Why can't carbon dioxide captured from power plants be pumped into an atrium for trees to convert into O2?

Well you are right that CO2 can be used for plant food. But there is no reason to capture it. The planet has had CO2 levels as high as 7000ppm in the past and right now we are only at 380ppm. So their is no problem with releasing co2 into the air.

The amount of CO2 absorbed by trees and other plants depends on the growth rates, which in turn relates to ambient temperatures, light availability and intensity, soil nutrients and water availability as well as the life history of the species in question. The rates which CO2 is absorbed by a given species is relatively easy to determine as it correlates to how much water oxygen is released and this can be measured directly. However the amount which is stored is different as CO2 is emitted through root systems and from decaying material still on the plant and/or after it is dropped to the ground. There are systems in place to estimate the entire amount of CO2 stored in forest by measuring the influx of CO2 from the canopy and efflux from soils. The global estimates are highly variable, but you can assume there is about 1 billion tonnes of carbon removed from the atmosphere per year.

So the usefulness of your system would depend on the lifespan of the species you choose, the growth rates (ie some trees store more in their younger years and less as old growth, whereas others are slow growing and store a greater net volume of carbon over time), the conditions you expose them too etc. But basically the same trees you use indoors will be removing the same net amount of carbon if they were outdoors, so the best idea is to stop cutting down forests we already have as Baccheus suggested.

You're right that the conversion of land from less plant growth to more plant growth is an effective form of carbon sequestration.

Be careful, though, as carbon goes back into the cycle when plants are harvested. Only carbon in sustained growth is sequestered. If you've got one square mile of trees, and want to double your sequestration, you have to plant and sustain a second square mile of trees at the same time.

Some believe elevated CO₂ concentrations, which would be provided by your atrium, lead to faster plant growth. In some lab experiments, this is true. In real world conditions, however, plant growth is constrained by multiple factors: CO₂, solar input, soil nutrients, the genetic makeup of the plant, etc. So excess CO₂ is of limited benefit unless you have a way to increase all the other constraints as well.

But an atrium might not be necessary. You wouldn't even have to grow the trees close to the power plant to get an effective offset. If you emit 100,000 tons of CO₂ to the atmosphere, and sequester 100,000 tons of CO₂ with about a square mile of new tree growth on the opposite side of the Earth, the net change to carbon in Earth's atmosphere is still zero. (But planting a forest on Venus won't help.)

The average coal power plant takes about a week to emit 100,000 tons of CO₂. So, to offset your coal plant's direct carbon emissions, you would have to plant and sustain an additional square mile of forest somewhere in the world on about a weekly basis.

The British Government had a similar idea, to sequester CO2 fro emissions and, wait for it, bury it underground.

Countless billions were spent on this ridiculous notion before it was dropped to the relief of the taxpayer.

Your idea is flawed although well intentioned, as soon as the trees/plants died the CO2 would be released back into the atmosphere, and besides imagine the size he building would have to be.

A better idea is to reinstate peat bogs to sequester CO2 forever, already the existing bogs contain as much CO2 as the whole of the atmosphere, and provided the peat is not burnt will seal it away forever.

It would help, if the trees could survive the *other* toxic emissions given off by coal power plants. It would also help keep those other emissions from contaminating the general atmosphere.

I wouldn't want to grow any crops used for food or anything that actually touches our bodies, however, because of those other emissions. And I don't know if the trees would grow fast enough to absorb all the carbon, or not. They might, if you picked the right, fast-growing trees.

But algae might actually be a better bet than trees, at least in terms of carbon capture.

A coal plant would fill your ten acre site with CO2 in about ten minutes. What would you do with the CO2 generated the other 23 hours and 50 minutes?

Very basic principle this could be a form of carbon sequestration. but you have some serious practical problems.

1. Scale - the atrium would have to be very large probably multistory to reduce total footprint of the structure.

2. Capital Cost the initial cost would be staggering

3. M&R Cost would be high increasing the operating costs of the plant significantly.

It is a great idea. If you built 25 million acres of tree forest you could replace the amount of rain forest that is chopped down in one year. If you add 25 million acres every year you could offset the amount of the CO2 increase that comes just from deforestation. You would still not be cutting into the amount that comes from combustion, but it would be a start.

Or, we could just stop deforesting the rain forests.

But whatever solution proposed to offset CO2 increases you have to answer the big question:

Who will pay for it?

probably to much co2 for plants to absorb cud kill off the trees

That's actually a pretty good idea. But the promoters of man-made Global Warming will be against it because it would not be helpful toward their real agenda, which is collecting money from all the businesses that produce CO2, which is just about all of them.

Warmists aren't really looking for solutions to their fantasy warming problem, they just want the power to implement fines and to make easy money from their carbon trading schemes.

There are actually several technologies that would make good use of excess CO2 if it was really a problem. But you will fine that authorities like the IPCC will ignore them or discount them because they would divert their greedy agenda of collecting perhaps trillions of dollars for a non-problem.

-----------------