On the Farm – Agricultural Economics – Carbon Capture
Farmer-economist Michael Smith comments from More Random News Events of the Week post
________
My comment on the open thread, “what exactly does the federal government plan to do this is a little mind boggling. The USDA is limited in the resources they have. They can provide grants but it would need congress to fund it.”
A few things I am working through in the consideration of carbon capture:
1. How much is enough? My operation requires $50,000 a year approx. to fund the overhead for us to both live and work on the farm. This might not seem like much, but that is about $25 an hour for a regular 8-5. If we were ranching or were growing silage, those guys have huge amount of expenses between land and equipment and might need to clear $250,000 a year just to break even (mere estimation – needs research).
2. What crop to grow? This is a big one. Last year we tried to seed out some clover in the fall without tillage and that didn’t work. Changing up your process takes time and money. A seed drill to grow corn can’t be used to seed fescue, for example.
3. How much carbon we talking? Most ranchers sequester carbon at an alarming rate. A 200 pound bale of hay can be wiped clean by a few head of cattle very quickly that then excrete all that great manure back onto the soil to make next years grass even better. For my place, over the past year, we have been able to put probably 7 tons per 5 acres back into the ground, between having 5 tons of compost brought in and another 2-3 tons of organic material that has been mulched in. But, I can’t stress this enough, how are we going to measure the tonnage?
4. Weather conditions, crop insurance? To grow stuff you need rain, and as the Powell Parallel goes further and further east each year and more flooding happens in the Mississippi River valley this will be a challenge.
Just a few things to think about.
Oh, and single payer needs to hurry the hell up.
What crop to grow? This is a big one. Last year we tried to
“
I am now browsing through my prehistory books to pinpoint what the dinosaurs planted. Ah! here it is. they planted gigantic ferns that would grow very tall very fast then fall over into a big heap of peat moss. as more upon more of peat moss piled on, the bottom layer of Pete Moss was compressed into bituminous coal then the bottom layer of bituminous coal was compressed into anthracite coal over a period of a few million years. this is the best way to carbon capture and we can learn straight from the dinosaurs. get busy folks we found you a
good
one
!
We planted bamboo, huge growth, fiber, and I can Gilligan’s Island the hell out of it. And cups, plumbing.
Michael,
My dad was raised in a farming family with 12 full siblings and 8 half siblings. That was how they solved the labor problem before machinery. Their cash crop was moonshine. It was a hard life and dad ran away from home in his adolescence to live with an older brother before he joined the CCC. One brother became a navy lifer and two half-brothers were army lifers. Collis lost one arm in a sawmill accident, yet continued sawmill work but never married and lived in small cabin in the woods hermit like. Childbirth was difficult then despite the pressure to bear children. One of my aunts was barren and another had only one son that grew up. Dad drove a taxi, then did highway construction before cashing in his retirement to start a boat livery and concession stand on a 127 acre state game commission man-made lake.
The people that put food on our tables have never had an easy life. You have my thanks because I like to eat.
Thank ya sir. My grandfather also came from a huge family. He hitch hiked to the chemical plants in South Texas to deliver ice when he was 12. Eventually bought some land and a dairy cow but always told me we were too poor to farm. We worked what we had and that dictated heavily where we are today. Machinery is way less expensive than kids haha.
Farming was the last thing the family wanted us to get into. We were told to go to college and get degrees. I studied finance and economics and a few years ago got really into and fed up by our current state of affairs. Started a poultry operation 3 almost 4 years ago. Wife is a Montessori instructor and this fit right in her wheelhouse. Between feeding people, we also enjoy teaching and hosting events on the farm.
If in Texas in the future, we have cold mead, fresh fruit, and a farm fresh meal any time.
Riley Henderson Weakley (1916-2002) – Find A Grave Memorial
[My dad’s memorial web page with his immediate family tree.]
BTW, not know your specifics on temperature and rainfall then the only alternative nitrogen fixers for rotation with corn that I can recommend are what we use here in VA; soybeans and alfalfa, both of which have good commercial value as crops along with fixing nitrogen in the soil. Found a link on study of sorghum, which some here hold by despite the limits of study results.
Biological nitrogen fixation in field-grown sorghum under different edaphoclimatic conditions is confirmed by N isotopic signatures | SpringerLink
Swapping CO2 for CH4 may not be a fair carbon exchange.
Carbon capture technology: practicably end global warming – even reverse it — for 5% of GDP with a reasonably lo-tech process – once the price to gets down to $100 a ton? *****
According to a Businessweek article, worldwide we add 34 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year. Said article says Squamish Engineering, in B.C., Canada expects to launch a plant that will remove a million tons a year, located somewhere in the Permian Basin in Texas. Squamish says it can do this for $200 a ton. *****
My back-of-the-envelope calculates that, when the price reaches $100 a ton, then, worldwide we can keep cool for $3.4 trillion a year – less than 5% of world GDP. US kick-in about one trillion – out of $20 trillion GDP. That figure would grow as US economy grows – but: for every trillion of growth only additional $50 billion would go for removal, leaving us $950 billion ahead: set for the life of the planet.
(closest link I could find) https://www.magzter.com/article/Business/Bloomberg-Businessweek/A-Big-Step-for-the-Sky-Vacuums *****
Even if we could switch worldwide to 50% renewables today, that might only be fulfill 5% of needs 100 years from now when growing prosperity and populations might require 10X more. Can we really expect to do that much with sun and wind? *****
The latter is why I thought at first that mostly nuclear was the only way to go – the physics anyway; wouldn’t want to think about the economic and (mostly?) political barriers. Then, I read there may not be enough water available in the whole world for the massive hydro needs of reactors – and that is only at 2020’s level of power needs.
https://prospect.org/greennewdeal/the-tantalizing-nuclear-mirage/ *****
Thermonuclear? 50 years from now? Same econ and pol barriers? *****
“For two potentially powerful NETs—direct air capture and bioenergy with carbon capture—it’s not enough just to capture CO2. The substance must also be stored. … deep geological formations with the necessary rock characteristics are sprinkled around the globe. In total, they could hold more than 2 trillion t of CO2 … ” That’s about enough room for 60 years of CO2 output at today’s level. I would assume less than ideal rock will be available or be discovered – plenty of time.
https://cen.acs.org/environment/greenhouse-gases/Capturing-carbon-save-us/97/i8 *****
Can we essentially pull all the entire atmosphere through carbon capture plants? Plausible. Another Businessweek article depicts species of tree that grows fully in 10 years and can remove 103 tons of carbon per acre per year. My calculation that amounts to half a million square miles of planting to remove today’s carbon creation. Carbon capture plants should be able to interface the same volume of air I would think.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-02/we-already-have-the-world-s-most-efficient-carbon-capture-technology *****
Thing is: no impossible (?) political hassles trying to get everyone to switch over to renewable/nuclear — no radical disruption of econ/pol fabric needed. Assuming capture can work, just develop technology as fast as possible and put it to work as fast as it finally gets through to all that we don’t want 120 degrees in the shade in the winter in Chicago – no longer any motivational deficits when we reach some point along the Celsius/Fahrenheit scales. And assuming it works, we can potentially even dial the temperature back, if we want to badly enough. *****
[paragraphs separated by “*****” until we see if the new format works]
It’s hard to bandage a wound when it is still gushing at the incision. Instead of giving me money to lay my land fallow or plant a cover (I’ve got 3 acres of this trying out to see), they could literally start a grant program to put solar on everyone’s roofs and also reward companies that allow a work remote option. Commercial properties are huge and every square inch is conditioned. If we powered everyone’s homes with the sun and stopped a lot of the daily car travel, that would be a huge benefit to society, moreso than anything I can do at $50 per acre in seed and diesel to spread.
“…start a grant program to put solar on everyone’s roofs and also reward companies that allow a work remote option…”
[Absolutely! Maximize the benefits and minimize the negative social impact. That is the formula for success.]
And another:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-get-rid-of-carbon-emissions-pay-farmers-to-bury-them-11568211869
OR
we could just stop driving so much.
and build houses that don’t need AC. or much heat. like, you ever see the way King Henry VIII dressed indoors, in England. in winter?
trouble is, we are too stupid to pay to save the planet, or even inconvenience ourselves.
population may control itself. i hope.
“carbon capture” on the farm is not permanent; eventually the carbon returns to the atmosphere; it’s just recycling carbon through a natural carbon cycle; it’s no different than what nature did for thousands of years…
“carbon capture technology” will never be economically feasible on it’s own; the physics works against it….liquids and solids are ~1000 times more dense than a gas. burn a liter of gasoline, and you have 1000 liters of CO2. you can never capture that 1000 liters of CO2 as cheaply as it was to burn the gasoline…take away the government subsidies, and every project out there will come to a halt…
and i agree with coberly on this: trouble is, we are too stupid to pay to save the planet, or even inconvenience ourselves.
rjs,
Fortunately this old planet is wise enough to save itself. The only question is whether it will need to rid itself of homo sapiens in order to do so. It does not look good. Turning the permafrost into mud belching out methane was not a good development. There is a point of no return and we may have passed it already. Even if we radically reduce human carbon emissions now, then we will most likely also reduce ozone emissions which in turn will extend the half-life of the primordial methane escaping from the existing thaw further accelerating the thaw leading to yet more methane. When all the ice has melted all that is left will be the shutdown of thermohaline circulation as no more freshwater enters the oceans from ice melt. At question is which species will survive the sudden catastrophic climate change that follows.
Ron (RC) aka Darryl:
my sense is that most climate scientists know it’s already game over, and have given up objecting to the nonsense climate change “solutions” now being pushed, that had their origins with the fossil fuel producers or scientists funded by them… indeed, if i thought there was a viable way forward, i would spend more time on the issue myself….last night i was reading a twitter thread about the recent heat wave deaths and the DC tornadoes wherein one of the participants questioned how Biden could possibly be blamed for climate change…so i chimed in:
Replying to
@SeftyDaSoundman
@Pippen897a
and 2 others
planning to spend $3 trillion on concrete (0.654 ton of CO2 per ton of cement) and asphalt (tar sands) isn’t helping; what’s left of the green new deal will have the largest carbon footprint of any domestic policy initiative since Eisenhower built the Interstates..
it would be the height of irony if it is a program called a “green new deal” that would push us past that point of no return you talk about..
rjs
ron
thanks for pointing this out. height of irony or not, i won’t be laughing.
it is true out “leaders” are insane, and the people..the ones not insane…are powerless,
but i don’t want to give up the fight