Wood as a carbon neutral biofuel

[Dale]

All in all here in EU we tend to make newer regulations which actually pushes the meat producers and farmers to actually use the methane for example in energy production or otherwise.

Yes. Here is my favorite approach, called “Biogas Done Right”: (it is for agriculture in general and could be applied to meat or plant production) https://www.bio.org/sites/default/files/legacy/bioorg/docs/0230PM-Fabrizio Sibilla.pdf

This is pioneered in Italy, but there is nothing region-specific about it at all except local pricing of the various outputs. There is no technological development needed, everything is off-the-shelf existing technology. There is also substantial know-how already existing and published on best practices using this technology.

It is also profitable currently. Of course that profit does depend on local pricing structures, but the prices in Italy are not particularly unusual. This approach produces food, energy, and profit, and it does so while sequestering net carbon in the soil and reducing farm chemical inputs.

as of now when we need fast and powerful solutions I think this wood thing is too slow and too inefficient to make any measurable change.

Yes. I think time scales are important here. The natural cycle time for crop carbon is months to years. The natural cycle time for forests is decades to millennia. Since we need results in the years to decades time frame it is probably reasonable to consider crop carbon as “neutral” and wood carbon as “sequestered”. It just doesn’t make sense to deliberately put sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere. We need to pull carbon out of the atmosphere over the time scale that wood will easily keep it out. So IMO wood has an important role in the solution, but it is as a sequestration reservoir, not as a biofuel.

Truth be told there are large government subsidies and there have to be , because going "green" for private businesses themselves often is a costly and painful process which they cannot do on their own.

Yes. The only alternative that I can see is to properly internalize the full costs of current practices.

When a consumer buys a pork shoulder they pay for the feed that was used, the land and buildings that were used, the labor involved, the chemicals and transportation, etc. But they do not pay for the costs to remove the carbon from the atmosphere nor for the costs to restore the carbon to the soil nor for the costs to remove pollutants from the waterways.

If those costs were properly internalized then I think that market forces would naturally produce the right outcomes. But I, for one, personally don’t see a way to do that without government intervention either. This is essentially a “Tragedy of the Commons”. Perhaps it is unavoidable that preventing destruction of the commons must involve government as the arbiter of common interest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

 

[artis]

Well as for the food I can say one thing, I personally leave nothing to waste because I know everything has value. For example bread often gets old and becomes like rock, I put it in a warm place to dry up. My friend has chickens in his country home, they lay some delicious eggs, I collect baskets of old bread pour some water on it and give to the chickens to eat.
Imagine all the food that is thrown out from supermarkets , I bet at least half of that can be used as is. Maybe it's not suitable for a toddler but it's definitely good for animals.
Heck I've had a beer get old and tasteless in the sun while in the farm and we have given it to the farm dog and pigs and they absolutely loved it. No kidding. As for climate conferences I really don't see the point in talking all the time. Paying Greta to be their angry cheerleader etc. This is actually simple to my mind. Here is a list.

1) Plant as many trees as you can everywhere until you lose consciousness or die from old age. And decrease the rate at which they are cut , so that planting overtakes cutting, leave the planted trees for the next couple of decades and forget about them, that's it it's simple. Yes maybe not business friendly but simple, period.

2) Revise nuclear power plants, take risk assessments to existing ones, take down only the ones that are either really old or have dangerous weaknesses, although what is considered a weakness is debatable , Russians have managed to squeeze a maximum out of their RBMK's and some still continue and will be shut down only mid 2030's.

3) Build new nuclear plants and replace coal ones, leave natural gas at some capacity and for reserve as it's simple to store and easy to fire up upon need. Continue implementing alternatives.
Build more energy efficient devices and homes.
And stop daydreaming about woodchips powering all Tesla's and the grid.I believe this is basically it, there is nothing more to do here, it just so happens to be that these are the routes most are unwilling to take and so instead of admitting the truth that we don't have alternatives they just gather at conferences.

Oh and yes speaking about trees, something which is unlikely to happen but needs to is the larger world countries need to stop cutting down the forests that are within their territory, this applies to Russian far east, even more so to Brazil and the rainforests, also China and elsewhere.
This should be treated like North Korean nuclear program - a hostile act against all world because that is what it is. Brazil should be met with the same sanctions as any other state that threatens world peace , same as Iran and the Afghan Taliban. But I feel this won't happen, because all parties are to blame and if Brazil for example would be penalized for their rainforests then they could show the finger to China and other countries that have done pretty much the same.