[Terrapreta] carbon trading

[Richard Haard]

Thanks for your comment Folke, good thinking material

In dollars 370 euro the Swedish carbon tax would be $577 or at 6  
metric tons charcoal per hectare $3460. Such a scheme would be quite a  
incentive for farmers to stagger production on land with short  
rotation woody crops or like you say with industrial hemp as an annual  
crop. In  midwest grain belt with corn at $5.00/bushel and say 150  
bushels per acre gross income to farmer would be say $1850/ ha and by  
collecting the stover the farmer could pyrolyse in place and receive  
additional income or better yet develop a rotation system where every  
third or fourth year a dedicated biomass crop would result in a soil  
building subsidy with real cash benefits to the farmer if pyrolysed  
into charcoal.

Energy economics are changing very fast here in western Washington and  
our farm, a native plant nursery will begin to this seriously about  
using producer gas from pyrolysis. I have done my model building on  
the basis of willow coppicing as we have markets for willow stakes and  
possibly more. In next month I am expanding our coppice grove to about  
6 acres of 5 native species that have varying amount of gross  
production. It is not unreasonable to speculate that by 2010 when the  
grove comes into full production gas and diesel will be $10/ gallon.

The difficulty is how to get the US consumer to support the concept of  
a carbon tax on top of these escalating energy economics. I can see  
how someone on the producer side can use a carbon tax to offset costs  
for energy. I am attending a local (Whatcom County) Democratic party  
'election agricultural platform committee' in 2 days and will attempt  
to tie together three related proposals that are now up for discussion .

These are
support the use of carbon sequestration
support use of agricultural waste to generate electricity
legalize the growing of industrial hemp.

Hemp unfortunately comes with baggage and this is why I tend to avoid  
it. But as the $0.51/ gallon federal subsidy for corn ethanol has been  
a boon to grain-belt farmers perhaps some way to pay for sequestration  
would give a boost to small scale local food production.

Rich H



On Mar 13, 2008, at 12:38 PM, Folke Günther wrote:

> See my blog (from the bottom) and the article ’Carbon sequestration  
> for everybody..’ I have since long proposed that if somebody has to  
> pay for emitting carbon dioxide (e.g. a tax), anybody that can  
> sequester the same amount of carbon (e.g. as charcoal in  
> soil),should be paid the same amount, as a ‘negative’ tax. It’s just  
> fair.
> Moreover, just imagine if you culd be paid an amount corresponding  
> to the Swedish carbon dioxide tax, 1 SEK (€ 0.1)/kg carbon dioxide =  
> 3.67 SEK (€0.37) /kg charcoal buried in the soil. One tonne (easy to  
> fix!) would give you € 370, a good extra on the other harvest.  
> Imagine you really go for it and grow industrial hemp for carring.  
> It could easily give 20 tonnes dw, with a charcoal yield of at least  
> six tonnes per hectare.
> The problem is not really the charring, but the politics around the  
> creation of a fail carbon tax.
> The methods to reverse the global warming are there, and a lot of  
> willing people.
> We are just waiting for the poitical descisions.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Folke Günther
> Kollegievägen 19
> 224 73 Lund, Sweden
> home/office: +46 46 14 14 29
> cell:               0709 710306  skype:  folkegun
> Homepage:     http://www.holon.se/folke
> blog: http://folkegunther.blogspot.com/
>
> Från: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org [mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org 
> ] För Richard Haard
> Skickat: den 13 mars 2008 16:19
> Till: lou gold
> Kopia: Terrapreta
> Ämne: Re: [Terrapreta] carbon trading
>
> In for example your arena -  A startup proposal  for application of  
> carbon credits to a outreach program such as training and  
> demonstration? Worth an inquiry to these groups? It seems such a  
> program would develop its own inertia and like micro-financing and  
> could have large additive effects. Perhaps some that are out there  
> and not accounted for yet. Otherwise contracts for carbon  
> sequestration credits would better match the large scale operations  
> of electrical utilities, etc.
>
> Rich
>
>
> On Mar 13, 2008, at 2:31 AM, lou gold wrote:
>
>
> Here's the link to an interesting Wall Street Journal article about  
> carbon trading.
>
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120535230851631199.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
>
> -- 
> http://lougold.blogspot.com/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/visionshare/sets/  
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