[Terrapreta] (tire pyrolysis)

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi James,

Wow! That NIMBY thing just bites.  It squelches many unconventional and environmentally beneficial alternatives.  There is no wind farm off the coast on the eastern seaboard because of NIMBY (and its not even in their back yards).  There is a Senator from a state with little or no wind resource, who claims that the unsightly nature of wind turbines offends the aesthetic sensibilities and the livelihoods of too many people to be acceptable in any other state, even outside his district (where there will never be wind farms).  Tidal power has been stymied by people who want their ocean views undisturbed.

I think NIMBY used to crush technological innovation with energy is self-serving, too conservative, and immoral in this day and age.

Pyrolysis is the thermal decomposition of carbonaceous matter in an oxygen limited environment.  It has greatly reduced emissions versus complete combustion (burning), a great array of potentially useful products, and it is by definition much cleaner than burning (lower overall emissions).  Many of the products from pyrolysis can be used as direct replacements for what are now petrochemical products.  Waste management using pyrolysis can be much cleaner from an emissions standpoint than refining of petroleum into petro-chemcial products and fuels now is.

Charcoal, which has a similar energy density to mineral coal, is made via pyrolysis of biomass (mostly from biomass with high content of lignin, cellulose, or hemi-cellulose), and if burned for its energy content would not emit the same high levels of mercury, cadmium, radioactive isotopes, or carcinogens and pyto-toxins as does the burning of fossil mineral coal.  Burning charcoal made using pyrolysis would be way better than continuing to burn fossil coal, because the CO2 emissions from burning charcoal are "carbon neutral", whereas those from burning fossil coal will only continue to increase the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere (very "carbon positive").

Making charcoal from wastes and biomass, then amending charcoal into soil, puts carbon directly out of the atmosphere and into the ground in near permanent, sequestered storage.  Pyrolysis of wastes and biomass coupled with "Terra Preta"-like formation of charcoal enhanced soils would be a very highly "CARBON NEGATIVE" practice.

The world needs "CARBON NEGATIVE" practices now, more than ever.

We MUST be ever vigilant, though, that pyrolysis of biomass into charcoal, to make "CARBON NEGATIVE" TP soils can never be used to justify (through emissions offsets) the continued use of fossil carbon fuels!  The world also desperately needs to STOP the continued consumption of fossil carbon resources and the consequent emissions of billions of tons of "CARBON POSITIVE" fossil sourced CO2.

Regards,

SKB

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: James Thomas<mailto:jthomas at yakama.com> 
  To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 11:17 AM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] (tire pyrolysis)


  Re: the tire pyrolysis question:  A company headed by a New Zealand 
  Environmental Scientist  is attempting to do this very thing locally 
  here in Washington State; with  "Carbon Black" as a market product  
  syngas used to fuel the process once it gets going good and hot 
  (parasitic consumption) and the remainder used to generate electricity 
  for the grid and the biooil for market. They were planning on sinking 
  about $25 million into the process. Many people would be employed; air 
  pollution control would be a key point; all kinds of good things 
  environmentally were proposed. But in reality the NIMBY (Not in my 
  backyard) mental paradigm squelched the proposal, at least temporarily.

  With regard to the steel in the steel belts it was proposed that  the 
  tires would come in in bales, then chipped , then subjected  to 
  pyrolysis and the steel chips collected after pyrolysis . I am not sure 
  how the char and steel would be separated, but it appears not to be too 
  much of an obstacle, I suspect that the char would simply crumble away 
  from the metal chips. Bottom line is this is already being thought of as 
  a way to reuse all of the waste tires in Washington State and 
  entrepreneurial spirit is attempting to make it happen. But the NIMBY 
  effect is limiting the potential.

  It has been suggested to put in this type of facility well away from 
  populated areas, but my question is " if this is proposed, where would 
  the employees live? Do you expect employees to live in an isolated 
  community way out in the desert, just so they can have a job with no 
  other life or other "benefits of civilization"? Sounds like the chorus 
  in the old "Tennessee" Ernie Ford song about sixteen tons of coal per 
  day being the miner's output:   "I owe my soul to the company store". Or 
  do you expect them to commute or take a shuttle daily from a population 
  center? Then where is the proposed environmental benefit of less overall 
  fuel consumption?  Pyrolysis obviously needs a better public relations 
  effort to be accepted by the public. People just don't have an  
  understanding that pyrolysis of tires or medical waste or gasification 
  or any of the other similar processes is not the same as "Burning Tires" 
  . The burning tire image reinforced on the mental video screens by 
  images of Palestinian youths burning tires in protest of political 
  actions is permanently  embedded in the mental paradigm of most modern 
  urbanites, in my opinion. "Pyrolysis" is just a big  fancy word for more 
  pollution  in this mental paradigm.



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