Let it blow
Wind power: a core climate solution 36
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Posted 6:35 PM on 18 May 2008
by Joseph Romm -
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Joseph Romm is the editor of Climate Progress and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
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Delay And Deny Posted 11:14 am
18 May 2008
Texeme.Construct(Participant)
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Tasermons Partner Posted 12:18 pm
18 May 2008
...and that's just from one wind farm, built by Pickens...
...he just ordered the first 600+ turbines for phase one.
One wonders how much the state will produce when that's combined with all the other, smaller, wind farms under construction?
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Tasermons Partner Posted 12:33 pm
18 May 2008
jabailo, just how will global climate change create uniform temeperatures?
If anythin', the opposite would be true, with localized and regional weather patterns changing very quickly and in unpredictable ways.
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Delay And Deny Posted 2:25 pm
18 May 2008
As you know, the temperature changes are occuring more rapidly the further away from the equator. It's not so much the temperature is uniformly increasing arithmetically. What's happening is the temperate and polar regions are heating in inverse proportion to their distance from the equator. The equatorial regions are not "burning up" -- but the temperate is getting tropical and the polar getting temperate.
Thus, there is less differential between cold regions and warm regions so the potential for violent weather decreases.
Unlike Al Gore's theory, the recent catastrophes are from the short term cooling trend which created a temporary differential. You will note: we still don't have much hurricane weather, but rain is coming back to the southeast. These are all microtrends before the persistant nature caused heating continues.
Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))
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amazingdrx Posted 3:18 pm
18 May 2008
Solar furnace cogeneration and biogas ought to take care of the rest, plus charge up electric transportation, plugin cars, bikes, and electric mass transit.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 3:48 pm
18 May 2008
The plugin and plugin hybrid wedge, very good.
And the concentated solar thermal as factory mounted solar furnace cogeneration, that's a great wedge.
Along with the wind wedge and a biogas from waste organic fertilizer/farming wedge, it looks to me like we have enough wedges to actually reverse GHG climate disaster and dramatically lower energy costs. And end reliance on imported oil and natural gas/fertilizer.
Maybe another one for water power, wave, hydro-electric, river, tidal, and ocean current.
The electric mass transit wedge and a wedge for natural gas/biogas train/truck power, should complete the GHG free picture.
The other ones, like nukes, fuel farming, and clean coal. Forget them. Coal should only be used in the form of conversion to natural gas underground.
The smart grid itself, to interconnect it all, ought to have its own wedge status too. It makes the other ones work and enables storage.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Jonas Posted 11:57 pm
18 May 2008
He lists 5 technologies and concepts that can make this possible.
Wind, solar, nuclear and other renewables are not mentioned by him, because they are all carbon-positive, that is, they keep adding CO2 to the atmosphere over their lifecycle, while we should taking CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Moreover, non-baseload sources of power (like wind or solar) can never support the economy we need to build a system that can withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere.
So here are Hansen's technologies (in random order).
a moratorium on coal without CCS (i.e. coal + CCS)
coupling biomass cogen to CCS (thereby providing a carbon-negative baseload)
avoiding deforestation in the tropics
reforestation in the tropics
biochar applied on a large scale (i.e. carbon sequestration in agricultural soils, thereby removing CO2 and reducing other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide); a transition from slash-and-burn to slash-and-char in the tropics
Wind power certainly can play a small role after we've reached 350ppm, but for the time being it can't be our priority.
The coming years, we really need the more serious and drastic concepts to work. That's the first thing to do.
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amazingdrx Posted 1:19 am
19 May 2008
CCS has never worked. Projects have been abandoned.
Biochar increases GHG.
Energy conservation (efficiency, Hansen got that right) is least expensive, wind is next, solar furnace thermal cogeneration is next, solar PV/heat cogeneration, then farm and waste stream biogas. In that order of cost.
It's all cheaper than coal with CCS. Or nuclear. And it actually works, safely. Which CCS coal and nuclear never will do.
CCS doesn't work with coal, so how is it supposed to work with biomass?
Sequestration of carbon needs to happen in carbon sinks, like a living soil ecosystem. With biomass returned to the soil, not burned as a fuel. Combustion is the enemy.
Solid oxide fuel cells extract 50% of the energy from biogas directly and another 20% or more can be recovered from waste heat.
Evidently being a climate expert does not necessarily make one an authority on green technology. The recent studies noted here in the blog put the lie to biomass as a GHG free fuel and CCS and nuclear power as climate friendly and any of this as cost competitive.
Cows eat grass, collecting biomass, turned into biogas and fertilizer the original biomass is consentrated. And wether it is captured or not it emits methane (a 21x worse GHG than CO2). I noticed Hansen mentions non-CO2 GHG as imortant. he seems to have skipped nitrous oxide (296x GHG effect as CO2) from chemical fertilizer and manure run off though. It's a huge factor in climate change.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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BlackBear Posted 2:12 am
19 May 2008
So I like to think about reflective roofing, proper (or "super") insulation, natural lighting, solar water heaters, and geothermal heat exchangers.
I would LOVE for someone with authority to come out and say, "Any new house with an annual heating/cooling bill of more than $100 is poorly designed."
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Tasermons Partner Posted 2:29 am
19 May 2008
How do wind and solar add CO2? The only CO2 they produce is during construction, and they more than offset it during their lifetimes.
Also, since when in nuclear power considered renewable?
And also, as I've said before, since most current proposed CCS projects include usin' the sequestered carbon in oil and gas fields to increase production (which would then produce more CO2 from oil and gas which couldn't be sequestered), how does that take CO2 outta the system?
I do agree though that we need to take GHGs ouuta the system and aim much lower than 450ppm.
But I think massive restoration of forests, coral, and wetlands, and other ecosystems, along with redesign of cities and land uses would be more likely to have a major impact.
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amazingdrx Posted 5:34 am
19 May 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/5/17/ ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Nickz Posted 5:50 am
19 May 2008
We could replace natural gas generation and power our entire light vehicle fleet the 2nd year, provide the generation to electrify all I/C and residential HVAC the 3rd, start synthesizing hydrocarbons from atmospheric CO2 for sequestration the 4th, and start giving away turbines to other countries on the 5th.
Obviously, this is oversimplified, and the timeline is greatly compressed, but it illustrates the size and cost of the problem.
If we decide that AGW really is an overriding priority, we don't have to dismantle our economy to stop emitting CO2, we just have to make a moderately serious effort.
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Robco1 Posted 6:16 am
19 May 2008
The knowledge base is there. The innovative spirit is there. All we need now is the political will and the investment.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:59 pm
19 May 2008
Applying conservation throughout the renewable generation buildout, will lower the amount of power needed as the amount of renewable energy available rises. They will meet up, maybe in 10 to 20 years.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 3:10 pm
19 May 2008
That natural gas in a fuel cell/turbine backup generator in a plugin hybrid car, would only cost 33 cents to go as far as a gallon of gas.
Savings for heating oil are really incredible. Geo heat exchange powered with solar cogeneration will actually produce excess electric power. Zero heating oil consumption and a net positive energy output. This form of powering buildings replaces natural gas heating too.
Freeing up natural gas for transportation uses. Replacing more oil.
Maybe the US could become an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries member! Wouldn't that be exciting.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Jonas Posted 3:05 am
20 May 2008
[Wind] It provides GHG free baseload power.
You're wrong twice in one short sentence:
wind does not provide baseload and peakload power, unless you have a storage medium. And you don't. Show me one wind farm that offers baseloads.
Wind emits between 30 and 50 tons of CO2eq per GWh of electricity over its lifecycle.
Check the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan for the numbers.
It is cost competitive with coal.
No it is not - stop fantasizing - and most certainly not in the US, where coal is much cheaper than in the EU.
In the EU, the difference is as follows (bigger in the US): cost €/MWh:
-coal, pulverized fuel with flue gas desulphurization: €30 - 40
-coal, circulating fluidized bed combustion: €35 - 45
-IGCC: €40 - 50
-wind, offshore: €50 to 170
-wind, onshore: €40 to 110
In practise, wind is most often twice as costly as coal. In the U.S. the difference is even larger.
The only renewable capable of competing with coal, is biomass:
-biomass, circulating fluidized bed: €25 - 80
Check the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan for the numbers.
So get your numbers straight, and stop pulling them out of thin air. You're doing those who take wind power seriously a disservice.
CCS has never worked. Projects have been abandoned.
What are you babbling about? One project after the other is coming online.
In Norway, in France, in Germany in Algeria, in Australia. All these countries have either fully-fledged working CCS-projects or demonstration projects.
-CCS in deep saline aquifers has been implemented full-scale at Norway's Sleipner field for many years now
-full-scale CCS in Algeria's In-Salah field has been up and runnig too
The development of carbon capture technologies is making breakthrough after breakthrough, each month, driving costs down with big leaps.
Clearly, you don't know what you're talking about, not even knowing Sleipner, In-Salah or the projects coming online.
Biochar increases GHG.
What are you babbling about? If applied on a global scale, biochar, with its ability to withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere and its ability to slash methane and N2O emissions drastically, is "perhaps large enough to mitigate climate change alone".
Currently, the atmospheric C levels are increasing by about 4.1 Gt/yr, with 7.2 Gt/yr being put into the atmosphere by fossil fuel combustion and cement production, and 3.1 Gt/yr being removed from the atmosphere by the ocean (2.2 Gt/yr) and terrestrial processes (0.9 Gt/yr). The uptake by terrestrial processes can be increased significantly by management of the 60.6 Gt/yr of biomass C that is fixed by photosynthesis (i.e., net primary productivity), of which 59 Gt/yr is decomposed and 1.6 Gt/yr combusted. Biomass pyrolysis converts about 50% of the biomass C to char. Of the other 50% that is converted to bio-oil and bio-gas, the net energy production is about 62% efficient. Thus, pyrolysis of 1 Gt of biomass C would provide energy equivalent to about 0.3 Gt of fossil C and could be used to offset that amount of fossil C, while sequestering 0.5 Gt as biochar. Of the 60.6 Gt/yr of biomass that is fixed in usable form, we estimate that perhaps 10% of it (6.1 Gt/yr) could become available in one form or another (crop and forestry residues, and animal waste) for pyrolysis. This level of pyrolysis would offset 1.8 Gt/yr of fossil C, and sequester 3.0 Gt/yr as biochar, enough to halt the increase and actually decrease the level of atmospheric C by 0.7 Gt/yr. Even at half this level (i.e., 5% of annually fixed biomass), pyrolysis would be sufficient to decrease the global C cycle imbalance by 2.4 Gt/yr and in combination with other sequestration options help to achieve the minimum goal of C neutrality. Clearly, the potential contribution of biochar technology is large, perhaps large enough to mitigate climate change alone.
American Geophysical Union report.
Or read James Hansen.
But you don't even know what biochar is, do you? You have read a paper about a bag of humus in a Swedish boreal forest, the last place where you would ever think of creating biochar soils. That would be like placing wind turbines in an underground parking lot.
Energy conservation (efficiency, Hansen got that right) is least expensive
Least expensive to do what? To generate (or avoid using) energy? Or to offset emissions?
Please at least learn to formulate a basic question, before trying to answering it.
In his 350ppm texts, Hansen does not talk about efficiency. You haven't even read Hansen.
wind is next, solar furnace thermal cogeneration is next, solar PV/heat cogeneration, then farm and waste stream biogas. In that order of cost.
Least expensive to do what? To generate energy? Or to offset emissions?
Please at least learn to formulate a basic question, before trying to answering it.
When it comes to power generation costs, you are a total fantasist. The order is (cost per MWh):
-biomass (by far the least expensive, and able to compete with coal): €25-80 per MWh
-large hydropower: €25-90
-pulverized coal with desulphurization: €30-40
-natural gas:combined cycle gas turbine: €35-45
-coal, circulating fluidized bed: €35-45
-onshore wind: €35-110
-light water reactor: €40-45
-coal, IGCC: €40-50
-natural gas: open cycle gas turbine: €45-70
-small hydropower (smaller than 10MW): €45-90
-onshore wind: €50-170
-diesel engine: €70-80
-photovoltaic: €140-430
Please do check the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan for the numbers.
So you're not even close and have everything mixed up.
CCS doesn't work with coal, so how is it supposed to work with biomass?
Why do you assume CCS won't work? It is working today in numerous projects, and there is no reason to assume that some of the world's leading scientists are wrong.
Even if there's some leakage, when applied to biogenic CO2, there's no addition of CO2 to the atmosphere, because the original CO2 is biogenic.
But I think you simply do not understand the basics.
None of the renewable energy technologies (except biomass with CCS) can withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere.
Photovoltaic adds a whopping 110 g CO2eq per kWh; wind adds 30 g CO2eq per kWh; even nuclear adds 15 g CO2eq per kWh.
So none of the renewables, nor nuclear, have any substantial role to play in a 350ppm scenario. Only technologies capable of withdrawing atmospheric CO2 can.
That's logical wouldn't you say? Once you start talking about a 350ppm scenario, you must look at carbon-negative technologies, since we're currently at 387ppm.
So you don't want to add technologies that add more carbon dioxide (i.e. wind, solar, nuclear, hydro, coal, oil, gas, solar-thermal, wave, etc...).
So no matter the cost of CCS, its true value can be found in its capacity to implement technologies capable of withdrawing CO2 from the atmosphere.
I'm sure you understand now.
Sequestration of carbon needs to happen in carbon sinks, like a living soil ecosystem. With biomass returned to the soil, not burned as a fuel. Combustion is the enemy.
Again, you show that you don't have even the most basic grasp of chemistry or physics.
In order to return biomass to soils or to prevent its C from becoming CO2, you need to make it (quasi) inert.
That is: you either use it as a building material, hoping it lasts for centuries.
Or you char it and thus make it sequestrable for millennia. If you choose the char option, it would be unwise not to make use of the gases (via combustion) that are released during this process.
Again, you are elegant at demonstrating your ignorance with every line you write. Just returning biomass to soils where it oxidises into CO2, N2O and CH4 is stupid, and a mere carbon-neutral strategy.
We are talking about carbon-negative strategies - a concept which is perhaps still too difficult for you to understand.
I admit elemental cycles (carbon, nitrogen, methane) can be complex and the chemistry of bioconversion can be so too. Still, it's all rather basic science.
Solid oxide fuel cells extract 50% of the energy from biogas directly and another 20% or more can be recovered from waste heat.
That is irrelevant in the debate on how to sequester carbon.
You are referring to an alternative to combustion.
Whether you use offgases from biochar production in an ICE, a fuel cell or a gas turbine, is only of secondary importance. The key is making biomass inert, ready to be sequestered.
Evidently being a climate expert does not necessarily make one an authority on green technology.
Well, Hansen surely knows a tiny bit more about green energy technologies than you do. There's ample, ample empirical proof of this now! ;-)
I noticed Hansen mentions non-CO2 GHG as imortant. he seems to have skipped nitrous oxide (296x GHG effect as CO2) from chemical fertilizer and manure run off though. It's a huge factor in climate change.
Since you obviously haven't read Hansen, let me help you.
Biochar reduces N2O emissions by a factor of 5 to 10.
Check the talk with Dr Van Zwieten at Beyondzeroemissions, people who are rather knowledgeable about carbon-negative energy (alternatively, check the papers on N2O reduction via biochar).
You didn't know. Now you do.
Amazingdrx, just a word between us: it would be nice of you to actually do some basic reading before you pull things out of your thumb. It's so much more interesting to engage in a debate then. Much of the studies and references can be found online, nowadays. So they're only a click away. You can do it.
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Jonas Posted 3:15 am
20 May 2008
-if wind power adds CO2 to the atmosphere during its lifecycle
-and the goal is to withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere
-then wind power cannot be a core technology to achieve the goal
Sometimes good 'ole logic suffices.
If the 450ppm scenario is the goal (but it shouldn't be), then there are numerous technologies that can be seen as core technologies, including, perhaps, wind, provided baseload and peakload capable renewables are given the priority (again, that's pure logic: you need a renewable baseload, before you can make non-baseload technologies like wind truly fully renewable).
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amazingdrx Posted 3:52 am
20 May 2008
Will anyone read yours? That is the question, Hehey.
Did you read the recent biochar thread?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Tasermons Partner Posted 5:04 am
20 May 2008
Nearly all carbon sequestrion projects and proposed projects have the sequestered carbon being used to help enhance oil and gas field production.
In other words, they use it to pump more fossil fuel from the ground. But when the oil and gas is burned, it releases CO2 and other GHGs which can't be sequestered the way CO2 from coal can.
So you're essentially usin' the sequestered CO2 to increase the production of other sources of CO2.
Sources which may have been left in the ground otherwise.
So, what's the net gain?
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Jonas Posted 7:23 am
20 May 2008
That's like saying all wind turbines have been built and will be built near coal mines to provide power for digging up more coal. That's simply not true, only a few wind parks provide electricity for coal mining operations.
But besides that, it's also a dumb suggestion, since the hundreds of coal plants on this planet are all far away from oil and gas reservoirs, which constitute only a fraction of the much larger number of potential geosequestration sites.
Of the currently working CCS projects, none is used for enhanced oil or gas recovery.
Ironically, the only full-scale project that has years worth of CCS experience, uses... a saline aquifer.
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Jonas Posted 7:29 am
20 May 2008
IF 350ppm is the goal, AND CCS is safe and sequesters CO2 permanently into sites not used for EOGR, AND applicable to biogenic CO2 sources, would you then be in favor of the technology or not?
And if not, and assuming you are not advocating such funny ideas like shooting glass mirrors into space to reflect sunlight or other geoengineering follies, which are the carbon-negative energy technologies you suggest we use to reach the 350ppm goal?
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Jon Rynn Posted 7:36 am
20 May 2008
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Jon Rynn Posted 7:43 am
20 May 2008
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Tasermons Partner Posted 10:38 am
20 May 2008
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/oilgas/eor/index.ht ...
Apparently, you're unaware of the EnCana project in the Weyburn Oil Field, or of smaller-scale tests in Kansas and Texas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_oil_recovery
Please also note in the above link, that the EIA estimates that if CCS were used to recover oil and gas on a large scale, it could result in 100 BILLION tons of additional CO2.
Also, you're aware that sequestering CO2 from a typical coal plant actually increases the energy needs of the plant by 25%, correct? That ya actually need more coal to sequester the current coal?
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amazingdrx Posted 2:33 pm
20 May 2008
It's a big long list. Manufacturing, mining, construction, and transportation would be the rest of grid power use.
I think there is enough roof space to power buidings with solar cogeneration given geo heat exchange conservation and storage in the heating/cooling portion. My suspiscion is backed up by that San Diego study of suitable roof space for solar.
I'll take a look at the spread sheet though, thanks.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Jonas Posted 10:15 pm
20 May 2008
Enhanced oil & gas recovery has been practised with CO2 from naturally occuring sources for decades now - this is what your reference is about.
Capturing CO2 from powerplants to geosequester it, must be seen entirely independently from this old practise. In certain cases, there can be technological overlaps, but conceptually speaking these two things are very different.
So I think my point clearly stands: of all the working CCS projects (that is: not good old EOR projects of which there are very many), none includes EOR.
To stick to the biggest projects, the only ones operating at full-scale:
-Sleipner stores in a saline aquifer (there's no oil or gas in such saline formations)
-In-Salah stores in depleted gas fields, no EGR involved
-Lacq stores in depleted gas fields, no EGR involved
I do understand your point, and geosequestration combined with EOR should be seen as problematic.
But please also understand my point: if CCS becomes a viable technology as such, then it can be applied to biogenic sources of CO2, and result in radical withdrawals of CO2 from the atmosphere - i.e. a carbon-negative energy system.
If we take Hansen's 350ppm scenario serious, we must begin to think of such carbon-negative energy technologies.
Just think of what Bioenergy with CCS means: you can scrub more than 1000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per GWh of electricity generated. With all other energy technologies - which are all carbon-positive - you add CO2, thus contributing to the problem.
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GreyFlcn Posted 10:29 pm
20 May 2008
Why must it involve combustion?
Can't we perhaps grow long-lived plants, and then just leave them alone.
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:57 am
21 May 2008
The real challenge will be cost effectively retrofitting existing structures. That might be a government subsidy I'd support.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:44 am
21 May 2008
1) ... wow, what a ramble!
2)... do you even read what you write?
3)You're wrong twice in one short sentence ...
4)No it is not - stop fantasizing...
5)So get your numbers straight, and stop pulling them out of thin air. You're doing those who take wind power seriously a disservice.
6)What are you babbling about?
7)Clearly, you don't know what you're talking about
8)What are you babbling about?
9)But you don't even know what biochar is, do you?
10)Please at least learn to formulate a basic question, before trying to answering it.
11)In his 350ppm texts, Hansen does not talk about efficiency. You haven't even read Hansen.
12)Please at least learn to formulate a basic question, before trying to answering it.
13)When it comes to power generation costs, you are a total fantasist.
14)So you're not even close and have everything mixed up.
15)But I think you simply do not understand the basics.
16)I'm sure you understand now.
17)Again, you show that you don't have even the most basic grasp of chemistry or physics.
18)Again, you are elegant at demonstrating your ignorance with every line you write.
19)Just returning biomass to soils where it oxidises into CO2, N2O and CH4 is stupid ...
20)... a concept which is perhaps still too difficult for you to understand.
21)Since you obviously haven't read Hansen, let me help you.
22)... just a word between us: it would be nice of you to actually do some basic reading before you pull things out of your thumb. It's so much more interesting to engage in a debate then. Much of the studies and references can be found online, nowadays. So they're only a click away. You can do it.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 3:13 am
21 May 2008
The best would be on the southside of an existing building. But to adjust to buildings that have no solar exposure, a greenhouse can be built on, extending into a good sunny patch of the property.
A garage or shed can be added on the north side of the greenhouse. A greenhouse supplies early garden plants and food most of the year in most places.
Solar collectors can then be hung inside the green house, in the form of horizontal louvre blinds that form solar concentrating troughs that can be adjusted to follow the sun. Solar PV is mounted in strips onto a flat metal conduit with water circulating to the solar water heater.
The solar energy leaks through the blinds to power the plants in the greenhouse. Additional louvre trough PV/heat collectors can be mounted on roofs (south facing) and covered with tough glazing. Blinds are made with insulating material and close off at night.
This is a very cheap cogeneration design, easily installed by DIYers or local contractors. Each louvre end would have a flexible plug and play fitting for water and electric power at the ends where the louvres mount on a pivot.
A control motor would pivot the louvres according to optimium sun angle. The louvre collectors could be assembled one at a time and the parts all mass produced.
With a nice geo heat exchange system and building mass storage (and maybe heat stoage salt also, much more dense a storage media), heat/cold (depending on climate and season) would be stored when the sun was shining. Enough heat/cold storage would keep the building and refrigerator/freezer at proper temperatures for days with no sun.
That's it bio-d. Less than $100 a year for all utilities. In fact this would produce extra solar electricity for the grid (depending on solar collector area). At the price payed here by a local utility (23 cents per kwh to solar panel owning customers) that might just pay your property taxes. As well as providing all your own free kwhs and btus.
And lots of greenhouse space for your own veggies. And lots of biomass for your very own backup generator running on biogas. A 2hp generator, very tiny, running on biogas would make sure you have power and heat (with cogeneration) no matter what.
Imagine the future, ride on into it on your plugin bike and car. Hehey. But seriously, it does seem doable.
Subsidies per kwh to homeowners and low interest community loans would sure help. The lowest income people are hit the hardest by soaring energy prices.
I think this sort of design (maybe tweaked back and forth) in the "architecture of mistakes" (earthship "Garbage Warrior") mode to find the best devices. That's the beauty of the per kwh subsidy, the market, the real market of real consumers, make the product decisions.
People will want a proven product that delivers the GHG free kwhs that insures a reliable subsidy check to help pay for it.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Jonas Posted 6:01 am
21 May 2008
But we'll answer your question, just once again.
Reason requires patience.
If we're trying to biosequester carbon.
Why must it involve combustion?
Can't we perhaps grow long-lived plants, and then just leave them alone.
No, that would be a rather bad and inefficient idea for a few very basic reasons.
trees only sequester carbon once during their growth stage. At maturity they remain carbon-neutral at best, or they become carbon emitters.
it's much smarter to use the woody biomass for a purpose that serves humans. Use it as a building material. Or much better still: use land to grow these same trees, short coppice them and use them as an energy source; you cut them down, use their biomass instead of fossil fuels and sequester the C permanently. Then you repeat this process continuously.
This is obviously a much more efficient use of land. It allows you to sequester a much larger amount of C/CO2.
you also considerably reduce the risk of wildfires, one of the very large GHG-sources.
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Jonas Posted 6:05 am
21 May 2008
It's good to see though that neither you, nor the person I was addressing, is capable of formulating an answer after everything he's said has been debunked by rather obvious sources.
Of the tens of points I've made, the only reply you come up with is that you feel insulted.
Maybe your lack of arguments is indeed an insult. To reason.
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Tasermons Partner Posted 11:41 am
21 May 2008
So wouldn't we still be usin' more coal in the end? And wouldn't that just increase strip minig and drive up the demand, and thus the price, for coal?
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:22 am
22 May 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 1:58 am
22 May 2008
We need a new Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to recycle underbrush and dead wood posing forest fire danger. Firestorms are right around the next corner. A firestorm creates a huge suction around the base of the fire, similar to a tornado, that sucks fuel into the storm.
Nature starts firestorms usually (the allies started one in dresden in WW2) but humans probably can't put them out. Only natural fire fighting, rain storms, can put them out.
But don't turn the waste wood into fuel for gas guzzlers. Use the sound wood for building products and paper, and the rotted woods in biogas digestors.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Biodiversivist Posted 3:05 am
22 May 2008
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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