[Terrapreta] Wood harvesting

[Sean K. BArry]

Hi Joe,

We should find this place and try to convince these people to pyrolize the culled biomass into charcoal right on site.  They can still take half the energy as producer gas or synthesis gas from the pyrolysis reaction.  The gas can be transported in bottle trucks and burned, rather than the biomass.  The remaining charcoal, which contains the other half of the energy, can be tilled right into the soil in the forestland.  Maybe some North Carolina businesses would buy "carbon credits" for the sequestered carbon in the charcoal.

The point of the experiment would be not be to show the soil benefits (although I expect they will accrue in that soil), but rather to show the economics of making "Neo Terra Preta", and harvesting "carbon negative" energy.  This should be an important objective of this group.  It will require development.  We could get started with an experiment like that.

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: joe ferguson<mailto:jferguson at nc.rr.com> 
  To: terrapreta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2007 9:43 AM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Wood harvesting


  This article:
  http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/637021.html<http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/637021.html>
  appeared in the local newspaper.  It reports on work at an experimental 
  forest in eastern North Carolina, USA, to clear undergrowth from mature 
  forest as a means of wildfire prevention.

  In the operation the brush is chipped and the chips hauled away for 
  boiler fuel at a 50MWE electric generation plant.  Much of the article 
  is involved in reporting on speculation as to the use of the wood ash 
  resulting from the operations.

  I would think that the activity at this research station would serve as 
  a good source of data on operating costs for an operation of small 
  industrial scale, since some of its production steps are identical to 
  what is involved in a commercial char-production operation.

  Joe Ferguson



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