[Terrapreta] Fossil fuel numbers

[MFH]

Figures from various sources give the following current approx annual
production volumes:

 

Hard coal          6,000 million tonnes

Brown coal        1,000

Oil                    9,800

Gas                  5,000

Total                21,840

 

Carbon equivalent = 17,700 MT

 

I have no idea how much of this enters the atmosphere, but its got to be
frightening whether or not you believe in GW.

 

If we consider that 100 years ago there was relatively very little fossil
fuel production, and as an arbitrary figure take an annual production
increase during this 100 year period of 2%, then around 1,000,000,000,000
tonnes of fossil fuels have been extracted and consumed in this brief period
of Earth time.

 

If we compare this to the previous (say) 10,000 years when there was
negligible FF extraction, its hard not to believe that we have caused
potential havoc.

 

Can this really be moderated much less reversed? Australia alone has proven
reserves of coal enough to last 300 years. New discoveries are being made
with monotonous regularity. New mines opened, massive investment in port
infrastructure to handle the increased volumes. "Growth" is the
most-repeated word of almost any politician. We've got a fairly robust
democracy here but I'd need a lot of convincing that a majority of
Australia's politicians would vote to even limit coal production to current
levels far less to wind production back.

 

I'll keep making char and returning it to the soil and I'll keep preaching
its advantages, but I have to wonder whether we've already set the path for
Doomsday and that path is logistically un-reversible.

 

What pisses me off most of all is that every effort I make to minimise
energy use and keep my own backyard clean is negated by my neighbours,
whether they be in London, Guandong or Utah. Like the PCB's that lace every
ocean on the Planet, we are one world.

 

I really hope that my figures are way out and equally hope someone can
demonstrate that. Please.

 

Max H

 

 

 

 

  _____  

From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Mark Ludlow
Sent: Sunday, 20 April 2008 12:17 PM
To: 'Sean K. Barry'; 'Terra Preta'; 'Jim Joyner'
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Carbon tax

 

Hi Sean,

 

The Kyoto Protocol is provisional, not absolute. It's likely to be succeeded
by any number of more responsive agreements. Surely, GHG emitters will need
some form of carrot/stick motivation; but what will that look like 25-years
from now?

 

Once more, I plead for focus of this List to be more Agrocentric. Or am I
the one that's off-key?

 

Mark

 

From: Sean K. Barry [mailto:sean.barry at juno.com] 
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 6:46 PM
To: mark at ludlow.com; 'Terra Preta'; 'Jim Joyner'
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Carbon tax

 

Hi Mark,

 

You know, I don't know any reason why US farmers could not earn "carbon
credits" other than that we live in the largest emissions per capita nation
in the world.  And, ... the Kyoto Protocol, which is where the "cap and
trade" with "carbon credits" is coming from, is not set up that way.

The USA, a developed, industrialized, heavy emitter nation is Annex 1.
Other developing nations (Non-Annex 1 countries), who do not have the heavy
emissions (yet!), are the TARGET zone for emissions reductions actions
(because its cheapest there?) through the UN "Carbon Development Mechanism".

 

Now, we can technically do that kind of stuff here in the US.  We can build
the actual "Clean Development Mechanism" technologies.  We could retrofit
our own fossil fuel power plants and vehicles with them, and etc.  We should
do that.  I see that.  I'm am going to do some of this.

 

But, that's not the way the Kyoto Protocol trading is set up, so we can't
earn "carbon credits" here, in the US, doing that.  Or, should I say we
can't earn them doing that here, in the US?!  We can export for sale,
though, the CDM technology to Non-Annex 1 countries.  Did you know that that
is another provision of the Kyoto Protocol, too?  Signatores are expected to
develop and share CDM technologies with ALL other participator nations.  

 

This is out of the article Tom Miles just referenced about "carbon credits"
traders ...

 

The trade in developing-world credits results from a provision of the Kyoto
Protocol called the Clean Development Mechanism. A 10-member U.N. board vets
proposed projects to ensure their environmental legitimacy. The independent
auditors accredited by the U.N. act as the board's field inspectors,
traveling the globe to certify whether a project is up to snuff.

 

These CDM people kind of are like the FDA, EPA, bureaucratic, regulatory
kind of an outfit, with the CDM Executive Board of 10, vetting, and that,
huh?  Well, well , well.  I guess you can either "fit 'em or gin 'em".  But,
then, see, we here in the USA are not signed on to the treaty.  So, the CDM
creates the value of a market, that we here in the USA are not involved in
(unless you got an export license).

 

Someone told me, or I read, that the carbon trading market is expected to be
a "$500 Billion Market" within five years.  Is the USA really just going to
be the ONLY country, in an otherwise civilized world, to just sit by
watching it?

 

Regards,

 

SKB

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Mark Ludlow <mailto:mark at ludlow.com>  

To: 'Sean K. <mailto:sean.barry at juno.com>  Barry' ; 'Terra Preta'
<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>  ; 'Jim Joyner'
<mailto:jimstoy at dtccom.net>  

Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 7:34 PM

Subject: RE: [Terrapreta] Carbon tax

 

Hi Sean,

If farmers can be subsidized for growing nothing at all, why is the notion
that they could receive "carbon credits" so hard to imagine?

Mark

 

From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Sean K. Barry
Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 2:04 PM
To: Terra Preta; Jim Joyner
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Carbon tax

 

Hi Jim,

 

I don't think I'm saying the US government needs to be involved with farmers
more.  The US government can be less involved for all I care.  There is not
going to be a way to earn "carbon credits" in this country, even if some new
president signs the Kyoto Protocol.  The US is a developed, Annex I,
industrialized country.  They pay "carbon credits" or they reduce CO2
emissions or they do both, but they cannot earn "carbon credits" under the
current Kyoto Protocol treaty.  Farmers in the US will never earn "carbon
credits", I don't think.

 

Regards,

 

SKB

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Jim Joyner <mailto:jimstoy at dtccom.net>  

To: Terra Preta <mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>  

Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2008 8:57 AM

Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Carbon tax

 

Sean, If I might add a little more to the below. . .

You know I do not like government and that must make me sound awfully
cynical (you even accused me of being a cynic). What I say comes from long
experience with farmers and the government.

I grew up in south and west Texas. Early on, under the Carter administration
the processing sheds and a few large citrus farms we bought. The USDA
created a market order that forced all citrus farmers to process their fruit
through the sheds and receive what the sheds paid. Well, the same companies
that owned the sheds then sold to themselves from the farms they owned. They
established the "market price" essentially at their cost -- thus operating
the farms at break even, making their profits in the sheds. Of course, this
made it impossible for the independent farmers to make a profit.  The
farmers were left with two choices: sell their land to the AG companies or
to housing developers. But there are virtually no farmers there any more.

President Carter essentially said this was a good thing as it gave him
better control over agriculture.

When I was in high school in west Texas (late 50s), cotton farmers were
under an allotment system because it guaranteed them a market. I argued then
that farmers were foolish to be on this welfare system. Today, none of those
farmers or their families farm are there. It's all AG corporations.

All those farming communities are gone, not because they were inefficient or
couldn't compete, it's just that they were deemed a political expedient --
and they are gone. The same process on a larger scale is going on between
large American AG business and the world's farmers. 

So I look on with horror as I watch you talk about getting farmers once
again involved with the government. This scheme to credit tax credits and
carbon taxes are part and parcel of the same movement to establish control
of agriculture (maybe all business) throughout the world. I can only
speculate at the overall purpose and even if it consciously being done. I'm
doubtful that the process can be stopped. But I do know it can't happen with
out gov't force. I am warning you like I warned the farmers in south and
west Texas, that if you enter into a pact with thieves, don't expect to do
well unless you are willing to be one of them.

Jim

Jim Joyner wrote: 

Sean,

Are you telling me that businesses worldwide are going to get together
voluntarily and create this trading system under the "guidance" if the UN?

For carbon trading to take place, gov'ts much put in place a tax and/or they
must also make provisions for tax credits, essentially, to create an
artificial market. That process will be political and you can bet the folks
who contribute most to their politicians will do the best.

Jim

Sean K. Barry wrote: 

Hi Jim,

 

Why do you associate "carbon trading"  with "carbon credits" as US
government interference?  The Kyoto Protocol and the IPCC are under UN
auspices.  When did the government of the US control the UN?  We do not even
pay our dues, let alone dictate UN policy.  The United Nations is not a
government that can or does put a gun to the heads of anyone, do they?

 

Regards,

 

SKB

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Jim Joyner <mailto:jimstoy at dtccom.net>  

To: Terra Preta <mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>  

Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 9:41 PM

Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Carbon tax

 

Greg,

All I said was that the US gov't and the various state governments have
denied and continue to deny, for what ever purpose, equity before the law
(specifically, by making it illegal to bring class action suits with regard
to the environment and, before that, to deny access to the courts on matters
of simple environmental changes) and is very much at the heart of the
problems we have. As a people we have very little recourse except through a
politicized EPA. 

My concern is not so much that we have lost something dear (because I have
not expectations of it being returned) but that it is naive to think this
same gov't is going to somehow start remedying real problems with carbon
taxes/carbon credits. It is more likely to just create another useless
bureaucracy that will makes things worse still.

I mean, look at the agricultural "program" in the US. We have a farm welfare
system that subsidizes the the biggest, wealthiest and least productive (in
the real sense) farmers in the US to produce, e.g., products that would be
much cheaper and cleaner to purchase in other countries (e.g., ethanol).
This in turn distorts not only the US market by driving food costs up, but
the world market by robbing third world countries of the ability to compete
and earn a right living. And all this from a gov't that is essentially
bankrupt in a country that only produces 90% of what it consumes. 

And we are suppose to think that creating yet another gov't boondoggle
(carbon credits/taxes) is going to make things better? 

Subsidize stupidity and you simply get more of it.

Jim


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