{"id":2691,"date":"2010-06-20T15:01:05","date_gmt":"2010-06-20T19:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/biomass-and-carbon-dioxide.html"},"modified":"2010-06-20T15:01:05","modified_gmt":"2010-06-20T19:01:05","slug":"biomass-and-carbon-dioxide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2010\/06\/biomass-and-carbon-dioxide.html","title":{"rendered":"Biomass and Carbon Dioxide"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"Natasha<\/a>\n
\n\nNatasha Fast (SAVE), Pastor Angela Manning (New Life Ministries), Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director), picture by John S. Quarterman (LAKE)\n<\/small>\n<\/td><\/tr><\/table>\nPictured is a group of concerned citizens meeting about the\nproposed biomass plant with Valdosta-Lowndes County\nIndustrial Authority (VLCIA)\nProject Manager Allan Ricketts\nand Executive Director Brad Lofton.\nRicketts and Lofton gave a two-hour presentation,\ntook some action items, and have provided a schedule\non which they will fulfill them.\nI thank them for that and look forward to the further materials.\n

\nLying in the center of the table in the picture is this document:\n

\n\nBiomass carbon neutrality in the context of forest-based fuels and products<\/a>\n
\nby Reid Miner, NCASI, Al Lucier, NCASI\n<\/blockquote>\nThe copy on the table is dated April 7, 2010; the online version\nis dated May 2010.\nIt’s a powerpoint presentation that makes many good points,\namong them that coal doesn’t grow back, while trees do.\nSo in theory it would be possible, by organizing harvesting of biomass\nover a region to make burning biomass for electricity carbon neutral.\n

\nThe document comes right out and says:\n

\nAt point of combustion, CO2<\/sub> emissions per unit of energy produced\nare generally higher for biomass fuels than for fossil fuels.\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\nThe point of the document is that nonetheless burning fossil fuels\nsuch as coal continually pours more CO2<\/sub> into the atmosphere\nwhile replanting trees absorbs some CO2<\/sub>.\nThe devil is in the details. As the document says, it is necessary\nto construct scenarios and to estimate cumulative emissions for each scenario.\nThe best scenario the document shows is one in which:\n
\nLand can be converted to higher carbon stocks to provide biomass energy\n(e.g., afforestation)\n<\/blockquote>\nReforestation could actually produce net biomass emissions below zero.\nBut what will actually happen?\nThe document also considers several other scenarios, including:\n
\nConvert land to much lower carbon stocks\n
\nConvert land to somewhat lower carbon stocks\n
\nKeep land in same general forest type\n<\/blockquote>\nThe first of these, converting land to much lower carbon stocks,\nis a euphemism for widespread clearcutting, which would not only not result in carbon\nneutrality, but would also (the document doesn’t mention these points) cause erosion, flooding, and changes in rainfall patterns.\nThe document says that in the U.S.\nthe national situation is best represented by the latter,\nkeeping land in the same general forest type.\n

\nThis document appears to depict clearcutting\nfor biomass use and replanting.\nSome people might consider cutting down native piney woods\nand replacing by monoculture planted pines to be “keeping land in the\nsame general forest type”, but I wouldn’t.\n

\nAlso, while Allan Ricketts asserted that this particular\nplant will never burn whole trees because it would be economically\nunfeasible for it to do so, this document seems to depend for\nits analysis on harvesting whole trees for biomass.\nI’ll come back to that point in a later post.\n

\nThe document says:\n

\nFor many purposes, analysis on a regional scale\nor national scale may be most appropriate.\n<\/blockquote>\nWhere is that regional analysis? It’s not in the NCASI document, which incidentally depicts nice fall colors of a deciduous forest, not Georgia pine woods.\n

\nNot just for biomass. Also for solar, wind, wave, tides, and other\nrenewable energies: where is the regional analysis?\nFor south Georgia, or for Georgia, or for the southeast: where is it,\nand if it doesn’t exist, who is responsible for producing it?\n

\nI have asked VLCIA that question, with an example of what I’m looking for:\nsee next post.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Natasha Fast (SAVE), Pastor Angela Manning (New Life Ministries), Allan Ricketts (Project Manager), Geraldine Fairell, Ken Klanicki, Brad Lofton (Executive Director), picture by John S. Quarterman (LAKE) Pictured is a group of concerned citizens meeting about the proposed biomass plant with Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority (VLCIA) Project Manager Allan Ricketts and Executive Director Brad Lofton. […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,120,141,216,16,740,11,21,32,23,24,36],"tags":[5699,5688,193,8738,1747,4129,5696,8745,5698,188,5697,8801,5701,548,3449,8702,12,4470,5687,5346,5700,194,5695,5686,8713,8883,180],"class_list":["post-2691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-biomass","category-co2","category-coal","category-environment","category-forestry","category-lake","category-planning","category-pollution","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-wind","tag-10-june-2010","tag-al-lucier","tag-allan-ricketts","tag-biomass","tag-brad-lofton","tag-carbon-dioxide","tag-carbon-stocks","tag-co2","tag-cumulative-emissions","tag-executive-director","tag-forest-type","tag-forestry","tag-geraldine-fairell","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-ken-klanicki","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-natasha-fast","tag-ncasi","tag-new-life-ministries","tag-pastor-angela-manning","tag-project-manager","tag-regional-analysis","tag-reid-miner","tag-renewable-energy","tag-save","tag-valdosta-lowndes-county-industrial-authority"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-Hp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}