[Terrapreta] The economics of biochar

[Duane Pendergast]

            Rick,

 

It seems you would get something for your investment if you bought some
charcoal and buried it or mixed in with some soil. The evidence on this site
strongly indicates you would have removed some carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and kept it out for a long time. Are you confident that
ClimateCare will yield any results at all in terms of actually reducing
atmospheric greenhouse gases?

 

Duane

 

-----Original Message-----
From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Rick Davies
Sent: December 29, 2007 2:46 AM
To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
Subject: [Terrapreta] The economics of biochar

 

Hi all 

I have started to look into how I could buy carbon offsets that would
compensate for the CO2 generated by my international airflights each year.
One of those is a London-Melbourne return trip.  According to ClimateCare in
the UK (http://www.climatecare.org/) the total mileage of this flight is
20,994 Miles and the resulting emissions are: 5.57 Tonnes of CO2 (Put aside
for the time being the question of how accurate this estimate is). The cost
to offset this CO2 will be £41.76, if I use Climate Care's services. 

I searched the web to find out how much carbon there is in a tonne of C02.
One source says "Carbon comprises 12/44 of the mass of carbon dioxide"
(http://epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/state_energyco2inv.html) So, my 5.57
tonnes of CO2 would be equal to 1.51 tonnes of carbon.

I was then interested to see what it would cost me to buy that carbon,
literally, in the form of charcoal that is already being produced, and
preferably from renewable sources. I found a UK company called Bioregional
Charcoal Company, which sells charcoal to garden centres and supermarkets on
behalf of 25 local charcoal producers around the country, who produce
charcoal from long established coppiced woodlands. See
http://www.bioregional.com/programme_projects/forestry_prog/charcoal/char_hm
pg.htm for more information. 

Their charcoal sells for around £5.00 a bag of 3kgs, in the supermarkets.
Assuming at least a 100% markup by the supermarkets, this suggests the
charcoal makers could be selling charcoal at about £0.83 pence per kilo. If
I bought charcoal from them, and asked them simply to bury in one way or
another (so long as it was visibly beyond use as a fuel) it would cost me
£1,253 to offset my flight to Australia. Not realistic at all!

 

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