<div dir="ltr"><div dir="auto"><div>Crispin:</div><div><br></div><div>Crop waste - or urban garden/park waste - doesn't have to be burned in the open. What you are complaining about in Beijing is what Kirk Smith suffered in New Delhi last year and is gearing up for this year. However, there are markets for waste biomasses. </div><div><br></div><div>These are fragmented markets. Matchmaking and logistics can be unpredictable, which is why open burning of crops and grasses - I remember seeing from the air vast fires in South Africa-Mozambique area - needs promotion of markets other than household fuels. <br><br>Farm and rice/oil milling wastes have been sold to different customers in my part of India as far back as I can remember. (Ceramic kilns I visited as a child.) </div><div><br></div><div>In the 1990s, a biomass power plant was set up in Punjab, India using straw or rice husks and with a 12-15 USc/kWh feed-in tariff. By 2007 or so, it became unviable because the husk fetched higher price from brick kilns, so the plant owner asked for a raise in tariff. </div><div><br></div><div>Brick kiln demands were driven by construction boom but also because the government raised the prices for coal, lignite, and fuel oil. Fossil fuel opponents might have cheered, just that brick kilns probably generated higher local pollutant concentrations. </div><div><br></div><div>Around 2011/2012 I visited a brick kiln and confirmed crop waste use and pollution in southern Maharashtra. </div><div><br></div><div>The BP/Castrol pellet cookstove project failed as feedstock prices went up. Same issue - brick kilns. </div><div><br></div><div>I wonder if the rise in feedstock prices - from zero, that is - killed the much-vaunted "Husk Power", played up by IFC and Ashden. </div><div><br></div><div>There are non-energy markets too. I saw truck loads of some farm waste being transported on highways - cattlefeed from plant-rich to semi-desert area. </div><div><br></div><div>Just came across a company for rice husk ash - <a href="http://www.ricehuskash.com/">http://www.ricehuskash.com/</a>. So even the ash is being put to use. <br><br>Biochar will have competition. IHME ought to compute GBD from brick kiln PM2.5. <br><br>Nikhil<br></div><div><br>On Sep 18, 2017, at 4:17 PM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <<a href="mailto:crispinpigott@outlook.com" target="_blank">crispinpigott@outlook.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">Thanks Tom<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">The angle I was taking was that the wasteful burning of crop wastes is entirely because it is not worth bringing it in from the field.
<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">I figured that there were two saleable products: the gas and the char, and as long as it broke even. As the fertiliser has a real value (meaningful as a product) it is reasonable
to establish a collection mechanism within a radius of a gasification station and fertiliser plant. As you can imagine, there are lots of them.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">The amount of material available is large.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">The direct consequence (stopping the burning) is an improvement in the air quality as it drifts into Beijing which is harmed each year during ‘burning week’. The burning is illegal
but happens at night. It makes a brown cloud of eye-stinging smoke that hangs around the region for about 4 days. When it happens it gives photographers a chance to get out the cameras and wail about the air pollution ‘caused by burning coal’. The smoke has
a significant GHG cooling effect.<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">Regards<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext">Crispin<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:windowtext"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:windowtext">In the last couple of years biochar has become a national priority in China. We have seen substantial research and several production facilities but it is difficult to get a clear picture of actual
production and use. IBI china provided us with a map and description earlier this year:<u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:windowtext"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:windowtext">“Straw biomass biochar and biochar-based organo-mineral compound fertilizers approved as one of the Top Ten viable systems for recycling agricultural residues by China's Ministry of Agricuture”
<a href="http://www.biochar-international.org/node/8858" target="_blank">http://www.biochar-<wbr>international.org/node/8858</a><u></u><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:windowtext"><u></u> <u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="color:windowtext">Tom<u></u><u></u></span> <br><span></span><br></p></div></div></blockquote></div></div>