
Bio-coal: A renewable and producible fuel from lignocellulosic biomass - rch
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/1/eaay0748
======
Pfhreak
I've been learning about biochar/syngas production from biomass.

It turns out there's methods that range from 'burn slash in a giant metal
bucket' to large industrial gassifiers for producing biochar.

There's a part of me that wants to exit the tech sector, buy a couple hundred
acres nearby, live modestly, and tinker with biochar production/sequestration.

~~~
swiley
Drying plants in the sun is a surprisingly effective way to heat a building, I
grew up with it.

The problems are: burning wet stuff is terrible (surface wetness isn’t bad,
it’s the moisture inside the biomass that causes problems.) Secondly you can’t
just straight up burn it because you’ll get a lot of heat that you don’t need
so you’ll usually burn it in cycles and you’ll get a lot of soot at the
beginning and end of the cycles so you need to either wash the exhaust or make
sure you don’t have nearby neighbors downwind (in places like this that means
within a quarter mile or so.)

~~~
Pfhreak
For sure, excess heat is something that is interesting to explore.

Oregon Kilns are basically just a big metal bucket that burns top down and
produces biochar, but burns off the syngas.

[https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/or/newsroom...](https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/or/newsroom/stories/?cid=nrcseprd1499267)

Other systems try to capture the syngas/bio oil to generate electricity or
capture the heat for heating/other uses.

------
swiley
It’s important to note that (although I only skimmed it and am not a
professional chemist) they only talk about hydrocarbons up to 6 carbons long
(hexane) where coal/coke from the ground can have much longer hydrocarbons
(what paraffin wax is made of.) This is because the hexane comes (probably)
from sugar molecules (or monomers in things like cellulose) which are chains
or rings of six carbon atoms (with other stuff bonded to them.)

It’s possible to lengthen the hydrocarbon chains but it’s very expensive.

EDIT: yeah after reading more carefully they’re doing what I thought (side
note: the dick bar was pretty annoying, at least it goes away when you scroll
down but coming back when scroll up and covering the text I was trying to read
is just dumb.) They’re drying/dehydrating the biomass by heating it without
oxygen and then distilling off the VOCs. Then they take the remaining gunk,
crush it up, sift it, and dry it.

------
acvny
Although biofuels prevent consumption of fossil fuels, they still contribute
to CO2 emmissions. Another side effect is that the land resources used to grow
those biofuels are consumed. Also they lead to food prices increase and
shortages. The good thing is when the raw material is made of leftovers from
normal food oriented farming. However when farmers replace corn cultures with
rapeseed that's bad.

~~~
doctor_eval
This doesn’t make sense to me.

First, the CO2 released from burning farmed plants does not increase the CO2
in the atmosphere. It’s a cycle.

Second, climate change will also cause food prices to increase. There is going
to be an equilibrium point at which the increased cost of food due to land use
changes outweighs the benefit of reduced emissions, but that point is almost
certainly not zero.

In theory, farmers could replace corn with rapeseed at no cost to consumers if
doing so mitigates climate change, the main problem is that the net cost of
doing so needs to be averaged out over decades :(

~~~
revax
On your first point, that is not quite correct. While the CO2 released will
eventualy come back, it takes an enormous amount of time. It may be a cycle
but what matters is the CO2 concentration in the athmosphere or more precisely
the radiative forcing at a given time.

~~~
Mirioron
If I burn a plant that contains 10 kg of carbon and then grow a plant that
contains 10 kg of carbon then in terms of carbon in the atmosphere it should
be a net zero effect. Plants take carbon out of the atmosphere to grow after
all.

~~~
lazyjones
> _If I burn a plant that contains 10 kg of carbon and then grow a plant that
> contains 10 kg of carbon then in terms of carbon in the atmosphere it should
> be a net zero effect._

No, because the plant you burned would have pulled more CO2 from the
atmosphere if it had stayed alive, there's plenty of CO2 around already to
feed other plants in the mean time. So the net effect is negative. If you
can't grasp the logic, think about what happens if you burn all the plants.
Some will grow back, but not all.

~~~
doctor_eval
That’s ridiculous. We’re talking about plants specifically grown, using
agricultural techniques, for biochar or food.

The entire industry is predicated on growing a predictable mass of plants per
unit area. If we can’t do that then we have much bigger problems than the CO2
cycle.

~~~
lazyjones
> _We’re talking about plants specifically grown, using agricultural
> techniques, for biochar or food._

And you believe this can be done in a CO2-neutral way, even if we assume the
CO2 is recovered quickly and never accumulates in the atmosphere? Ridiculous,
modern agriculture is far from even "low emission"...

------
jacknews
Just charcoal the biowaste, and bury it.

Much less tech needed, and it actually reduces co2 not just circulates it.

Profit is via increased crop yields.

~~~
zozbot234
Bio-coal is charcoal, just produced by different means than charring the
biomass. Typically, bio-coal production manages to convert more of the carbon
into coal, while less of it is burned.

~~~
samatman
Fairly sure GP's point was that sequestering the resulting carbon is a better
move than burning it back into the atmosphere.

Meeting CO2 goals requires removing carbon actively from the atmosphere, and
drastically reducing our use of CO2-producing energy sources. Burning bio-coal
does neither of these things; burying it accomplishes the former, and is at
least not working against the latter.

~~~
barry-cotter
> Meeting CO2 goals requires removing carbon actively from the atmosphere, and
> drastically reducing our use of CO2-producing energy sources.

No. Either one could be sufficient alone, just as you can lose weight either
by exercising more or eating less alone, though generally the combination is
better.

For removing carbon from the atmosphere we could dump olivine sand into
coastal waters where it would sequester carbon as it was weathered. If we want
to reduce our use of CO2 producing energy sources without massive declines in
quality of life or vast environmental damage there’s only one choice, nuclear.

~~~
jointpdf
> _If we want to reduce our use of CO2 producing energy sources without
> massive declines in quality of life or vast environmental damage there’s
> only one choice, nuclear._

Unsubstantiated claim detected.

Solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal are all cheaper than nuclear (and
even coal) for new generation capacity. That includes capital, operation and
maintenance, and transmission costs. See tables starting on page 8 for the
numbers
([https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation....](https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf)).

~~~
barry-cotter
Solar requires the clearing of huge amounts of land, with the associated
destruction of wildlife. To the best of my knowledge there has been no
progress made in figuring out what to do with solar panels at the end of their
working lives either and they all use lots of toxic heavy metals. Wind doesn’t
leave lots of toxic waste but it does kill millions of birds and bats a year,
disproportionately effecting large birds with long generation times, most of
which are predators like eagles. Hydroelectric is at least less soul
crushingly ugly but the environmental effects of flooding huge amounts of land
are hardly positive. It’s also basically played out in developed countries.
All of the suitable sites for hydroelectric power have been developed. Besides
turning mountain ecosystems into lakes HEP is hideously dangerous in ways that
are basically unavoidable. The failures of the Banqiao and Shimantan Dams
killed 170-230K people in 1971[1]

Solar, wind and hydro all entail a lot of damage to the environment, far more
than is necessary from nuclear, just because they require much greater areas
as they’re less energy dense.

I don’t deny that nuclear is more expensive on those grounds. I just think
that relative safety is more important. So by the most expansive counts
Chernobyl killed 4,000[2] people while air pollution kills about 7 million a
year, every year[3]. Germany’s closing of its nuclear power plants has lead to
an additional 1,000 deaths a year[4]

Nuclear is safer than any alternative source of energy, wind, solar and hydro
included. If you include those costs nuclear looks amazing in comparison[6].

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam)

[2][https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-
cher...](https://ourworldindata.org/what-was-the-death-toll-from-chernobyl-
and-fukushima)

[3][https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-
pollu...](https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-
pollution/en/)

[4][https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/german-
nucl...](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/german-nuclear-
phaseout-is-causing-1-100-additional-deaths-a-year-study)

[5][http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf](http://papers.nber.org/tmp/26395-w26598.pdf)

[6][https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-
worldw...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/494425/death-rate-worldwide-by-
energy-source/)

~~~
twic
The bird death from wind power thing is basically rubbish:

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-
environment-48936941](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48936941)

Wind power kills _fewer_ birds per unit energy than coal, and it kills orders
of magnitude fewer birds than domestic cats, which we're apparently fine with.

Plus, the big growth in wind power will probably be offshore: there's more
wind and fewer NIMBYs there. There is also a lower density of birds.

~~~
barry-cotter
Wind turbines kill animals cats don’t. You think a cat is going to kill a
golden eagle, a vulture or a stork? Different animals have very different
generation times and life cycles. Wind power kills fewer animals per KWH than
coal but it kills different ones and that matters.

> Fatalities at wind turbines may threaten population viability of a migratory
> bat

> Large numbers of migratory bats are killed every year at wind energy
> facilities. However, population-level impacts are unknown as we lack basic
> demographic information about these species. We investigated whether
> fatalities at wind turbines could impact population viability of migratory
> bats, focusing on the hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus), the species most
> frequently killed by turbines in North America. Using expert elicitation and
> population projection models, we show that mortality from wind turbines may
> drastically reduce population size and increase the risk of extinction. For
> example, the hoary bat population could decline by as much as 90% in the
> next 50 years if the initial population size is near 2.5 million bats and
> annual population growth rate is similar to rates estimated for other bat
> species (λ = 1.01). Our results suggest that wind energy development may
> pose a substantial threat to migratory bats in North America. If viable
> populations are to be sustained, conservation measures to reduce mortality
> from turbine collisions likely need to be initiated soon. Our findings
> inform policy decisions regarding preventing or mitigating impacts of energy
> infrastructure development on wildlife.

------
jabl
This seems like a nice improvement for processing biomass waste

\- less of the input energy wasted compared to traditional charcoal
production.

\- retains coal advantages compared to less processed biomass, namely higher
heating value meaning cheaper to transport, and easier to store (doesn't rot
if it sits in a pile outside)

However, as a side note I'm very sceptical wrt bioenergy. Using biomass waste
for energy is fine if there's no other use for it, but growing biomass for
energy production really isn't. Next to climate breakdown, the most serious
ecological problem we're facing is biodiversity loss, largely due to
conversion of wilderness to farmland. We really need to get past the idea that
every hectare of land has to be put to "productive" use. Much better to
produce our energy with wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and nuclear, and
rewild nature to the extent possible.

~~~
reaperducer
While I don't disagree with you, it's worth noting that wind, solar, and hydro
all have major impacts on nature. As long as everything goes to plan, nuclear
seems to have a limited impact on nature. I'm not sure about geothermal.

I wonder how the potential energy output of a solar farm compares to a biomass
farm.

~~~
Smoosh
> nuclear seems to have a limited impact on nature

I mostly agree, but don't forget about the mining operations:

[https://phys.org/news/2019-05-uranium-heart-kakadu-
cleanup.h...](https://phys.org/news/2019-05-uranium-heart-kakadu-cleanup.html)

[https://goo.gl/maps/8NVrpwSy7mCmJzq69](https://goo.gl/maps/8NVrpwSy7mCmJzq69)

[https://goo.gl/maps/ZdKKHc4jHBBrMcio8](https://goo.gl/maps/ZdKKHc4jHBBrMcio8)

And in the USA:
[http://cleanupthemines.org/facts/](http://cleanupthemines.org/facts/)

~~~
jabl
Even including uranium mining, nuclear power has lower material throughput
than, well, pretty much any energy source including wind and solar. With wind
and solar you're harvesting a pretty diffuse energy source so lots of (mostly)
steel and concrete needed per unit of energy produced over the lifetime of the
plant.

Also, with a closed nuclear fuel cycle we could reduce the amount of fuel
mining by a factor of 100 or abouts. Heck, we could shut down mining for a
couple of centuries while we burn all the uranium we have already dug up. So
far there's little interest in that, though, as uranium is pretty cheap.

~~~
reaperducer
_Heck, we could shut down mining for a couple of centuries_

It seems to already be heading that way.

Last week it was announced that the uranium mine in Grants, New Mexico will
not reopen because the price of uranium is so low.

------
semi-extrinsic
Bio-coal is possible, and may be economically viable (especially when produced
from biowaste as here), but only makes sense for an extremely brief transition
window. So these guys need to go from the current five-gram scale to the
estimated one million tonnes per day scale in less than five years. Maybe in
China that's possible.

~~~
elric
I'm not sure whether I agree with your timeline. Coal will likely remain
useful for a variety of industrial processes, like steel production.

~~~
pjc50
Before coal, there was charcoal; the process works perfectly well with it. We
switched because the energy-ROI and logistics are much easier than the manual
charcoal production process was.

~~~
elric
Your comment made me realize that I didn't fully understand the difference
between coal and charcoal. I assumed they were functionally equivalent, just
of a different origin. But apparently charcoal is just carbon, and coal
contains all kinds of other substances which can be used to create rubber and
other synthetics. As a result burning charcoal is much cleaner (though making
it isn't), and coal has uses far beyond merely setting it on fire.

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agumonkey
while we're on cellulose, anyone heard of homelab-scale methods to produce
cellulasic enzymes ?

------
hootbootscoot
climate crisis, hello... fossil fuels are a dangerous anachronism to be gotten
over, hello...

(renewable or not, net carbon emitter and HOW...)

