Keith:
Thanks for the prompt response, which in short form are:
1. That the answer to my first question is "No" - you do not recall a
conscious group decision to not mention Biochar by name.
2. That you might (not would) vote yes on question #2 - excluding
Biochar as a Geoengineering option - primarily because of "policy
challenges". I haven't made up my mind on this.
3. Amendment not likely.
This is not the right place to debate whether or not to sequester about
half of the (hopefully much increased) available Biomass to replace coal
(or oil or gas). However, my main justification is the issue of
"Legacy CO2". I also would argue on grounds of controlling N2O and CH4
- which both mostly come from ag, waste, and forestry sources. Costs,
jobs and rural economic development worldwide would be a big part of my
response, as well as other mitigation and adaptation rationales. For me
this goes way beyond coal displacement, but I have no problem supporting
your own fine carbon capture work or BECs (as distinct from CCS).
(To Ken) I promise to hold off all other responses until tomorrow -
or request this be forwarded then.
Ron
David Keith wrote:
Ron,
As a practical matter, I don't think there is a feasible way to amend a
document like this once it is adopted.
I am responding because I was involved in dealing with the description
of biochar in both this and the Royal society document. (These were both
group efforts with many authors so I had no special role other than
working on that part of the text.)
My understanding is that biochar could be a quite important method for
improving soil fertility and in some places an effective way to
sequester carbon.
Where you have collected enough biomass to use large-scale energy
technologies, you have to ask what the benefit is of sequestering carbon
as biochar compared to using it to displace coal or to displace coal
with CO2 capture. We are still pulling gigatons of coal out of the
ground. If you have the capacity to generate a flux of reduced carbon
it's not clear why you should be burying it back in the ground rather
than using it. This applies except in cases where (a) transport
limitations make the source to sink matching so hard that local
sequestration trumps integration to the energy system, or (b) where the
benefits due to soil amendment are large.
Independent of exactly how effective biochar is, the policy challenges
it raises seem quite distinct from the policy challenges raised by solar
radiation management and other high leverage geoengineering techniques.
It was for that reason, rather than a judgment about its overall
effectiveness, that it got less space than some might have hoped in
recent summary documents.
Yours,
David
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ron Larson
Sent: January 14, 2010 1:58 PM
To: geoengineering
Subject: Re: [geo] Fwd: AGU's Statement on Geoengineering
Ken and List:
From the perspective of a Biochar advocate trying to represent what
Peter Reed might have said, I have three questions on the recent AGU
statement on Geoengineering..
1. Since Biochar was not specifically mentioned, was that omission
intentional?
2. Since Biochar, apparently unlike all those specifically
identified, has unique (carbon-neutral) mitigation and numerous
adaptation attributes, would this list perhaps think it best to have
this statement explicitly exclude Biochar?
3. What is the procedure to attempt amendments?
Ron
Ken Caldeira wrote:
fyi
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: *Paul Higgins* <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>
Date: Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 12:38 PM
Subject: AGU's Statement on Geoengineering
To: Mike MacCracken <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>, David Keith <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>, Ken Caldeira <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>, "John T. Snow" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>, Ben Santer <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>, Alan Robock <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>, Margaret Leinen
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>, "James R. Fleming"
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>, Don Wuebbles
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>, Steve
Fries <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>, Aiguo
Dai <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>, Dian Seidel
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>
Hi everyone,
AGU has adopted our policy statement on geoengineering
(http://www.agu.org/sci_pol/positions/geoengineering.shtml). This is
good news and illustrates how effective our drafting team was in
writing the statement. Congratulations (and thanks again) to each of
you.
Thanks especially to Alan Robock. I believe he was a big key to AGU's
decision.
Best wishes,
Paul
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