7 ms·

Just charcoal the biowaste, and bury it. Much less tech needed, and it actually reduces co2 not just circulates it. Profit is via increased crop yields.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
zozbot234 7y ago
Bio-coal is charcoal, just produced by different means than charring the biomass. Typically, bio-coal production manages to convert more of the carbon into coal, while less of it is burned.
- samatman 7y ago
  Fairly sure GP's point was that sequestering the resulting carbon is a better move than burning it back into the atmosphere. Meeting CO2 goals requires removing carbon actively from the atmosphere, and drastically reducing our use of CO2-producing energy sources. Burning bio-coal does neither of these things; burying it accomplishes the former, and is at least not working against the latter.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    > Meeting CO2 goals requires removing carbon actively from the atmosphere, and drastically reducing our use of CO2-producing energy sources. No. Either one could be sufficient alone, just as you can lose weight either by exercising more or eating less alone, though generally the combination is better. For removing carbon from the atmosphere we could dump olivine sand into coastal waters where it would sequester carbon as it was weathered. If we want to reduce our use of CO2 producing energy sources without massive declines in quality of life or vast environmental damage there’s only one choice, nuclear.
    - jointpdf 7y ago
      >If we want to reduce our use of CO2 producing energy sources without massive declines in quality of life or vast environmental damage there’s only one choice, nuclear. Unsubstantiated claim detected. Solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal are all cheaper than nuclear (and even coal) for new generation capacity. That includes capital, operation and maintenance, and transmission costs. See tables starting on page 8 for the numbers (https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....).
      - Gibbon1 7y ago
        In that vein I reduced the amount of CO2 my car produced per year by one simple trick. I moved closer to work. I was commuting 8000 miles a year. Now I'm commuting 4000 miles. And it's 10 minutes to work instead of 30.
      - Krssst 7y ago
        What about storage cost to make it viable for base load?
        twic 7y ago
        Use surplus wind power at night to make hydrogen via electrolysis, and keep hydrogen-burning gas turbines or fuel cells or whatever around to fill in gaps.
      - barry-cotter 7y ago
        Solar requires the clearing of huge amounts of land, with the associated destruction of wildlife. To the best of my knowledge there has been no progress made in figuring out what to do with solar panels at the end of their working lives either and they all use lots of toxic heavy metals. Wind doesn’t leave lots of toxic waste but it does kill millions of birds and bats a year, disproportionately effecting large birds with long generation times, most of which are predators like eagles. Hydroelectric is at least less soul crushingly ugly but the environmental effects of flooding huge amounts of land are hardly positive. It’s also basically played out in developed countries. All of the suitable sites for hydroelectric power have been developed. Besides turning mountain ecosystems into lakes HEP is hideously dangerous in ways that are basically unavoidable. The failures of the Banqiao and Shimantan Dams killed 170-230K people in 1971[1] Solar, wind and hydro all entail a lot of damage to the environment, far more than is necessary from nuclear, just because they require much greater areas as they’re less energy dense. I don’t deny that nuclear is more expensive on those grounds. I just think that relative safety is more important. So by the most expansive counts Chernobyl killed 4,000[2] people while air pollution kills about 7 million a year, every year[3]. Germany’s closing of its nuclear power plants has lead to an additional 1,000 deaths a year[4] Nuclear is safer than any alternative source of energy, wind, solar and hydro included. If you include those costs nuclear looks amazing in comparison[6]. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam [2]https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-cher... [3]https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/ https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollu... [4]https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/german-nuclear-phaseout-is-causing-1-100-additional-deaths-a-year-study https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/german-nucl... [5]http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf [6]https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
- jasonlaramburu 7y ago
  Not sure that's true-- From the paper it seems like they are making bio-coal by distilling the liquid fraction produced during the charring process (the bio-oil). Bio coal is more like a very dry, solid tar than a charcoal.
swiley 7y ago
If it’s prepared with renewable/carbon neutral processes then using it to generate heat will be renewable/carbon neutral. If it’s used to replace petrochemicals instead of heat (which they pointed out was uneconomical anyway) it sequesters carbon, so it’s a good thing. It’s always better to have options.
ZeroGravitas 7y ago
The paper talks about this option (well, burying the output of this process). It's carbon negative to use it as a soil additive, but you don't get to burn the bio-coal for energy, so it's slightly less profitable. I guess you could do a bit of both and be exactly carbon neutral.
- jasonlaramburu 7y ago
  In the paper they are actually producing both biochar and biocoal. The biochar is the solid fraction produced during pyrolysis. The bio-oil (volatile hydrocarbons) are then further distilled to produce biocoal. By tweaking temperature and process parameters they can likely optimize for production of one or the other.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

zozbot234 7y ago

Bio-coal is charcoal, just produced by different means than charring the biomass. Typically, bio-coal production manages to convert more of the carbon into coal, while less of it is burned.

samatman 7y ago
Fairly sure GP's point was that sequestering the resulting carbon is a better move than burning it back into the atmosphere. Meeting CO2 goals requires removing carbon actively from the atmosphere, and drastically reducing our use of CO2-producing energy sources. Burning bio-coal does neither of these things; burying it accomplishes the former, and is at least not working against the latter.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  > Meeting CO2 goals requires removing carbon actively from the atmosphere, and drastically reducing our use of CO2-producing energy sources. No. Either one could be sufficient alone, just as you can lose weight either by exercising more or eating less alone, though generally the combination is better. For removing carbon from the atmosphere we could dump olivine sand into coastal waters where it would sequester carbon as it was weathered. If we want to reduce our use of CO2 producing energy sources without massive declines in quality of life or vast environmental damage there’s only one choice, nuclear.
  - jointpdf 7y ago
    >If we want to reduce our use of CO2 producing energy sources without massive declines in quality of life or vast environmental damage there’s only one choice, nuclear. Unsubstantiated claim detected. Solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal are all cheaper than nuclear (and even coal) for new generation capacity. That includes capital, operation and maintenance, and transmission costs. See tables starting on page 8 for the numbers (https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....).
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      In that vein I reduced the amount of CO2 my car produced per year by one simple trick. I moved closer to work. I was commuting 8000 miles a year. Now I'm commuting 4000 miles. And it's 10 minutes to work instead of 30.
    - Krssst 7y ago
      What about storage cost to make it viable for base load?
      - twic 7y ago
        Use surplus wind power at night to make hydrogen via electrolysis, and keep hydrogen-burning gas turbines or fuel cells or whatever around to fill in gaps.
    - barry-cotter 7y ago
      Solar requires the clearing of huge amounts of land, with the associated destruction of wildlife. To the best of my knowledge there has been no progress made in figuring out what to do with solar panels at the end of their working lives either and they all use lots of toxic heavy metals. Wind doesn’t leave lots of toxic waste but it does kill millions of birds and bats a year, disproportionately effecting large birds with long generation times, most of which are predators like eagles. Hydroelectric is at least less soul crushingly ugly but the environmental effects of flooding huge amounts of land are hardly positive. It’s also basically played out in developed countries. All of the suitable sites for hydroelectric power have been developed. Besides turning mountain ecosystems into lakes HEP is hideously dangerous in ways that are basically unavoidable. The failures of the Banqiao and Shimantan Dams killed 170-230K people in 1971[1] Solar, wind and hydro all entail a lot of damage to the environment, far more than is necessary from nuclear, just because they require much greater areas as they’re less energy dense. I don’t deny that nuclear is more expensive on those grounds. I just think that relative safety is more important. So by the most expansive counts Chernobyl killed 4,000[2] people while air pollution kills about 7 million a year, every year[3]. Germany’s closing of its nuclear power plants has lead to an additional 1,000 deaths a year[4] Nuclear is safer than any alternative source of energy, wind, solar and hydro included. If you include those costs nuclear looks amazing in comparison[6]. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam [2]https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-and-fukushima https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-cher... [3]https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/ https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollu... [4]https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/german-nuclear-phaseout-is-causing-1-100-additional-deaths-a-year-study https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/german-nucl... [5]http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf [6]https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-energy-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldw...
jasonlaramburu 7y ago
Not sure that's true-- From the paper it seems like they are making bio-coal by distilling the liquid fraction produced during the charring process (the bio-oil). Bio coal is more like a very dry, solid tar than a charcoal.

swiley 7y ago

If it’s prepared with renewable/carbon neutral processes then using it to generate heat will be renewable/carbon neutral. If it’s used to replace petrochemicals instead of heat (which they pointed out was uneconomical anyway) it sequesters carbon, so it’s a good thing. It’s always better to have options.

ZeroGravitas 7y ago

The paper talks about this option (well, burying the output of this process). It's carbon negative to use it as a soil additive, but you don't get to burn the bio-coal for energy, so it's slightly less profitable. I guess you could do a bit of both and be exactly carbon neutral.

jasonlaramburu 7y ago
In the paper they are actually producing both biochar and biocoal. The biochar is the solid fraction produced during pyrolysis. The bio-oil (volatile hydrocarbons) are then further distilled to produce biocoal. By tweaking temperature and process parameters they can likely optimize for production of one or the other.