One if by Oil and Two if by Coal

Charcoalab is an initiative aimed at introducing kids and young students in a practical way to the benefits of adding biochar to soils - one of the techniques used to generate carbon-negative bioenergy.

Char can be one product of waste to energy processes that involve pyrolysis.

Premise:

If

Distributors are advocating the burial of char in the soil to enhance future cultivation of crops

Then

Should there be international standards of quality established for such products to guard against environmental pollution?

It would seem advisable to have such standards in place given initiatives, such as
what biopact refers to as BECS (Bio Energy with Carbon Storage). Bio-energy is a term used to describe the conversion of biomass to energy, thus it can include waste as feedstock and it could include the harvest of crops. This blog gave as a recent example “sustainable forest thinning”, i.e., using the product from the thinning commercial forests as a ligno-cellulosic feedstock.

Note: The problem is how such conversion can be an economic supply of energy, EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Invested). Conversion as close to the harvesting is advocated, e.g., portable charcoal kilns that also produce the liquid byproducts, The idea is to reduce transportation costs since the hauling of feedstock or products adds to the expense of the process.

BioEnergy is jargon for useful, renewable energy produced from organic matter, i.e., the conversion of the complex carbohydrates in organic matter to energy. In current usage, the term is generally synonymous with biomass.

Before the discovery of fossil fuels, the carbon dioxide cycle was stable; the same amount that was released was sequestered. Since the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen from around 150 ppm to 330 ppm, and are expected to double before 2050. It is these anthropomorphic carbon emissions that threaten existence of life as we know it on this planet.

AG readers will know the form of carbon storage, now being advocated by initiatives bundled into the International Biochar Initiative (IBI), as agri-char. In the United States some first steps towards legislation to encourage trials and research on biochar have been taken. Especially with introduction of “carbon trading” there is the lure of profit from the low-tech route, e.g., pyrolysis of biomass and storage of one by-product directly into agricultural soils. “As the charcoal is stored in an inert form, the soils become carbon sinks that can keep the compound locked up, potentially for centuries.”

“Once the cost of carbon emissions starts to rise and the value of CO2 extraction from the atmosphere is also considered, the balance will become overwhelmingly attractive., notes Biopact¹. Well, maybe…

As previously noted, there is tremendous risk of seeing bio-gasification as cost effective, environmentally friendly recycling, especially with self-monitoring and self-enforcement by the industry. Entrained flow gasification can have wide application since it can make use of a variety of waste, to include agricultural wastes, grasses, cornstalks and wood waste, as well as hog manure, municipal garbage, sawdust and paper pulp.

Yet large scale gasification of biomass requires requires massive tonnage of biomass to be cost effective and significant investment in hot gas conditioning to be environmentally friendly. We are seeing a big push for production from Big Oil. They would run the show, of course. And, we are seeing plenty of influence also being exercised by Big Coal. They stand to make considerable profit from inclusion in the production (trillions, Mister Peabody).

If that fails to raise alarm — One if by Oil and Two if by Coal — then you already may be a zombie, or one of those patriotic soldier farmers invited by Big Farm, to give the “whole she-bang” a folksy, down home, not to mention patriotic, green appearance, complete with American flags flying over the facilities and pictures of trusting kids learning how they can do their part for national security — Those nasty men (Flash full-page ad, scary photos of Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Russian President Vladimir Putin) better not smile at me! — nicely posed against a pleasing green background.

“So far,” writes Tom Philpott² for Gristmill, “a huge amount of the government’s lavish support for biofuel has ended up on the bottom line of Archer Daniels Midland, the king of industrially produced, environmentally ruinous corn.”

>Now another type of model corporate citizen is in line for a cut of the action: huge-scale confined-animal feedlot operation (CAFO) players like Tyson and Smithfield.

Green Public Relations