[Terrapreta] Charcoal sinks/ coppicing

[Kurt Treutlein]

Michael Bailes wrote:
>
>
>  Charcoal sinks
>
>  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;>
>
>
>  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
>  CO_2 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?

What better use for all the blue gum plantations going up in Tassie and 
elsewhere in Oz, especially if TSHTF and the Pulpmill dies a natural death?

Kurt,
eying off one of them just down the road