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the CO2 doesn't escape the atmosphere, it just doesn't recycle itself in a timeframe you are looking for


The resource really isn’t the carbon itself but it’s stored chemical energy. Without new energy input, the carbon in CO2 will never become a hydrocarbon again.


This, and this is also why most "carbon recycling" tech is DOA as you cannot go backwards (cheaply) on thermodynamics.


turns out that happens without human intervention


I don't think so? Or, could you say what mechanism you're thinking of here?


Photosynthesis turns carbon and energy into plants immediately.

Longer term the same processes that turned algae and other life forms into oil are still happening and try as we might we aren't going to stop them, but they proceed at what is likely a pace that will take long after humans are extinct to replenish what we have used.


> Longer term the same processes that turned algae and other life forms into oil are still happening

This is unfortunately not true.

The vast majority of our fossil fuels are formed from carbon that was sequestered into cellulose in plants, before anything had evolved the ability to digest cellulose. It piled up, and eventually compressed into coal. Look up the ʾCarboniferous Period" for more details.

These reserves are no longer being formed because we have fungi that break down these materials and return the CO2 to the air.

Planet Earth will never again have oil and coal reserves of the size it did 200 years ago.


I was just about to reply the same but I think what you said is true for coal but not necessarily so for oil.


While this is true for coal, algae can still form oil. Oil is primarily formed by organic material dumped out by river deltas that are sealed by their sea drying up. That is why places like the Gulf of Mexico are so oil rich. Seabeds are pretty much organic sludge which can be sealed in by salt, and then compressed and heated into oil.


Ah I see what you were trying to get at. Seems a bit beside the point, but sure.




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