A new carbon capture plant will pull 36k tons of CO2 from the air each year

Re:A new carbon capture plant will pull 36k tons of CO2 from... by bryanlarsen on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @07:22PM (#31926961)

Charcoal is carbon neutral, it's simply releasing the CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere by the trees that made the charcoal. So there shouldn't be a carbon tax on charcoal.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A new carbon capture plant will pull 36k tons of CO2 from... by gumby on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @07:47PM (#31927143)

The production of charcoal itself emits a lot of CO2

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A new carbon capture plant will pull 36k tons of CO2 from... by hedora on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @09:20PM (#31927709)

Source? Isn't it basically the same process as biochar, which has been proposed as a carbon capture technology (the idea being that you bury the resulting charcoal instead of burning it)?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:A new carbon capture plant will pull 36k tons of CO2 from... by gumby on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @09:52PM (#31927911)

Yes, as far as I can tell the footprint of pyrolysis portion is basically the same (various wild seeming claims notwithstanding) though I haven't dug into this deeply, and specifically haven't looked into it in over a decade.

However on a full cycle basis the difference is biochar is typically made from local material (mostly the leftover waste from the prior year's harvest) which is right there (zero transport) and would otherwise rot and release methane and CO2 on its own, even if plowed into the field.

Charcoal is made from trees, typically cut down and transported to a factory and then transported to the customer.

In general I am not in favor of burning trees, enjoyable as it is on a cold night out in the forest.

[ Parent | on HN ]