Die Tradition der Energiewirtschaft in der Region Berlin-Brandenburg ist lang und mit Werner von Siemens hat einer der Urväter der modernen Energiewirtschaft vor Ort gewirkt. Die Lausitz ist eines der 4 großen Kohleförderzentren Deutschlands und 33% (knapp 60 Millionen Tonnen p.a.) der deutschen Braunkohleförderung entfallen auf dieses Gebiet.

http://www.biomasse-nutzung.de/biokohle-und-hydrothermale-karbonisierung-in-berlin-brandenburg/

Carbon Commentary
BiocharFund

The Royal Society has published the findings of a major study into geoengineering the climate.

The study, chaired by Professor John Shepherd FRS, was researched and written over a period of twelve months by twelve leading academics representing science, economics, law and social science.

Man-made climate change is happening and its impacts and costs will be large, serious and unevenly spread. The impacts may be reduced by adaptation and moderated by mitigation, especially by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. However, global efforts to reduce emissions have not yet been sufficiently successful to provide confidence that the reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate change will be achieved. This has led to growing interest in geoengineering, defined here as the deliberate large-scale manipulation of the planetary environment to counteract anthropogenic climate change.

However, despite this interest, there has been a lack of accessible, high quality information on the proposed geoengineering techniques which remain unproven and potentially dangerous. This study provides a detailed assessment of the various methods and considers the potential efficiency and unintended consequences they may pose. It divides geoengineering methods into two basic categories:

1. Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) techniques, which remove CO2 from the atmosphere. As they address the root cause of climate change, rising CO2 concentrations, they have relatively low uncertainties and risks. However, these techniques work slowly to reduce global temperatures.
2. Solar Radiation Management (SRM) techniques, which reflect a small percentage of the sun's light and heat back into space. These methods act quickly, and so may represent the only way to lower global temperatures quickly in the event of a climate crisis. However, they only reduce some, but not all, effects of climate change, while possibly creating other problems . They also do not affect CO2 levels and therefore fail to address the wider effects of rising CO2, including ocean acidification.

The report recommends:

• Parties to the UNFCCC should make increased efforts towards mitigating and adapting to climate change and in particular to agreeing to global emissions reductions of at least 50% on 1990 levels by 2050 and more thereafter;
• CDR and SRM geoengineering methods should only be considered as part of a wider package of options for addressing climate change. CDR methods should be regarded as preferable to SRM methods.
• Relevant UK government departments, in association with the UK Research Councils, should together fund a 10 year geoengineering research programme at a level of the order of £10M per annum.
• The Royal Society, in collaboration with international science partners, should develop a code of practice for geoengineering research and provide recommendations to the international scientific community for a voluntary research governance framework.

The Royal Society issued a call for submissions and convened a small ethics workshop as part of the evidence gathering process. More information is available in the main report. Royal Society

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/13/manchester-report-biochar
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/manchester-report

Imagine if in a poverty-stricken sector of the equatorial band, littered with acidic soils barely fit for farming, there were jet-black patches of dirt, seeded with charcoal and so fertile that they could be planted continuously for over 40 years without applying fertilizer.

Then imagine that those patches were so loaded with carbon that they had six to seven times the amount of carbon per pound of the surrounding soils, that Western scientists could partially replicate the process through which the black earth was made, and that by burying carbon in earth they could augment soil fertility and, perhaps, leach carbon out of the atmosphere and reverse global warming.

Perhaps the jig is already up—too much detail. What we’re talking about is terra preta, or more colloquially, biochar, the Amazonian miracle soil.

On his farm in the hills of west virginia, Josh Frye isn't raising chickens just for meat. He is also raising them for their manure. Through a process that some scientists tout as a solution to climate change, food shortages and the energy crisis, Frye is transforming the waste into a charcoal-like substance called biochar that in the long run could be far better for the world than chicken nuggets. "It might look like this is just a poultry farm," says Frye. "But it's a char farm too."

Burn almost any kind of organic material — corn husks, hazelnut shells, bamboo and, yes, even chicken manure — in an oxygen-depleted process called pyrolysis, and you generate gases and heat that can be used as energy. What remains is a solid — biochar — that sequesters carbon, keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere. In principle, at least, you create energy in a way that is not just carbon neutral, but carbon negative.

Time

Director Davis Guggenheim eloquently weaves the science of global warming with Mr. Gore's personal history and lifelong commitment to reversing the effects of global climate change. A longtime advocate for the environment, Gore presents a wide array of facts and information in a thoughtful and compelling way. "Al Gore strips his presentations of politics, laying out the facts for the audience to draw their own conclusions in a charming, funny and engaging style, and by the end has everyone on the edge of their seats, gripped by his haunting message," said Guggenheim. An Inconvenient Truth is not a story of despair but rather a rallying cry to protect the one earth we all share. "It is now clear that we face a deepening global climate crisis that requires us to act boldly, quickly, and wisely," said Gore. IMDB Climate Crisis