"Fire for Resource Benefit" is about using Greenhouse gasses to create electricity.
Greenhouse gasses are an essential part of the atmosphere. Their composition allows the sun’s radiant heat to reach the Earth’s surface. This heat is then converted and gets reflected back into space in the form of infrared energy. It is this energy that greenhouse gasses absorb. Therefore without them, in the atmosphere, the Earth’s average temperatures would be sub-zero.
The gasses that already were in the atmosphere’s carbon cycle were a natural part of the ecosystem. Along with the industrial revolution however, came the concept of burning massive amounts of fossil fuel. When this occurred mankind managed to unearth, and insert more greenhouse gasses into the cycle. The higher levels of broken carbon trap infrared energy that normally would escape into the vacuum of space. This is what science has stated is causing global warming. It’s not the natural surface biomass emissions, but the unnatural exposure to sequestered Greenhouse gasses that, for a lack of better terms, humanity has injected into the atmosphere by digging it up, or pumping it out, and then burning it.
The equation is:
1 + 1 = 2
With every form of life diversified to the carbon cycle, a tree is a unique organism. As they live they absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. When they die however, they begin gradually expelling carbon dioxide, and will continue to emit the gas until decomposition is complete. In other words, a tree whether it is burned or left to rot, will add CO2 and other Greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. This CO2 was already a part of the atmosphere though, because while growing a tree used CO2 much the same way humans use oxygen. Instead of breathing oxygen and releasing CO2, like everyone when they exhale, a tree breathes CO2 and exhales oxygen. (The carbon cycle will be better explained in a future video presentation."
A fire is in fact a smoke factory! The particulate emissions aren’t much different in chemical composition from those spewing out of a coal fired smoke stack at an electric mill. When pyrolis of forest land occurs, the molecules in the wood fuel are heat-divided and converted into a form of gas. This principle is better explained with water. When water is heated to a certain temperature it boils. In doing so it soon gasifies. As steam it rises into the atmosphere. Burning of biomass essentially uses the same principle. Except the long chains of carbon molecules in wood, after being broken apart and mixed with oxygen, and are combustable.
Water moisture in wood is usually the first element to begin vaporizing. As the fuel stock continues to dry it begins smoking; releasing other gasses such as carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur. When these volatile vapors mix with oxygen the division of molecular bonds produces heat. Billowing up, the water-vapor mingling with particulates produce the energy rich spoke clouds which are the byproduct, or particulate matter.
With Coal Fired Pyrolysis, the only major difference is mankind can harness the energy in an electric mill, and filter the byproduct smoke, so that no dangerous particulates are released. To date however, no one has been able to trap the energy release of a wildfire and its raging smoke factory (energy potential) just rises into the atmosphere heating, choking and clouding an already heated, choked and clouded sky.
Long-term, all of the forest's trees, shrubs, roots, leaves and needles are going to be converted into Greenhouse gasses, by decomposing over time. Either gradually, you know biological decomposition, or more dramatically in the case of a wildfire, rapid release, or rapid decomposition. So in terms of the carbon cycle, using burning trees as a source of power, instead of coal, is a carbon neutral situation.
Every year thousands of acres of forestlands burn. If the energy converted by the pyrolysis of these stands could be used, the cost offset would be tremendous. Then there are the fuel treatments, where dense thickets are either mechanically thinned, purposefully burnt, or both. Either way these procedures are costly. Costs that if they could be offset not only to reduce global warming, but to counteract the immense stress on the energy grid--two of the most controversial topics in the news today--would contribute to alleviating the consequences of burning fossil fuels.
This technology exists. What are people going to tell their children 50 years from now if global warming becomes evident and is increasingly intolerable? How will they explain that back in 2011-‘19 humanity could have implicated measures to limit what gasses were introduced into the atmosphere, and didn’t?
Solar Power technology has been used for two decades.
Water and wind turbines have been used to produce electricity since the late 1800s.
The smoking gun is in the statistics. It is predicted by the year 2060 gasoline fuel will be a relic of the past. What then. How is the world going to function? (Read Part II in this Series for clarification.)
In 1905 the board of directors at the Milwaukee Railroad voted unanimously, to once again connect the east to the west. This time instead of going through Promintory Utah, as the Transcontenential Railroad, Milwaukee proposed to take a more northern route. What resulted were ten miles of solid-wall tunnels, 20 miles of bridgework, 200,000 tons of steel, and a set of tracks that went across the great plains, through three mountain ranges and connected Chicago to Seattle. By 1908 the lines were open to carry passengers and freight to Harltown, Montana, and by the end of 1909 they were open to spread commerce from the Windy all the way to the Wet City.
In 1915, with steam powered engine pressure hard to build in 40 below weather, the first tests of the electrified operations were conducted between Harlowtown, and Avery, Idaho. A second electrical operation was conducted to success in Othello and Tacoma, Wa. in 1919. And a third section of electrified track went into operation between Seattle and Black River, in 1927.
The electric locomotive was not like an ordinary train. It was more like a subway system powered by a giant electric engine. When this engine was reversed for breaking it actually became a generator and produced around 12 percent of the power the train used. Along with generating a partial amount of its own power, the trains themselves could travel at speeds up to 100 miles-an-hour.
Plagued with debt throughout its entire career, the days of the electric railroad ended in 1973. A number of reasons were reported for the demise of this marvel of yester-year. Internally, within the company it became increasingly hard to manufacture parts for the unique electrical system. When all the other companies were asking for the much cheaper and readily available diesel engine components.
The Milwaukee may be a burning bush to ignite the use of alternate energy.
One of the oldest known energy sources, wood, has been left behind for the more cost effective burning of fossil fuels. But fossil fuels are not renewable, nor are they carbon neutral. Wood fuels are renewable, and they are carbon neutral.
A 2011 research report produced by the Rocky Mountain Research Station states that there are very few studies available concerning the negative effects on entire tree removal from the forest. Some studies exist on removing the boles only. But as for entire biomass extraction, since at this time there has been realitively no market value for the logging slash, and smaller boles. Very few operations have even implicated the process of extracting everything. Most often logging slash and small boles are simply burned on site. Therefore very few areas exist to study the impacts, expecially on soil health and its ability to sustain effective regrowth after the nutrient base has been removed.
A current research report (2011) has listed that it will cost roughly around $620-50 to treat an acre of forest land to eliminate future large fire threats. During the booming years of the forest economy, a 1980 EPA article addressing the prospected use of biomass for energy, and used an American Paper assessment that described the most cost prohibitive aspect of an operation at this scale. It stated this would be in transportation of the masses from the forests to the processing plants. Included in this aspect are the costs doubling the further the transport becomes. Without gasoline, diesel, or kerosene the transport then becomes impossible. What then? That is were the electronic locomotive , a sky-crane helicopter, and syn-gas comes in.
Studying syn-gas. Similar to natural gas, syn-gas is not as laden with energy content, but it could be pumped into the existing natural gas line infrastructure, if it were purified. The process becomes problematic however, in the realms of cost effectiveness, and the present technology for purification.
"There are more impurities in syn-gas than natural gas, and for that reason the energy content is lower," said University of Montana Professor Tyrone Venn.
“The feedstock is fed into an oxygen free chamber, heated to over 800 degrees Celsius in less than a second and 75 percent of the mass of the feedstock gasifies, and the remaining 25 percent becomes a talcum powder-like residue which has the same chemical composition as charcoal."
This is a politically charge topic. On the one side there are those individuals who believe the removal of trees from the forest creates unhealthy ecosystems. On the other, there are those who feel treating areas, or grooming them like in a garden, is essential. Statistics show the "Age of Oil" is drawing to an end. Agencies are in agreement that the past century of suppression has allowed fire fuels to buildup. What is not in consensus are land management and fire agency agendas. This consensus is lacking cohesion, as the General Accounting Office identifies, due to the lack of data between high-risk and low-risk areas. Of course the landscape of a generic forest creates conflict when attempting to do a controlled analysis.
What it all comes down to is money. A project must have capital, and must make dividends to remain self-sufficient. If every individual who paid for an electrical hook up in the United States, paid for wood fired electricity, the current problems with atmospheric warming would be solved, the wildfire situation would also be solved.
There are hurdles to overcome, but it is possible to begin today, for a better tomorrow and sustainable future.
The engineering equation for Greenhouse emissions would then change from: one natural carbon cycle plus one manmade carbon foot print equals two parts carbon/GHG emissions, to one natural carbon cycle minus one manmade carbon footprint equals zero parts Carbon/GHG emissions.
1 + 1 = 2
to,
1 - 1 = 0.
