U.S. says it will cut costs for clean energy projects on public lands

While the original climate reversal claims have shown to be overblown, claims around halting/reversing desertification seem very credible. Any ranchers out there who have tried it?
Not a rancher, but yes. We mob graze our ladies. We don't necessarily do it for the carbon sequestration benefit, that's a side piece. We do it because it had massive effects on our pasture health, and our weaning weights climbed because of it.
 
That's not really accurate.
Agree… aside from drilling I’m not sure how NG at 15,000 feet below ground level gets to the surface. I guess if we are talking millions of year potentially plates crashing together or something.
 
Agreed. The "carbon in carbon out so it's neutral" thinking doesn't take into account the full energy life cycle. Once you do that, most of the biomass "renewables" are carbon creators, not reducers.
There are detailed Life Cycle Analysis done on these biomass projects, and carbon credits are verified and issued.



Here is an example of carbon credits being issued for biomass power generation in Oregon. This company who does the verification and marketing of the carbon credit were purchased by Nasdaq. https://puro.earth/CORC-co2-removal-certificate/mitigating-climate-change-1-ton-at-the-time-100033
 
As for carbon sequestration, I think developing crops with massive fine root production as well as useful food benefit like this one will be much more productive than using biochar. Biochar is expensive and energy/labor consumptive putting it back into the soil. It also has to be charged with nutrients prior to incorporating in the soil, or it will take available nutrients from the soil initially. It's a boutique soil amendment that will only pay for itself on high end crops such as vineyards.

There is a reason soil carbon credits are worth $25 a ton and biochar carbon credits are worth over $100 a ton and sold years in advance.

You need to educate yourself on biochar. Things have changed a lot in the last few years.

We have a 3k acre cover crop study applying biochar with the seed for example. No extra steps involved. Cost is about $10 per acre. We also sell a lot of biochar for animal feed which ends up in the manure and ultimately in the soil. Cost is about $20 per animal per year. We also sell equipment to farms who make their own heat and biochar they can use on their own property. Los of different ways to use/make biochar.

There is a lot of investment $ going into biochar right now. Crops put carbon in the ground for a few years. Biochar lasts thousands of years. That's 'why it's getting so much attention as a climate solution.
 
There is a reason soil carbon credits are worth $25 a ton and biochar carbon credits are worth over $100 a ton and sold years in advance.

You need to educate yourself on biochar. Things have changed a lot in the last few years.

We have a 3k acre cover crop study applying biochar with the seed for example. No extra steps involved. Cost is about $10 per acre. We also sell a lot of biochar for animal feed which ends up in the manure and ultimately in the soil. Cost is about $20 per animal per year. We also sell equipment to farms who make their own heat and biochar they can use on their own property. Los of different ways to use/make biochar.

There is a lot of investment $ going into biochar right now. Crops put carbon in the ground for a few years. Biochar lasts thousands of years. That's 'why it's getting so much attention as a climate solution.
The carbon credit racket will be short lived. I've looked into biochar and the price needs to come way down if it ever has a chance of being anything more than a novelty. I won't invest in it. Sounds like you are sold on it. Good luck!
 
There are detailed Life Cycle Analysis done on these biomass projects, and carbon credits are verified and issued.



Here is an example of carbon credits being issued for biomass power generation in Oregon. This company who does the verification and marketing of the carbon credit were purchased by Nasdaq. https://puro.earth/CORC-co2-removal-certificate/mitigating-climate-change-1-ton-at-the-time-100033
I'm not all that educated on Biomass, but I thought I remember reading somewhere that a lot of the Biomass is actually just freshly cut trees that are grinded into a mulch or something like that. Seems counter intuitive to me, that chopping down trees that take decades to grow, and then burning them isn't going to make all that much headway on CO2 reduction. Again, I'm not very well versed on this so maybe I'm way off base.
 
I'm not all that educated on Biomass, but I thought I remember reading somewhere that a lot of the Biomass is actually just freshly cut trees that are grinded into a mulch or something like that. Seems counter intuitive to me, that chopping down trees that take decades to grow, and then burning them isn't going to make all that much headway on CO2 reduction. Again, I'm not very well versed on this so maybe I'm way off base.
But can you make it out of blowdown?
 
But can you make it out of blowdown?
I don't think there's enough blowdown to satisfy consumption requirements. My understanding was that there was logging companies who basically sold everything they cut to biofuel plants. Essentially deforestation to feed biofuel plants.
 
I'm curious if the wars of the future will focus on mined resources vs current oil. U.S. is very, "I'm pro electricity though not in my backyard" focused on the mining for the solar and battery requirements of today and ever growing tomorrow. There is a trend that will likely transform the future of the world power - China.

Copper, molybdenum, graphite, and lithium as the primaries (yes, others as well) - product rich mining reserves/producers of the world:

China = Copper.
China = Molybdenum.
China = Graphite.
Chile = Lithium 3x's the second largest producer, Australia, followed by #3 China*.

*Also, applicable to note: Chinalco - Chinese State owned, is the largest stakeholder in Rio Tinto, the largest mining operation in Australia and 2nd/3rd largest of all mining revenue, worldwide.
 
Nuclear energy is great, until you lose your father because he worked in the mills & the radiation killed him. Or you were downwind of a testing site and got radiated and renal cell carcinoma. We are still paying for the mistakes that were made decades ago on nuclear, and I've yet to see a real commitment to make the necessary changes to keep that crap from happening again. You have to mine & process radioactive material in order to get it to the reactor.



Then there's the storage issue. If Bill Gates can get his stuff down, then I'd be more likely to look at it as a viable fuel source beyond highly contained military applications or as regional power supply in concert with other sources.

The big fix always breaks and has a ton of variables that usually mean when catastrophe happens, it happens across the widest possible spectrum (TX grid failure due to ideological positioning, for example, or CA during the rolling black outs, etc). National stability in a grid is not predicated from one predominate source of energy today (Coal, WInd, Solar, Nat Gas, nuke). It can be a mixture of sources, with local grids feeding larger grids.

It's electricity, it's not navigating FWP's awesome new website. It's not that complicated.
 
I'm not all that educated on Biomass, but I thought I remember reading somewhere that a lot of the Biomass is actually just freshly cut trees that are grinded into a mulch or something like that. Seems counter intuitive to me, that chopping down trees that take decades to grow, and then burning them isn't going to make all that much headway on CO2 reduction. Again, I'm not very well versed on this so maybe I'm way off base.
Here's a good short clip on the process. It does make some sense on a small scale local process. Cost to produce and transport is the main reason it is not taking off. Biggest CO2 reduction is by not burning the slash in the field and replacing coal in the electrical generation process. More EVs means more electrical generation. That's only going too increase in the years to come.

 
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