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

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Jim,

I understand exactly what you are saying.  My taxes and all of my other expenses are going up.  But, so far there are no shortages for me (I live in the "greedy" part of the world).  Take a look at Lou's blogspot (http://lougold.blogspot.com/2008/05/terra-preta-update-beyond-zero.html<http://lougold.blogspot.com/2008/05/terra-preta-update-beyond-zero.html>) and that $519 BILLION dollar bill going up at $1M every 5 minutes.  That is what we are and will be paying to conduct the war in Iraq.
That bill is going to be taxed on poorer people, too.  Not well spent in my opinion.

I think, that America is going to be knocked to its knees by this issue.  We made our bed, and we will lie in it.

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jim Joyner<mailto:jimstoy at dtccom.net> 
  To: Terra Preta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 2:51 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] How to STOP using Fossil Carbon resources?!


  Sean,

  Right now, as a percentage of what is consumed, the American public is paying at about a 50%+ rate, i.e., when you buy something, anything in the US, about half of it is going for taxes. Interestingly, there is not that much difference between what the rich and the poor consume so the poor essentially pay about the same in taxes as the rich. Now this does not include the amount we are cheated annually by the Federal Reserve (not the gov't) that prints or loans fiat money into existence out of thin air, diluting the value of the currency -- that could be somewhere between 6 and 18%, depending who you talk to.

  We are likely in a recession (have been since the first of the year), unemployment is up, production is down, inflation is raging, the savings rate is close to zero, the debt per capita is the largest ever . . .

  And you want to raise taxes? Who exactly do you have in mind should pay them? Who do you think can pay them? Corporations? The rich? Progressive tax? Think again. These folks never pay taxes because they have the wherewithal to pass them on -- to the consumer. If they didn't they wouldn't be in business.  It's the poor consumer who pays them all and they are not doing very well.

  Oh, I know, you want a depression! That will fix everything . . . reduce our use of oil, coal, etc .  .  . shut the economy down, put even more people on the street. . . but we won't have to worry about emitting  CO2, right? 

  I don't know, but I doubt anyone is going to go for it. Good luck convincing Congress. 

  Jim

  Sean K. Barry wrote: 
    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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