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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Dear Friends<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a name="_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">Tom sez:<o:p></o:p></span></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">>Fuel supply and pelleting businesses are organized at the county level as farmer coops. Crop residues (rice and maize) are only processed to pellets during the harvest season
so that any businesses that were not organized by October probably missed this season.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">One of topics investigated as part of the Hebei Clean Air Project was the production of biogas and the mixing and making of fertilizers based on crop residues. A huge amount
of investigative work on how this can be done effectively, maximising energy content in the biogas, for example, and the use of artificial wetlands for water purification (etc etc) has been done by the China Agricultural University (CAU). There is a section
of the College of Engineering devoted to this and they have recently expanded their graduate programme so such an extent that there are not 6 student desks permanently in the office of Prof Dong. I think they have about 35 Masters students working on these
matters at any one time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">My point is that the topics are taken seriously and ‘at scale’. The linkage between CAU and fertilizers and the province Hebei is that biogas is important, CAU is the lead lab
for this, and biochar is a ‘tax’ on biogas. You can’t have everything. The question of what to make and how much it costs is dominated by the seasonal availability of the input materials. Fertilizer is pretty easy to store. Gas is not, neither is the input
material.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">In Hebei there are multiple plants making fertilizers but surprisingly (to me anyway) it is not used locally, meaning inside the province. The reason is economic. Nearby provinces
have subsidies for ‘organic’ fertilizers and the difference makes it worth shipping Hebei’s production of biochar (or not) based fertilizers to other provinces. Because of the availability of additional raw material (which is typically burned illegally in
mid-October) that is not making it into the gas (A) or fertilizer (B) system, I suggested that the obvious best use of the available material was A or B but not burning. (I am not putting pellets in there because they are not economically viable at the moment
and all production is still subsidised – or was the last time I saw a presentation on it. Equipment issues are major.)
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">The basic problem was the cost of gathering the material. It has to have a value to the farmers if it involves work. Typically all the pellet and other production relies on the
delivery of the input material to the factory gate. The economics of the enterprise start at their own gate with a cost of the delivered inputs.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">>The product is sold at competitive prices, and the yields improve so it is a live business model. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">Well, in the case of the fertilizers, it is sold at competitive prices, but the buying is subsidised. Hebei producers can get more money selling outside the province, so they
do. Is selling at an inflated price because someone is offering a subsidy ‘competitive’? Mileage may vary.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">>We saw pictures of the crops and data from many of the tests sites in other areas. They have been very practical and creative in the development of commercial biochar fertilizers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">I think this aspect of Chinese agriculture is underestimated by those outside who don’t see the work close-up. We can talk freely about how this or that ‘solution’ will bring
benefit x or y, but in a real world of constraints, there are multiple competing solutions on the go.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">Carbon and hydrogen are energy sources, and that is in no way limited to thermal energy. In the past 100 years gross biomass production has risen 14-20% depending on species
because of increased CO<sub>2</sub> fertilization. If Hebei sends out more than say, 18% of its gross carbon-containing materials in the form of biochar or other fertilizer, or sells it as gas, then their net provincial stock of soil carbon will drop. They
have two options: either buy it back (offer the same subsidy in-province) or take more from the air. To get more from there air there has to be more in the air. If carbon sequestration is successful at scale and returns the planet to the pre-industrial level,
which was almost a 4.5 billion year historical low, gross food production of the 4 key species (wheat, rice, maize and soybeans) would drop 18%<sup>1</sup>. If it was dropped (accidentally or deliberately) to the glacial era level food production would drop
51% because all plants would be on the verge of starvation (plants evolved and first thrived in an atmosphere with 2000-3000 ppm CO<sub>2</sub>).<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">We apparently have the luxury of postulating what could be done with biomass and char and stoves and lots of cool things. Those working at the cutting edge, so to speak, have
to face the inevitable limits of the system where there is only so much carbon and so much hydrogen and so much solar energy. The first thing to do is to stop burning it wastefully in the field.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">I think India will soon reach the same level of understanding and action and China.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US">Regards<br>
Crispin<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif">Crispin Pemberton-Pigott<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif">Key Lab of Clean Production and Utilization of Renewable Energy, Ministry of Agriculture, P. R. China<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif">China Agricultural University<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose">--------------<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark:_MailEndCompose"></span>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;line-height:15.6pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline">
<span lang="EN-US">1 “</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"helvetica neue";color:#404040">The USGCRP and the UN disregard these practical finding in their academic claims that carbon dioxide-caused global warming will cause mass famine,
etc. The writers at <i>CO<sub>2</sub> Science</i> disagree. They reviewed a paper by L. Mariani in <i>The European Physical Journal Plus</i> titled “How to Feed the Planet and Its Additional 1.5 Billion Persons 30 Years from Now.” Given how far-fetched the
academic forecasts of the UN and the USGCRP are compared to actual events, it is worth quoting a few comments at length.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;line-height:15.6pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;outline: 0px">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"helvetica neue";color:#404040">“ “As illustrated in the figure below, Mariani notes that a ‘return to a glacial period would reduce by 51% the global productivity for thermal (low temperatures) and
nutritional (low levels of CO2) reasons,’ whereas a return to pre-industrial conditions would reduce global production of the four keystone crops by 18 percent. Looking to the future, however, Mariani notes that increases in both CO2 and temperature would
improve production, increasing the combined production of wheat, maize, rice and soybean by 15 and 24 percent above today’s values.”</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"helvetica neue";color:#404040"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;line-height:15.6pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline;outline: 0px">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"helvetica neue";color:#404040">“ <i>“Commenting on his findings and looking to the past, Mariani writes that ‘the return of temperature and CO<sub>2</sub> to glacial or pre-industrial values would give
rise to serious disadvantages for food security and should be as far as possible avoided, as also highlighted by the results of Cage and Coleman (2001) and Araus et al. (2003). And with an eye to the future, Mariani says that ‘the agricultural sector is able
to successfully meet the challenge of global change and guarantee food security to levels higher than the current ones for a world population that in 2050 will exceed 9 billion people,’ to which we would add — only if governments avoid implementing CO<sub>2</sub>
emission reduction schemes, which schemes are appearing more and more to be akin to genocide.”</i>”<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;line-height:15.6pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"helvetica neue";color:#404040"><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjp/i2017-11337-8">Carbon plants nutrition and global food security</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;line-height:15.6pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline">
<span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif"><a href="http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/nov/a8.php">How to Feed the Planet and Its Additional 1.5 Billion Persons 30 Years from Now</a> which discusses the paper.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="mso-margin-top-alt:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:12.0pt;margin-left:0cm;line-height:15.6pt;background:white;vertical-align:baseline">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"helvetica neue";color:#404040"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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