[Terrapreta] Hello, I am an investor

[Jan Sorensen]

Lorenzo, 


I am willing to join you in this exercise. 


Jan Sorensen
New Energy Systems AS
Oslo, Norway
www.newenergysystems.no





Message: 6
Date: Sat, 24 May 2008 18:02:24 +0200
From: "Biopact" <biopact at biopact.com>
Subject: [Terrapreta] Hello, I am a major investor
To: "terra Preta" <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
Message-ID: <614374219F554C4396390C4846F1A3A6 at PCvanLaurens>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

I wanted to do this exercise. Suppose I am a major investor, willing to green up my act.

I have $1 million at my disposal. And I'm looking at many different, competing options: launching a reforestation project in some developing country, investing in cellulosic biofuels, protecting an existing patch of tropical rainforest, or investing in biochar to offset emissions (of my company) or to trade as carbon credits. 

How would the biochar people convince me to put my money into their concept?

I know we've repeatedly listed many reasons as to why TP is interesting. But we have not made a real comparison of competing concepts. Moreover,  I think we should begin to design concrete proposals and routines to convince investors willing to engage in the "voluntary" carbon market (since biochar is not yet included in formal carbon trading systems). 

For Terra Preta we shouldn't underestimate concrete implementation costs, the complexity of biochar production, the competing uses for a farmer's biomass, monitoring and verification costs, and so on. 

Anyone willing to make a basic comparison of options (let's say we start with an overview of the economics of different bioconversion technologies, then compare with less related concepts like reforestation or rainforest protection)?

Lorenzo