Comments on: Carbon storage might not be so permanent http://www.cleanbreak.ca/2009/02/14/carbon-storage-might-not-be-so-permanent/ Trends, happenings and innovations in the clean technology market Thu, 18 Mar 2010 22:38:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: A responsible position on carbon capture http://www.cleanbreak.ca/2009/02/14/carbon-storage-might-not-be-so-permanent/comment-page-1/#comment-9276 A responsible position on carbon capture Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:22:36 +0000 http://www.cleanbreak.ca/?p=1500#comment-9276 [...] its infancy. Indications to date suggest that it will not be as cheap as its biggest boosters hope. It may not be able to store carbon permanently or safely. Carbon capture certainly cannot do anything to mitigate emissions from mobile sources, [...] [...] its infancy. Indications to date suggest that it will not be as cheap as its biggest boosters hope. It may not be able to store carbon permanently or safely. Carbon capture certainly cannot do anything to mitigate emissions from mobile sources, [...]

]]> By: Steve Hill http://www.cleanbreak.ca/2009/02/14/carbon-storage-might-not-be-so-permanent/comment-page-1/#comment-6240 Steve Hill Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:29:14 +0000 http://www.cleanbreak.ca/?p=1500#comment-6240 Short and medium term planning is what has led us the current problem. Many technologies have been developed over many, many years but have been discarded as the cost at the time would have been prohibitive and we had relatively cheap fossil fuels to burn - the impact on the environment was not a concern. When you see the waste from burning fossil fuels - 57 years ago London suffered from smog due to the vast number of coal fires burning throughout the city. To quote the BBC website "Officials believe that as many as 12,000 people may have died in the great London smog of 1952." A clean air act was implemented and London changed dramatically - how come we have not acted the same way with cars exhausts and many other polluting machinery? We just look at the short term - hence the power of the Native American saying "We borrow the earth from our children." Short and medium term planning is what has led us the current problem.

Many technologies have been developed over many, many years but have been discarded as the cost at the time would have been prohibitive and we had relatively cheap fossil fuels to burn – the impact on the environment was not a concern. When you see the waste from burning fossil fuels – 57 years ago London suffered from smog due to the vast number of coal fires burning throughout the city.
To quote the BBC website “Officials believe that as many as 12,000 people may have died in the great London smog of 1952.”
A clean air act was implemented and London changed dramatically – how come we have not acted the same way with cars exhausts and many other polluting machinery?
We just look at the short term – hence the power of the Native American saying “We borrow the earth from our children.”

]]> By: Jp Warren http://www.cleanbreak.ca/2009/02/14/carbon-storage-might-not-be-so-permanent/comment-page-1/#comment-4356 Jp Warren Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:34:14 +0000 http://www.cleanbreak.ca/?p=1500#comment-4356 We are working on creating a centre of knowledge, capacity-building and research on the potential biochar has in the province of Ontario. Biochar is charcoal, formed by roasting plant material in an oxygen starved environment. This process is known as pyrolysis or gasification. The resulting remains of this process are not ash but char. Char has a high carbon content and it is almost inert. It is somewhat akin to a fossilization or mineralization of the carbon that originally made up the cellular structure of the plant. This is different from burning and different from decomposition, both being processes which release the carbon stored in the plant material back to the atmosphere through their chemical or biological processes. Such char has been found in soils and estimated to have been there in that unchanged state for in some cases thousands of years. If you stick a raw peanut onto a pin and ignite it, you will be gasifying or pyrolysing the peanut, since the oils boiling out of it keep oxygen away from the peanut's surface. The oil's vapours burning above the peanut provide the energy that chars the peanut below. When all the oils run out, the flame extinguishes and you are left with not ash, but a char structure resembling the former peanut. Once it cools you can crush it in your fingers and see that there is no ash, only what seems and is, mostly carbon. The carbon in the peanut has remained while the flammable gases have escaped. The flammable gases, which produce the amazingly long-lasting and bright flame, were multiple factors more than hot enough to roast another batch of cellulose equal in size and weight to the original peanut. This is an important aspect, since it means that that peanut could roast the next peanut, that peanut could roast the next, and so on. Even wood instead of peanuts as a feedstock produces this positive net energy output. This means that instead of releasing the carbon along with the energy as happens when burning wood, charring wood keeps the carbon but releases the energy. This means it not only sequesters carbon in a solid form -much safer against inadvertent releases, but it gives off more energy in the form of this syngas than it takes to release that energy via roasting. Experts have been therefore classifying it as a carbon-negative process. Furthermore there have been a number of field trials showing that such carbon can enhance otherwise weak soils, improving the options that farmers have in transitioning from or keeping from using, petrochemical soil additives. Watch for field trials of such Ontario produced biochar as spring approaches. Any readers interested in this from whatever angle should contact us, you can write to this address: jpwarren@interlog.com to connect to this group. We are working on creating a centre of knowledge, capacity-building and research on the potential biochar has in the province of Ontario. Biochar is charcoal, formed by roasting plant material in an oxygen starved environment. This process is known as pyrolysis or gasification. The resulting remains of this process are not ash but char. Char has a high carbon content and it is almost inert. It is somewhat akin to a fossilization or mineralization of the carbon that originally made up the cellular structure of the plant. This is different from burning and different from decomposition, both being processes which release the carbon stored in the plant material back to the atmosphere through their chemical or biological processes. Such char has been found in soils and estimated to have been there in that unchanged state for in some cases thousands of years. If you stick a raw peanut onto a pin and ignite it, you will be gasifying or pyrolysing the peanut, since the oils boiling out of it keep oxygen away from the peanut’s surface. The oil’s vapours burning above the peanut provide the energy that chars the peanut below. When all the oils run out, the flame extinguishes and you are left with not ash, but a char structure resembling the former peanut. Once it cools you can crush it in your fingers and see that there is no ash, only what seems and is, mostly carbon. The carbon in the peanut has remained while the flammable gases have escaped. The flammable gases, which produce the amazingly long-lasting and bright flame, were multiple factors more than hot enough to roast another batch of cellulose equal in size and weight to the original peanut. This is an important aspect, since it means that that peanut could roast the next peanut, that peanut could roast the next, and so on. Even wood instead of peanuts as a feedstock produces this positive net energy output. This means that instead of releasing the carbon along with the energy as happens when burning wood, charring wood keeps the carbon but releases the energy. This means it not only sequesters carbon in a solid form -much safer against inadvertent releases, but it gives off more energy in the form of this syngas than it takes to release that energy via roasting. Experts have been therefore classifying it as a carbon-negative process. Furthermore there have been a number of field trials showing that such carbon can enhance otherwise weak soils, improving the options that farmers have in transitioning from or keeping from using, petrochemical soil additives. Watch for field trials of such Ontario produced biochar as spring approaches. Any readers interested in this from whatever angle should contact us, you can write to this address: jpwarren@interlog.com to connect to this group.

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