Re: [Vo]: Re: The $25 Million Branson Climate Prize

[Nick Palmer]

Ok, Fred and Michel, I was reading this about waste disposal technology 
today on the M.I.T.Technology review website 
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18183/
and I linked up what the Vorts have been talking about with algae as a means 
of creation of biofuel etc and the  waste disposal technology that I am 
trying to get our States of Jersey to buy, rather than a huge incinerator 
http://www.compactpower.co.uk/ . This is a pyrolysis/gasification technology 
that looks favourite to be a better "Energy from Waste" plant in the future. 
As an environmentalist, I am pretty much against EFW plants as they act as 
an antagonist to the best achievable rates of recycling and waste reduction 
but this system offers the great benefit that it is very modular and thus a 
system capable of handling 64,000 tonnes per annum  uses 16 pyrolysis tubes 
which could be progressively retired in the future as recycling, waste 
reduction etc rates increase and the redundant units could then be converted 
towards other uses such as treatment of clinical waste and the use of 
biomass as a fuel source.

   The great thing about pyrolysis is that heating organic material in 
reduced oxygen creates some hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which can be 
combusted to fuel the plant, but the majority of the hydrocarbons and 
organic matter get converted into "spongy" carbon - a charcoal like 
substance. I imagined a direct feed of algae, fattened on the CO2 emissions 
of powerplants etc, being pyrolysed into charcoal plus energy. I speculated 
that the charcoal "foam" that would result from the algal slime would have 
some industrial value but beyond this I remembered that there is some 
evidence that charcoal can act a tremendous boost to the fertility of soil 
by virtue of its ability to hold nutrients in poorer soils (black soil or 
Terra Preta in South America http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11522955/ ). Carbon 
sequestration plus energy plus agricultural benefits.This energy would be 
carbon NEGATIVE...  Charcoal is pretty stable in the ground...

Nick Palmer