[Terrapreta] The economics of biochar

[Michael Bailes]

Fascinating and detailed post Rick thanks
Thanks for the links too.

It worries me that we are still considering using charcoal made by
traditional methods. (Even coppicing which probably needs to continue to
preserve the coppiced forests).
Making charcoal by these methods is wasteful and polluting.
Here charcoal costs $AUD$4,000 a tonne (imported from Malaysia). Is very
hard to come by even in nurseries. A local "charcoal chicken" shop has
promised me a 20K bag for "around $20" I have yet to nail him down on this
offer.

In my opinion the only way TP can work well, to halt or slow global warming,
is if it is made by pyrolysis and the energy and/or bio-oils harvested.

To save transporting costs the pyrolysis charcoal there should be a small
plant at every council Tip/dump..It would't hurt councils to give it away.
they could havest the carbon credits and would save on landfill costs + sell
the electricity produced. The charcoal produced  could be used on council
parks and playing fields to save water and fertiliser costs.
To my knowlege no pyrolisis unit has been set up anywhere except in the
Phillipines (with rice hull char?)
BEST Energies (Aust.) hopes their $5Mil pyrolosis plant will produce char at
about AUD $200 a tonne. Unfortunately they can't prove that, for at the
moment there is no large market for pyrolysis char or char of any kind in
Australia.

On 29/12/2007, Rick Davies <rick.davies at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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
>


-- 
Michael the Archangel

"You can fix all the world's problems in a garden. . . .
Most people don't know that"
FROM
http://www.blog.thesietch.org/wp-content/permaculture.swf
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