[Terrapreta] Charcoal sinks/ coppicing

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Michael,

Do you think Amazonians may have coppiced?

I'm not sure, but this is a very interesting topic and so is your question.  Maybe power plants should invest in coppiced plantations right near their power plants.  They could be mandated to fix as much carbon each year into charcoal for soil as they emit from their smokestacks.  It would be like geo-sized "CO2 scrubber" technology.  I think coppiced wood is an excellent feedstock for pyrolysis into charcoal.  The plantations could be sized to so the annual coppiced wood had as much carbon in the biomass, which is cut from the plantation, as was grown into the whole plantation in a year.  I think these kinds of coppiced plantations could then, given enough water and other nutrients, continue to produce charcoal in a very sustainable way for years and years.

Richard Haard has said some interesting things about coppiced woodland and he and Larry Williams have some sort of plantation, I think.
It is actually in my plans to build a "Clean Charcoal Kiln" and bring it out to them and have them start making charcoal from wood off their coppiced woodland.

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Michael Bailes<mailto:michaelangelica at gmail.com> 
  To: terra pretta group<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 12:44 AM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Charcoal sinks/ coppicing


  Charcoal sinks
    <http://adserver.adtech.de/?adlink%7C289%7C113568%7C1%7C170%7CAdId=1532098;BnId=3;itime=497223493;key=vt-ns-archive+art-mg19225730.500;> 
    <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 _______________________________________________
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