 than what’s available in the ambient air.
As a bonus, plants use water more efficiently when exposed to higher levels of CO2. During photosynthesis, plants transpire water into the atmosphere through the openings that take in CO2. These openings, called stomata, remain more closed when there are higher levels of CO2 in the air … resulting in less water loss.
Food, Water and Climate. Three Problems … One Big Opportunity
CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. In addition to natural processes, over 35 billion tons of CO2 were generated in 2014 by power plants, refineries, manufacturing operations, fossil fuel-powered vehicles, natural gas heating and other human activity. The 200 parties to the Paris Accord signed in December 2015 consider climate change caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions to be an existential threat to humanity (and other living things).
Meanwhile, there’s increasing concern about fresh water supplies worldwide. Lakes, rivers and underground aquifers are under tremendous pressure as the human population both grows and becomes more prosperous. According to a February 2016 report by Merrill Lynch, worldwide water demand is expected to exceed supply by 40% by 2030 and the U.S. is forecast to spend $28 billion dollars in the next two decades trying to solve its fresh water issues.
Population growth and growing prosperity are also expected to put enormous strain on the world’s agricultural capacity in the coming decades. According to the report How to Feed the World in 2050:
“Agriculture in the 21st century faces multiple challenges: it has to produce more food and fiber to feed a growing population with a smaller rural labor force, more feedstocks for a potentially huge bioenergy market … adopt more efficient and sustainable production methods and adapt to climate change.”
Food, water and climate. Three inter-related critical issues of our time. What if there was a cost-effective way to capture CO2 and deliver it in prescriptive amounts where and when plants can use it to grow more food and use less water per unit of production? There’d be more food, less wasted water and a lot of captured carbon.
That solution is the patents-pending Carbogation branded CO2 enhancement system. Designed over the course of more than a decade, Carbogation systems deliver the right amount of CO2 at the right time to the right place, using real-time temperature, sunlight, wind and other factors.
A Fourth Problem … Same Solution!
When we burn fossil fuels we not only create CO2 but also other harmful gases directly associated with air pollution; namely, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ozone (O3). Like humans, plants are prone to the effects of air pollution, reducing yields in California’s Central Valley by an estimated 20% or more.
Because plants’ stomata are more constricted when in the presence of enhanced CO2 – the same effect that reduces water loss due to transpiration – it also makes them less susceptible to the ill effects of SO2, NOx and O3. Of more general benefit, to humans as well as plants, the process of capturing CO2 for agricultural purposes “scrubs” harmful gases from industrial emissions instead of releasing them into the atmosphere.
The primary byproducts of photosynthesis are water and oxygen (O2) – the very oxygen we and other animals breathe. So without plants we’d have neither food nor lumber nor other plant-derived commodities … nor life-giving oxygen.
Plants respond favorably – stronger root systems, healthier stems and branches, and more and healthier fruit and nuts – when exposed to higher levels of CO2 than what’s available in the ambient air.
As a bonus, plants use water more efficiently when exposed to higher levels of CO2. During photosynthesis, plants transpire water into the atmosphere through the openings that take in CO2. These openings, called stomata, remain more closed when there are higher levels of CO2 in the air … resulting in less water loss.
Food, Water and Climate. Three Problems … One Big Opportunity
CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. In addition to natural processes, over 35 billion tons of CO2 were generated in 2014 by power plants, refineries, manufacturing operations, fossil fuel-powered vehicles, natural gas heating and other human activity. The 200 parties to the Paris Accord signed in December 2015 consider climate change caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions to be an existential threat to humanity (and other living things).
Meanwhile, there’s increasing concern about fresh water supplies worldwide. Lakes, rivers and underground aquifers are under tremendous pressure as the human population both grows and becomes more prosperous. According to a February 2016 report by Merrill Lynch, worldwide water demand is expected to exceed supply by 40% by 2030 and the U.S. is forecast to spend $28 billion dollars in the next two decades trying to solve its fresh water issues.
Population growth and growing prosperity are also expected to put enormous strain on the world’s agricultural capacity in the coming decades. According to the report How to Feed the World in 2050:
“Agriculture in the 21st century faces multiple challenges: it has to produce more food and fiber to feed a growing population with a smaller rural labor force, more feedstocks for a potentially huge bioenergy market … adopt more efficient and sustainable production methods and adapt to climate change.”
Food, water and climate. Three inter-related critical issues of our time. What if there was a cost-effective way to capture CO2 and deliver it in prescriptive amounts where and when plants can use it to grow more food and use less water per unit of production? There’d be more food, less wasted water and a lot of captured carbon.
That solution is the patents-pending Carbogation branded CO2 enhancement system. Designed over the course of more than a decade, Carbogation systems deliver the right amount of CO2 at the right time to the right place, using real-time temperature, sunlight, wind and other factors.
A Fourth Problem … Same Solution!
When we burn fossil fuels we not only create CO2 but also other harmful gases directly associated with air pollution; namely, sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ozone (O3). Like humans, plants are prone to the effects of air pollution, reducing yields in California’s Central Valley by an estimated 20% or more.
Because plants’ stomata are more constricted when in the presence of enhanced CO2 – the same effect that reduces water loss due to transpiration – it also makes them less susceptible to the ill effects of SO2, NOx and O3. Of more general benefit, to humans as well as plants, the process of capturing CO2 for agricultural purposes “scrubs” harmful gases from industrial emissions instead of releasing them into the atmosphere.