Quote:
Originally Posted by Eclipse Now
Anyone got any "back-of-the-envelope" calculations about how much biomass agriwaste is produced around the world?
Apparently 10 tons of biomass = 3 tons of synfuel and 1 ton of char. (Eprida).
1 ton of char is a fair bit of Co2 locked away.... so... any "rough" calculations about how much Co2 the world's agriculture could lock away each year?
(Remembering that we produce about 9-10 billion tons Co2 from fossil fuels and 30 billion when all industries and deforestation are calculated.)
|
Well, let's start simple.
In the US, there were 70,537,000 acres in corn production, with an average yield of 134 bushels per acre (at 56lbs. per bushel).
Source:
Corn--Acreage, Production, and Value, by Leading States statistics - USA Census numbers
If we assume half of this is waste (cornstalks etc.) then we have (per 1999 numbers) a waste of 70,537,000 x 134/2=4,725,979,000 lbs. of corn "waste". In tons, this would be 2,362,990. So, from the Eprida numbers, this would provide for 236,299 tons of char and triple that for syngas.
Of course, this is *just corn in the US*!
Also, these numbers do not reflect the explosion of corn production we've seen here in the US this last decade.
