Greg and List: cc “carbon brief”
1. Like Greg, I was impressed by the BECCS historical summary at
http://www.carbonbrief.org/beccs-the-story-of-climate-changes-saviour-technology?utm_content=buffer79430&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
<http://www.carbonbrief.org/beccs-the-story-of-climate-changes-saviour-technology?utm_content=buffer79430&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer>
Leo Hickman did a fine job. My main point in this note is to hope that
he/“carbon brief” can soon provide a similar “template” (Greg’s term) history
for other CDR approaches.
For biochar, the main commonality is likely to be statements by Peter
Read, who I believe changed his CDR preference from BECCS to biochar (a term he
is given credit for) about 2007. In that year we met in Australia as biochar
received its present name. A little later he invited me into biochar
discussions on this list. Unfortunately Peter died late in 2009. For those
wanting to see his biochar views, I recommend two cites to this list:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/geoengineering/tD2e6GVcKkM
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/geoengineering/tD2e6GVcKkM> and
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/geoengineering/biochar$20peter$20read
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/geoengineering/biochar$20peter$20read>
. A paper of his about that time with favorable comments about biochar is at
http://seat.massey.ac.nz/personal/p.read/GGLBnqf25ix08.pdf
<http://seat.massey.ac.nz/personal/p.read/GGLBnqf25ix08.pdf>
2. A second reason for writing is to say that the recent problems that
CCS has been having (major funding cutbacks in the US, UK, and Australia) may
lead some CDR advocates to put too much emphasis on the “savior” aspect of the
presentation (in the title “Timeline: How BECCS became climate change’s
‘savior’ technology”). Indeed I believe that biochar may have even already
taken over the (undesirable) “savior” position. The main reason for a switch
(if there has been one) is the recent drastic cutback in funding for CCS. Is
there any recent positive news for BECCS? Two recent BECCS analyses that
suggest otherwise are:
http://blog.uvm.edu/jstephe1/files/2012/03/Stephens-2015-CCS-A-Controversial-Climate-Mitigation-Approach.pdf
<http://blog.uvm.edu/jstephe1/files/2012/03/Stephens-2015-CCS-A-Controversial-Climate-Mitigation-Approach.pdf>,
and
http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/5/4024/htm
<http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/8/5/4024/htm> (“Social Science Insights for the
BioCCS Industry”; Anne-Maree Dowd †,*, Michelle Rodriguez † and Talia Jeannette
Thankfully for a positive CDR future, the global biochar industry seems
today to have a doubling time under two years. This is because biochar’s
carbon negativity cumulative impact, unlike that for BECCS, can increase for
centuries (as terra preta has). The December Paris meetings ended up with an
emphasis on soils that has helped biochar (but not BECCS) a lot.
3. So hopefully we can have some real list dialog on what has happened
and is happening for all the CDR competitors. I suspect that Mr. Hickman and
“carbon brief” agree that there is no single “savior” CDR approach.
Ron
> On Apr 13, 2016, at 6:00 PM, Greg Rau <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> http://www.carbonbrief.org/beccs-the-story-of-climate-changes-saviour-technology?utm_content=buffer79430&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
>
> <http://www.carbonbrief.org/beccs-the-story-of-climate-changes-saviour-technology?utm_content=buffer79430&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer>
>
> Very nice history of the development of the BECCS concept, starting with a
> few words written in a book chapter by Robert Williams of Princeton in 1998.
> Much longer gestation period than I thought, and perhaps a template (or
> cautionary tale) for further CDR development
>
> Greg
>
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