Engineering the soil carbon sink: a novel approach to carbon emission abatement

土壤是地球上最大的陆地碳库，其碳含量是植物的三倍。土壤-大气相互作用与大气交换的二氧化碳比大气与海洋之间的相互作用多三分之一。因此，土壤在控制大气CO2水平方面起着非常重要的作用。在这种情况下，我们有机会设计土壤系统，使其吸收的CO2量最大化。这是一种非常便宜的碳减排形式，因为它是被动的（一旦建成就没有能量输入）。它直接类似于利用人工湿地处理污染的沃茨。我们的目的是评估这一过程在英国广泛应用的可行性，并评估相关的成本和效益。我们将调查人工土壤的土壤碳含量从一些来源。我们将使用2002年为完全不同的目的建造的试验地块，我们最近已经证明了土壤碳酸盐的积累（在英国首次发现）。我们将在实验室和温室的人工土壤中种植作为代表性生物能源作物的芸苔属植物，使用富含钙的废物作为土壤的一部分。我们将对布朗菲尔德和其他已知年龄和历史的修复场地进行采样。在所有情况下，我们将根据不同的碳库来确定土壤的碳含量，并使用稳定同位素对每一个碳库进行指纹识别，以便我们可以追踪其植物来源。利用样本中的信息，我们将能够确定不同土壤碳库的寿命。我们将能够估计它们建立的速度，它们是否稳定，以及它们是否从一个转变为另一个。利用这些信息，我们可以模拟碳的行为在人工种植system.In英国的土地利用和富钙材料，可用于加速这一进程的背景下，我们将评估设计土壤系统作为大气CO2的被动封存的网站可能带来的好处。如果这一过程似乎是可行的，我们将使用接触最初在东北英格兰利用我们的研究结果，通过纽卡斯尔的科学城，我们连接到行业，并通过大学的CREEL项目，由一个东北资助，并打算作为一个推广设施，可再生能源。

Soils are the greatest land-based reservoir for carbon on the planet, containing three times as much carbon as do plants. Soil-atmosphere interactions exchange a third more CO2 with the atmosphere than do interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean. Soil thus plays a very significant role in controlling atmospheric CO2 levels.In this context, we have an opportunity to engineer soil systems so that the amount of CO2 that they take up is maximised. This a form of carbon abatement that is very cheap, because it is passive (there are no energy inputs once constructed). It is directly analogous to the use of constructed wetlands for the treatment of polluted waters. Our aim is to assess the feasibility of this process for widespread application in the UK, and to assess the associated costs and benefits.We will investigate the soil carbon contents of artificial soils from a number of sources. We will use trial plots constructed for a completely different purpose in 2002 and which we have recently shown to accumulate soil carbonates (the first such found in the UK). We will grow brassicas, as a representative bioenergy crop, in artificial soils in the lab and greenhouse, using calcium-rich wastes as part of the soil. We will sample brownfield and other remediated sites of known age and history. In all cases we will determine the carbon content of the soil in terms of different C reservoirs, and fingerprint each one using stable isotopes so that we can trace its plant origin.Using the information from the samples, we will be able to determine the lifetime of the different soil carbon reservoirs. We will be able to estimate how quickly they build up, if they are stable, and if they transform from one into another. Using this information we can model the behaviour of carbon in artificially planted systems.In the context of UK land use and the arisings of calcium-rich materials that could be used to accelerate the process, we will assess the possible benefits of designing soil systems to act as sites for the passive sequestration of atmospheric CO2. If the process appears to be feasible, we will use contacts initially in NE England to exploit our findings, through Newcastle's Science City which links us to industry, and through the University's CREEL project, funded by One North East and intended to act as an outreach facility for renewable energy.