[Stoves] New paper on atmospheric Black Carbon

Tue Jan 22 19:18:52 CST 2013

Dear Ron

I think I should respond to this message, at least briefly.

>This is to also answer the two following messages from yourselves.  I did not find them helpful - as they assume the only economics relate to the carbon credit.  They assume nothing (repeat nothing) about the value to the user in outyear ag benefits.  

I did not include any benefits in my calculation of the contribution that could be made by biochar to agriculture. I have however, several times, shown calculations on the amount of biochar that could be produced by a stove or a farm that simply grew fuel to turn directly into char. It seems to take a very long time to create the conditions needed to find significant improvement (meaning how long it takes to convert soil. There are alternatives which include Permaculture. It takes 4-7 years to convert a farm to a permaculture system. That is pretty attractive and couple probably benefit from biochar if the conditions require it. A lot of permaculture methods involve retention of water – after all it was designed by a man who lived in arid conditions.

Tell me how farmers in the world will react to news that (for example) land worth zero today can be brought up to a productivity level the same as other existing ag land nearby (same rainfall etc.)   Let's say that land can, after applying biochar be worth $500/ha rather than $0/ha.   

I love it when land values can be increased by careful farming. This was demonstrated long ago in Manitoba I believe by a university prof who took land considered worthless and turned it into the most productive soil in the province by planting a series of crops that change the soil. It did not involve and char. Perhaps some soil conversions require it.

If those farmers have a discount rate of 5% or 50% will make a big difference on how much they will be willing to spend per tonne of biochar and how many tonnes per ha  (which could be in rows or holes - not uniformly scattered).   Which discount rate are you using for these out-year benefit computations? 
     You can't prove biochar is worthless by talking to this list only about credits of $6/tonne CO2.

I don’t think anyone knows whether or not biochar is ‘worthless’. There seem to be several cases where it is very helpful, and a lot of other where it is not. Kevin has done a lot of experiments (more than 700) trying to locate the right conditions where it provides benefits.

>>Would you perhaps have a graph that shows the price trend for CarbonCrdits that you could share with the Lists? 

> [RWL2a:  See my opening remarks.   The price trend for credits has nothing to do with anything under discussion -  especially about black carbon.]

Well I was talking about the price of credits – people are basing their income projections on anticipated carbon offset credits. The immediate outlook is for a continued drop in value. Projects will be implement in the near future. Because there is no inherent value in a credit, the price is subject to arbitrary fluctuation or (as is presently the case) flooding the market.

>The point in this dialog (referring back to $16 and $11) is that biochar from stoves can have a higher value (because of black carbon improvements) than biochar from some other sources.]

This is an interesting point. If one can prove a general case for all biochar put into soil, then it might have a value to someone – not sure who because the world is not short of food, it is short of access to food. What is it worth to have a foodless/food-short family grow their own?

[RWL2d:    I am more of an optimist than you.  Arctic ice totally disappearing in a year or two could be the wake-up call.

I think that is a bit enthusiastic. It might disappear in summer within a few decades, as it has done before, but it will be a long time until most of the glaciers are gone even if it continues warming. Most of the glaciers in the Arctic are only 4000 years old so it has been that long since it was mostly ice-free. In those days (2000 BC) large trees grew where there is now tundra. The trunks are still standing (in Labrador).

>[RWL2e:   Re sentence #1: Tami Bond, in the quoted article  (which this started out to be about) put major emphasis on CO2.  Re your second sentence,  all the models lump effects together under CO2e,  not simply CO2.  Re the last "reasonable" - You have it all wrong.  I presume because you are still a climate denier and are looking for every way possible to make your denier view seem more reasonable.]

I am sorry to see you call Kevin names on a public list. I don’t believe Kevin has ever denied the Earth has a climate. Perhaps you could explain yourself, or apologise.

>[re subsidies] If we were talking a subsidy,  I think $100/tonne char  ($35/tonne CO2) would make a huge difference - and is totally justified on strictly moral/ethical grounds  (thinking of all our obligations to our children and grand-children and to developing countries.  The US will benefit a lot more from paying such a subsidy - as the economy will suffer much worse from ocean rise, varied rainfall, size of storms, etc.

It is unethical to misquote and misrepresent the science and the economics involved. Ocean rise is slowing from its historic (and unchanging for a long time) 1.8mm/year. The Palmer drought index (an American index) shows no trend and that the worst droughts were in the Dust Bowl days. Storm intensity and total energy has been dropping for decades in the US and it has been an unprecedented long time since there was a major land-falling hurricane in the US – more than 2200 days. The cost of adaption is a tiny fraction (less than 1%) of the claimed costs of ‘mitigation’. Expecting stove programmes to benefit from a subsidy in the face of these circumstances is unwise. As money becomes tighter funders will put money into productive enterprises – they always do.

Because I know you are hinting the ‘hurricane Sandy’ was caused by ‘global warming’ I will provide a link to a survey of people who answered the question, “Who believes Hurricane Sandy was/was not caused by global warming?”.  http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/30/reality-check-who-believes-hurricane-sandy-isis-not-caused-by-global-warming/

You will no doubt recognise a number of the scientists in both columns. All entries have links provided to the source documents. 

If you are interested in the number of fatalities in the US related to extreme events there is a good paper on it by one of the long-time IPCC reviewers at http://www.jpands.org/vol14no4/goklany.pdf with the quote, “According to CDC data, extreme cold, on average, claims more lives than extreme heat, tornados, floods, lightning, and hurricanes combined.”

Let’s get back to building better stoves.

Follow your heart, not the money.

Crispin

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