Carbon Sequestration
Recent work since 2005 has shown that carbon can be accumulated in phytoliths. This suggests an opportunity to sequester carbon securely in the long term, in the form of inclusions in durable silica. The effectiveness of phytoliths as a medium to assist in dealing with the problem of carbon sequestration remains to be established in an appropriate perspective, however carbon in phytoliths is in organic form, chemically reduced, as opposed to carbon dioxide, or even to elemental carbon. While carbon sequestration is a potentially important way to limit atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations in the long term, the use of phytoliths to achieve this must be balanced against other uses that might be made of the same biomass carbon (or land for producing biomass) to reduce GHG emissions by other means including, for example, the production of bioenergy to offset fossil fuel emissions. If enhanced phytolith production results in a reduced availability of biomass for other GHG mitigation strategies, its effectiveness for lowering net GHG emissions may be reduced or negated.
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