Albert Bates has suggested that there's a need for 100,000,000 biocharists. Those are people who would be involved with the biochar industry...input harvesters, pyrolysis tenders, packaging, sales, etc.
100,000,000 biocharists would be able to utilize carbon based life forms (wood, grasses, animal wastes, human wastes, etc.) to create a form of carbon that would be far less likely to break down into greenhouse gases. The source of all this carbon based lifeform input would be our atmosphere.
There's lots of carbon up there...too much...and it is currently being absorbed by plants. Photosynthesis sucks CO2 out of the air and turns it into solids that are the major component of plants.
Animals eat the plants and become forms of solid carbon themselves.
Normally, the plants and animals grow and die. The death of plants and animals usually involves their decay, a process in which micro-organisms break down the cellular structure of their mass into smaller and smaller components until eventually most of their matter becomes gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.
A biocharist provides a detour to the decay. Instead of dead plants and animals eventually becoming gases, they're converted into a solid form which is now called biochar.
That slows the carbon cycle down enough to balance the amount of carbon on and in the soil with the carbon in the atmosphere.
This is done by heating the dead carbon based lifeforms without oxidisation. That way, the volatile gases in carbon based life forms are released from the form and all that's left is a matrix of solid carbon.
That carbon turns out to be very useful in a large number of situations. I won't go into all of them, but one use that acts the same as a bank account that grows substantially due to compounded interest is using biochar to grow more carbon based life forms.
Biochar in the soil allows new plants to grow faster and bigger. Those faster and bigger plants allow the creation of more biochar. Which allows new plants to grow faster and bigger.
It's a positive feedback loop. You're earning interest on the interest. That's how smart savers retire with millions even though they've not deposited millions in their bank accounts. The interest earns interest earns interest, each and every year. Eventually, the interest portion is the part that turns modest deposits into millions over time.
Carbon Based Life Form -> Biochar -> More Carbon Based Life Form -> More Biochar -> Even More Carbon Based Life Form....and so on until you suck enough carbon out of the atmosphere and have a huge bank account of carbon in the soil...most of which was compounded interest from the initial carbon deposits.
100,000,000 biocharists would represent 1 out of 77 people on the plant would need to be a biocharist to get the CO2 in our atmosphere back to pre-industrial levels in the next 50 years.
100,000,000 biocharists would be responsible for creating 40,000,000,000,000 kilograms of biochar each and every year.
To break that down, each biocharist would need to create 400,000 kilograms of biochar in a year. That would work out to 1,095 kilograms per day.
In an 8 hour day, that works out to 136 kilograms an hour. And that works out to 2.28 kilograms per minute.
It seems reasonable that a biocharist should be compensated fairly for their work. Their take-home pay should be at least $75,000 per year.
Since they'll each be creating 400,000 kilograms of biochar in a year, the portion that should be going to their take-home pay should be $0.1875 per kilogram. That's $187.50 per tonne.
Costs to gather biomass, dry biomass, pyrolyze, store, package, and deliver biochar would probably triple the cost above take-home pay...$562.50 per tonne.
Or $0.5625 per kilogram. Pretty cheap when you consider that a kilogram of biochar will significantly accelerate the growth of quite a few plants or a good sized tree.
When you compare it to the price of a bag of potting soil, at $10/kg, paying $0.5625/kilogram for biochar is an incredible bargain.
Even though it's taken me about a decade to get started, I think I'm getting into this business at just the right time.
100,000,000 biocharists would be able to utilize carbon based life forms (wood, grasses, animal wastes, human wastes, etc.) to create a form of carbon that would be far less likely to break down into greenhouse gases. The source of all this carbon based lifeform input would be our atmosphere.
There's lots of carbon up there...too much...and it is currently being absorbed by plants. Photosynthesis sucks CO2 out of the air and turns it into solids that are the major component of plants.
Animals eat the plants and become forms of solid carbon themselves.
Normally, the plants and animals grow and die. The death of plants and animals usually involves their decay, a process in which micro-organisms break down the cellular structure of their mass into smaller and smaller components until eventually most of their matter becomes gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.
A biocharist provides a detour to the decay. Instead of dead plants and animals eventually becoming gases, they're converted into a solid form which is now called biochar.
That slows the carbon cycle down enough to balance the amount of carbon on and in the soil with the carbon in the atmosphere.
This is done by heating the dead carbon based lifeforms without oxidisation. That way, the volatile gases in carbon based life forms are released from the form and all that's left is a matrix of solid carbon.
That carbon turns out to be very useful in a large number of situations. I won't go into all of them, but one use that acts the same as a bank account that grows substantially due to compounded interest is using biochar to grow more carbon based life forms.
Biochar in the soil allows new plants to grow faster and bigger. Those faster and bigger plants allow the creation of more biochar. Which allows new plants to grow faster and bigger.
It's a positive feedback loop. You're earning interest on the interest. That's how smart savers retire with millions even though they've not deposited millions in their bank accounts. The interest earns interest earns interest, each and every year. Eventually, the interest portion is the part that turns modest deposits into millions over time.
Carbon Based Life Form -> Biochar -> More Carbon Based Life Form -> More Biochar -> Even More Carbon Based Life Form....and so on until you suck enough carbon out of the atmosphere and have a huge bank account of carbon in the soil...most of which was compounded interest from the initial carbon deposits.
100,000,000 biocharists would represent 1 out of 77 people on the plant would need to be a biocharist to get the CO2 in our atmosphere back to pre-industrial levels in the next 50 years.
100,000,000 biocharists would be responsible for creating 40,000,000,000,000 kilograms of biochar each and every year.
To break that down, each biocharist would need to create 400,000 kilograms of biochar in a year. That would work out to 1,095 kilograms per day.
In an 8 hour day, that works out to 136 kilograms an hour. And that works out to 2.28 kilograms per minute.
It seems reasonable that a biocharist should be compensated fairly for their work. Their take-home pay should be at least $75,000 per year.
Since they'll each be creating 400,000 kilograms of biochar in a year, the portion that should be going to their take-home pay should be $0.1875 per kilogram. That's $187.50 per tonne.
Costs to gather biomass, dry biomass, pyrolyze, store, package, and deliver biochar would probably triple the cost above take-home pay...$562.50 per tonne.
Or $0.5625 per kilogram. Pretty cheap when you consider that a kilogram of biochar will significantly accelerate the growth of quite a few plants or a good sized tree.
When you compare it to the price of a bag of potting soil, at $10/kg, paying $0.5625/kilogram for biochar is an incredible bargain.
Even though it's taken me about a decade to get started, I think I'm getting into this business at just the right time.
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