----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: "globalchange" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 2:07 PM Subject: [Global Change: 2455] Re: A Million Herreshoff Furnaces
> >> 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! > > Seems like a waste, why not turn biomass (CH2O) into CO2 and H2, use > the H2 for energy and bury the CO2? If you bury the C you also bury > nearly all of the energy content of the biomass. > > Mind you, I am aware of reasons why you'd rather bury the charcoal (H2 > is difficult to store, gasfication is capital intensive, it also costs > some energy to bury the CO2). > About half the C is used in the syngas stream that drives the pyrolytic production cycle (and ultimately returned to the atmosphere), the other half is buried for the express purpose of REMOVING carbon from the atmosphere. It is not enough for our energy supply simply to go carbon neutral - we must quickly go carbon negative if we are to avoid greater than 2 degrees Celsius warming. You are right, of course, from a practical economic perspective, it would make much more sense to either combust the biomass directly or to create a useful fuel for sale, rather than dump carbonized biomass in a landfill. Some combination of fuel production, char sequestration in agricultural soils, and carbon offset credits would make economic sense (here are some potentially economical ways of doing this: http://www.dynamotive.com/ http://www.bestenergies.com/.) My point is that we have been pulling carbon out of the ground and putting it into the atmosphere on an industrial scale for many decades, and now it is time to start pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it into the ground on an industrial scale for many decades. -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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
