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Chapter 19.
Biogenic Fuels
Biogenic heating fuels.  Twigs of wood, dried cow, buffalo, or camel dung.

 

Under international greenhouse gas accounting methods developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, biogenic carbon is part of the natural carbon balance and it will not add to atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. - IPCC

BIOGENIC CARBON   Wood-burning stoves, fireplaces, and forest fires, carbon-neutral since they use modern carbon, rather than Jurassic carbon, are exempt.  In a similar way, 1/3 or 2 billion of the world's population subsist by cooking and heating on twigs of wood or dried cow, buffalo, or camel dung.  These fuels are also "carbon neutral." 
 

(Right) A straw bale stoker boiler for burning carbon-neutral straw.  The electricity to power the stoker boiler comes from a wind turbine.  This works out well since wind turbine electricity is not usually available in quantities sufficiently large enough and cheap enough for heating.

Biomass Electricity Generator .pdf 

Carbon is the 4th most common element in the universe.  Over the years nature has buried in the ground and under the oceans 90 times the carbon found in all life.

 

If man ends all coal and natural gas burning, nature should be removing slightly more CO2 from the air than man is making.

   http://www.greenspirit.com/trees_answer.cfm

 

The Biogenic Energy Component

From "Brave New Climate"

The 100 club

‘The 100 club‘ is a list we’ve compiled of all the countries in the world whose CO2 emissions from electricity generation fall below 100 g per kilowatt hour (kWh)

Iceland – 1 g

Democratic Republic of Congo – 4 g

Norway – 5 g

Zambia – 7 g

Ethiopia – 11 g

Nepal – 13 g

Costa Rica – 15 g

Cameroon – 16 g

Switzerland – 22 g

Tajikistan – 38 g

Sweden – 48 g

Albania – 51 g

Uruguay – 55 g

France – 90 g

Brazil – 93 g

There are only five developed countries in this list (in red). How did they manage to get there?

Iceland is largely hydro power and conventional geothermal (not hot dry rock).

Norway is nearly 100% hydro power.

Both Switzerland and Sweden are about half hydro and half nuclear power.

France is 77% nuclear power with some hydro, coal and gas.

So, if we want to get into ‘the 100 club’ it looks like we have four choices: conventional geothermal, hydro power, nuclear power or third world living conditions.

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