[Terrapreta] How to STOP using Fossil Carbon resources?!

Sean K. Barry sean.barry at juno.com
Mon May 12 13:57:09 CDT 2008

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Hi Lou,

Well, the first thing to do is to TAX Carbon emissions and the sale of refining of fossil carbon fuels. We don't need a "Federal Tax Holiday" on gasoline taxes in this country. We need to raise the Federal Gas Tax immediately and use all of the funds (way beyond a paltry $3 million) to develop renewable energy sources. We need to remove oil and coal subsides and food-for-fuel subsidies and use these monies too to develop renewable energy sources that do not use food-for-fuel and do not mine fossil carbon from the ground.

Then we need to keep raising the taxes on fossil carbon and the production of fossil carbon products, fuels, fertilizers, petrochemical plastics, etc. We need not tax the shit out of everyone, but in America we need to tax carbon heavily, as the only viable impetus to get people to change. Eventually we should make the USE, production, and sale of fossil carbon ILLEGAL. Fossil Carbon is a DIRTY WORD. We MUST STOP burning fossil carbon or sequester the CO2 emissions from all we burn. Coal should ONLY be used for chunks found in museums.

We also have to remove CO2 from the atmosphere as fast as we can. We can't mess around with hymming and hahhhing about this anymore!
STOP using fossil carbon energy, find, make or build replacements for the lost energy, conserve on the use of fossil carbon fuels down to altogether nothing, and get CO2 out of the atmosphere NOW.

We're on the path to planet wide destruction and massive worldwide action and understanding of this problem is imperative. The lives of billions of people and untold billions of lives of living species of plants and animals are at great risk if we can't find the way to do this. I am on the path to completely remove myself and my family from "the grid" while still living in "the grid" and I hope to be able to show other people how to do this. I want a ZERO CARBON FOOTPRINT before I die. I want a NEGATIVE CARBON impact before I die. I can vow to find another way!

Regards,

SKB

----- Original Message -----
From: lou gold<mailto:lou.gold at gmail.com>
To: Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com>
Cc: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> ; James Thomas<mailto:jthomas at yakama.com>
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 12:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] (tire pyrolysis)

Hey Sean,

I keep hearing you say "STOP the continued consumption of fossil carbon resources." How? How in terms of practical politics? How will you stop Peabody Coal? How will you stop China? I really hope and pray that you have an answer because I'd love to see it happen.

hugs, lou

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 2:17 PM, Sean K. Barry <sean.barry at juno.com<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com>> wrote:

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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