On August 21, 2006, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law California's "Million Solar Roofs" initiative, first announced by President Clinton in June of 1997 to create 3,000 Megawatts of solar electricity - enough to displace two or three large coal-fired power plants.
Today I would like to announce an initiative that would actually have a hope of making a dent in the CO2 problem: a Million Herreshoff Furnaces! A Herreshoff Furnace is a continuous multiple-hearth charcoal kiln, capable of producing about 3,000 metric tons of charcoal per year, equivalent to about 9,000 tons of CO2, or the lifetime per-capita CO2 emissions of 5 Americans. Operating a million of these continuously for 60 years and burying the charcoal would completely remove the CO2 emissions of 300 Million Americans from the global atmosphere. Currently about 800,000 metric tons of charcoal are produced in the US per year. A Million Herreshoff Furnaces would produce roughly 3,750 times more charcoal per year. So, with a four-thousand fold expansion of the US charcoal industry, a four-fold expansion of the global nuclear power industry would have a hope of making a dent in the CO2 problem. Industrial Charcoal Making: http://www.fao.org/docrep/X5555E/x5555e00.htm#Contents -dl --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
