Bury, burn or both: a two-for-one deal on biomass carbon and energy

Once harvested, there are three general ways in which biomass may be used to manage carbon. It may be used as an almost CO₂-neutral substitute for fossil fuels, it may be sequestered away from the atmosphere by burial, or finally, it may be used as a substitute for fossil fuels with capture and sequestration of the resulting CO₂ (Keith, 2001b; Obersteiner et al., 2001); for example, we may use biomass to make hydrogen and sequester the resulting CO₂ in geologic formations.