Episode Details
Back to Episodes“So you want to use plants to reduce CO₂” by dynomight
Description
Humans make carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is bad for cognition. But plants turn carbon dioxide back into oxygen. And plants are the one true home decoration strategy. So maybe if you get a lot of plants, you can you can keep carbon dioxide in check and keep your brain working?
It's theoretically possible. It's probably just barely possible in practice. But it won't be easy.
People produce ~1 kilogram of carbon dioxide per day. That's around 5.7 × 10²³ molecules or 0.948 moles per hour. (You may remember from high school that a mole is a gigantic number made up to avoid having factors of 10²³ everywhere.) Let's keep it simple and call it one mole per hour.
Meanwhile, plants turn carbon dioxide into oxygen through photosynthesis, i.e. the chemical reaction of (6 water molecules) + (6 carbon dioxide molecules) + (energy) → (1 glucose molecule) + (6 oxygen molecules). The minimum energy physically needed to convert 1 mole of carbon dioxide into glucose and oxygen via this reaction is ~477 kilojoules.
So we've already got a lower bound. Say you have magical plants that somehow channel all incoming energy into photosynthesis with perfect efficiency. [...]
The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:
July 30th, 2026
Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YfKgyuc8s9BcAMpEp/so-you-want-to-use-plants-to-reduce-co
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.