[Terrapreta] Charcoal sinks/ coppicing

[Michael Bailes]

  Charcoal sinks

> [image: SIgn up for the New Scientist newsletter]<http://adserver.adtech.de/?adlink%7C289%7C113568%7C1%7C170%7CAdId=1532098;BnId=3;itime=497223493;key=vt-ns-archive+art-mg19225730.500;> [image:
> Advertising]<http://adserver.adtech.de/?adlink|2.0|289|113568|1|170|ADTECH;key=vt-ns-archive+art-mg19225730.500;grp=064001397;loc=300;>
>
> Burying carbon dioxide is being promoted by some sections of the
> coal-fired power industry as the solution to climate change. Aside from the
> massive technical hurdles to be overcome, one of the problems with such
> techniques is the limited availability of suitable geological structures in
> which to store the enormous quantities of CO2 we produce each year. There
> is also the risk that the pressurised gas will leak at some point in the
> future.
>
> Production and burial of charcoal as part of a biofuel cycle, by contrast,
> allows carbon to be permanently removed from the atmosphere and stored in a
> relatively stable form.
>
The technology is simple and available, and the process could be implemented
> immediately. Charcoal is 85 to 98 per cent carbon, and 4 kilograms of wood
> produces around 1 kilogram of charcoal.
>
Other useful products are obtained, some of which, such as methanol, can be
> used as fuels. The charcoal can easily be compressed and buried in the
> voluminous holes left by centuries of coal mining. Combined with coppicing,
> suitable land could be turned into effective and permanent carbon sinks.
>
>From issue 2573 of New Scientist magazine, 14 October 2006, page 26-27

Do you think Amazonians may have coppiced?
-- 
Michael the Archangel
How strange and sad for the species - have people forgotten that they can
always escape to the fairy dell and talk to the ducks?
-Leunig, 2008
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /attachments/20080418/5654614a/attachment.html