[Terrapreta] carbon and compost

[Ron Larson]

Tom:  last night you sent a reply to Robert Klein with an invitation to the 
list to add comments.  I liked everything you wrote and thank you for 
keeping this part of the needed TP dialog alive.  I went back to re-read 
your past post about this pyrolysis oil process and now see where you got 
your numbers - which look credible.

    Your house-clearing example ended up with a charcoal cost of $125/ton by 
using a 20% yield and eventually got to a needed $10.60/acre-yr with a 
5-year time horizon.  My gut reaction (like Chertoff - no credible 
intelligence) is that Terra preta additions will be able to cross that 
hurdle.  Like you, I look forward to real farmer reactions.   If a 
particular farm is presently netting $100/acre-year, they only need a 10.6% 
productivity improvement due to the char and we have certainly been hearing 
larger productivity gains.  They might save this amount in reduced 
fertilizer need.

    But I also want to try a climate perturbation.  Let's say a rate of 
$15/ton CO2 or (rounding) $50/ton of char.  Then your $125/ton goes to 
$125-$50 =$75/ton and your $10.60 moves close to $6.00/acre-yr.    I read 
about near-term CO2 rebate rates going much higher than $15/ton CO2.

     The other big question we need to worry about is whether the char can 
sell as energy for a higher value than you show.  At 30 GJ per tonne, and 
converting tons to tonnes, your $125/ton goes to $125 x 1.1 / 30 = $4.60/GJ 
= $4.80/MMBtu.    If the char value as energy might be $7.00/MMBtu (a 
postulate) then the $125/ton price might have to go up by the ratio $7/$4.80 
to $183.)  Suppose that your Oregon farmer has reported that the $125/ton 
price is reasonable - and won't go higher.  Then, when split in a ratio of 
$125 (soil)/($125 (soil)+$50 (climate)) = 5/7 = .71 , we arrive at a 
farmer-soil share of  .71* $183 = $130  (and no sale will ensure until: 1) 
the climate share goes up a bit, or 2)  the farmer chanes his mind and is 
willing to pay $5 more per ton or 3) the energy-determined value/price comes 
down).  However, if the going energy value of char is only $6.00/MMBtu (and 
fossil coal costs much less delivered to Colorado power plants), then the 
fair (?) break-even charcoal price to the farmer for its soil value might be 
$125*(6/4.80)*.71=$110/ton, while the pyrolyzing company (after receiving 
the climate credits) is realizing $110 +$50 = $160 - well above his presumed 
$125 cost of production.  The point here is that both climate subsidies and 
energy-values issues will (in the future) determine whether the Oregon 
farmer is able to be happy at $10.60/acre-year.

    Since I believe soil productivity gains are going to exceed the small 
($10.60/acre-yr) number that Tom calculates, I view this as a nice "proof" 
that we should keep going.

Again, thanks to Tom.

    Ron

ps  Note that if we assume wood at 18 GJ/tonne, then a wood chip sales price 
of $20/ton gives an energy value  for the wood (no pyrolysis) of $20 *1.1 / 
18 = $1.20/GJ = $1.29/MMBTu - so there may be another energy bid auction 
also going on to worry about.  Most coal-fire power plants should be burning 
more wood today - if they can get wood for this price.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Miles" <tmiles at trmiles.com>
To: "'Robert Klein'" <arclein at yahoo.com>; "'terra preta'" 
<terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 11:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] carbon and compost


> Bob,
>
> In our valley we harvest and process 740,000 tons of straw each year from
> our grass seed crop (530,000 acres). We recover 2-3 tons per acre from the
> perennial crop and leave the stubble. We used to burn all of the straw and
> the stubble. Then we developed burners to burn the stubble-only (1.5 t/a)
> and removed the straw. We developed markets for the straw. Now we just 
> leave
> the stubble. I can tell you from more than 32 years experience that a
> pyrolysis system that meets our environmental and agro-industrial
> regulations will cost about $40 to harvest and process a ton of straw, or
> about $200/ton of char. ($20/ton harvest and field side/store; $20/ton to
> process; 20% yield of char).
>
> During the last five days on my commute to work I have seen three small
> houses demolished, ground up, and hauled off. Each house was probably 
> about
> 120 m2 (1200 ft2) and sat on 1200m2 (12,000 ft2 ~ 0.3 acres). When the
> landscaping was scraped off and everything was put through the tub grinder
> the wood waste filled about three trucks of about 15 tons each. So the 
> haul
> was about 15 tons per house. I could tell by the trucks that the wood
> probably was sold as fuel to one of three pulp mill boilers I work on in 
> the
> area. The pulp mill probably paid about $20/ton for the delivered fuel.
> Except for permits and inspections (I saw only a water agency truck) the
> public agencies were probably not involved.
>
> Our agencies in Oregon would not permit the agricultural charcoaler that 
> you
> describe. An agricultural charcoaler in our valley would have to comply 
> with
> all of the industrial and emissions standards that are anticipated in the
> ABRI pilot, and more, so I will use it as an example. The three 15 ton
> truckloads could have been processed in Peter Fransham's 50 tpd Advanced
> Biorefinery in a day. At 20% charcoal yield each truck (or house) would 
> have
> produced about 3 tons of char, enough to offset my personal production of
> CO2 in a year (See http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/carbondioxide ) at 
> a
> net cost of about $125/ton char. (See
> 
> 001261.html )
>
> If I inject the char in rows at a concentration of 6 tonne/ha (2.46 t/a) 
> in
> 100 mm (3.9 in) bands like the oil mallee charcoal, which if broadcast 
> would
> equal 1 tonne/ha (.42 t/a), (See
> http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/oilmalleeiai07 ) then I could treat
> 7.12 acres of crop with 3 tons (2.73 tonne) of charcoal from one house or
> one 15 ton truckload of urban wood.
>
> What agronomic benefit, and hence what economic value ($/acre), would the
> char have over a 5 year period? Would it offset the $20/ton delivered fuel
> cost or the $125/ton (.42 t/a x $125/t = $53/a; $10.6/a/yr at 5 years) 
> total
> char processing cost? Or, if char from straw, $200/ton, $84/a or 17/a/yr?
> These are values that we have yet to determine for most applications in 
> our
> temperate soils.
>
> Tom
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
> [mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Robert Klein
> Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 1:11 PM
> To: terra preta
> Subject: [Terrapreta] carbon and compost
>
> The primary municipal feedstock is wood waste in the
> form of wood chips which are easily handled.
>
> The problem is that the municipalities are used to
> operating seriously over engineered and expensive
> incinerators which are unnecessary and inappropriate
> to the production of charcoal.
>
> It is easy and very cost effective to simply redirect
> the wood chips out to the agricultural charcoalers
> that I have described.
>
>
>
>
>
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