The dump does take wood. I know I was there a couple of weeks ago. Really there is a wood recycler on Johns Prairie Road where most people in the county go.

The sawdust is shipped from the mill along with the hog fuel and sold. The mills have been running off and on for awhile now, but not because of anything but the crappy housing market. Who do you think buys the lumber…

Environmentalist are not the ones opposing this plant it is many of our local residents in Mason County. My family is 4th generation timber industry, local mills and logging.

I was born in Shelton 45 years ago and no one I know has heard of this name, it isn’t in our local phone book. Who are you, really?

All political persuasions agree, building soil carbon is GOOD.
To me, in the long run, the final arbiter / accountancy / measure of sustainability will be soil carbon content and the truth of proper land-management and Biochar systems will be self-evident.

The Agricultural Soil Carbon Sequestration Standard is in final review by the AMS-ARC branch at USDA, which allows Farmers account for their good work.

My read of the agronomic history of civilization shows that the Kayopo Amazon Indians and the Egyptians were the only ones to maintain fertility for the long haul, millennium scales. Egypt has now forsaken their geologic advantage by building the Aswan dam, and are stuck, with the rest of us, in the soil Carbon mining, NPK rat race, to the bottom.

In E. O. Wilson’s “The Future of Life” he opens the book with a letter to Thoreau updating him on our current understanding of the nature of the ecology of the soils at Walden Pond.

Arthropods present in dozens-hundreds, then barely visible to the naked eye, the numbers jump to thousands; Nematode and enchytraied pot worms, mites, springtails, pauropods, diplurans, symphylans, and tardigrades seethe in the underground. Their home is a labyrinth of miniature caves and walls of rotting vegetable debris cross-strung with ten yards of fungal threads. Penetrate microscopic water films on grains of sand, and find ten billion bacteria in a thimble full.
and Wilson concludes;

“Now it is up to us to summon a more Encompassing Wisdom.”

Agriculture allowed our cultural accent and Agriculture will now prevent our descent.

Wise Land management; Organic farming and afforestation can build back our soil carbon,

Biochar allows the soil food web to build much more recalcitrant organic carbon, ( living biomass & Glomalins) in addition to the carbon in the biochar.

Every 1 ton of Biomass yields 1/3 ton Charcoal for soil Sequestration (= to 1 Ton CO2e) + Bio-Gas & Bio-oil fuels = to 1MWh exported electricity, so is a totally virtuous, carbon negative energy cycle.

Biochar viewed as soil Infrastructure; The old saw;
“Feed the Soil Not the Plants” becomes;
“Feed, Cloth and House the Soil, utilities included !”.
Free Carbon Condominiums with carboxyl group fats in the pantry and hydroxyl alcohol in the mini bar.
Build it and the Wee-Beasties will come.
Microbes like to sit down when they eat.
By setting this table we expand husbandry to whole new orders & Kingdoms of life.
( These oxidised surface charges; carbonyl. hydroxyl, carboxylic acids, and lactones or quinones, have as well a role as signaling substances towards bacteria, fungi and plants.)

This is what I try to get across to Farmers, as to how I feel about the act of returning carbon to the soil. An act of penitence and thankfulness for the civilization we have created. Farmers are the Soil Sink Bankers, once carbon has a price, they will be laughing all the way to it.
Unlike CCS which only reduces emissions, biochar systems draw down CO2 every energy cycle, closing a circle back to support the soil food web. The photosynthetic “capture” collectors are up and running, the “storage” sink is in operation just under our feet. Pyrolysis conversion plants are the only infrastructure we need to build out.

For those looking for an overview of biochar and its benefits, These authors have done a very nice job of distilling a great deal of information about biochar and applying it to the US context:

US -Focused Biochar report: Assessment of Biochar’s Benefits for the USA http://www.biochar-us.org/pdf%20files/biochar_report_lowres.pdf

Ultimately we must leave the combustion age behind. Charcoal to the soil is a bridging first step as other energy conversion technologies bloom from Nano and bio reasearch. Thankfully we can do Pyrolitic Biofuels now.

Oil interest must come to see the overwhelming value of their carbon as the feedstock for the manufacture ( via carbon nanotubes, fullerines, DNA programed nano self assembly, etc.) of virtually all things in the near future.

This convergence of different technologies will end the Combustion age.

Douglas County Commissioner Joseph Laurance has gained national recognition as “Biomass Joe” for his efforts in Douglas County.

Last week he gave the following testimony in Washington DC:

http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2010/07/15/douglas-co-commissioner-joe-laurance-july-15-testimony/

It would be great to see Oregon’s Congressional leaders get behind Joe’s NACO proposal.