Which is more expensive:brush removal or prescribed burn?

[Roger Feeley]

I read about all these fires in the west and it made me wonder. Say you have the political will to be proactive. Your choice is to remove the flammable materials or se a fire yourself and try to control it. If you do a prescribed burn, you have to have a lot of people to keep it from getting out of control. If you remove the material, you have to stash it someplace.

would anyone know the economics?

[Brian Holcombe]

We have this either-or approach going on that just strikes me as being pretty short-sighted. Either the place is clear-cut or it’s protected both have negative impacts. It would seem a moderate path of cutting the oldest growth in the forest annually would keep the inventory down.

Rrmoving the largest growth opens up the canopy allowing new growth to Form and occupy that space.

[mike stenson]

Economics aside, I live about 2 miles from the edge of a ~180,000 acre fire that occurred in June/July of this year. The area's about 95% impossible to get to with equipment, and about 65 to 70% is impossible on foot (the people complaining that the firefighters weren't going into these areas to put it out was incredible, but I've spent a lot of time in the area on foot). The geographies many of the fires are occurring in make both impractical choices.

The area here is also a mix of chaparral, grassland, desert, pine, and oak forest. A good chunk of it had burned about 10 years ago. I do not believe you can keep ahead of it when you have 15-20 year drought.

[William Chain]

"rake the forest" Haha. Wasn't that the "solution"?

Seriously though - wasn't one of these new ones set off by an idiot with their super critical gender reveal party going awry? Step 1 is stopping the stupid *&&#.

A thinning of the forested areas may be a step in the right direction, but I'm not sure anything is going to help the tinderbox conditions out there at this point. One can imagine the firebreaks and cut lines in the managed areas, but in some spots the winds are to the point that no gap in the vegetation is going to help.

I'm not sure there are economics to fix such a huge area.

[Jim Matthews]

I read about all these fires in the west and it made me wonder.

...would anyone know the economics?

Scale is important, when thinking about firebreaks.

The three largest Oregon fires cover 450,000 acres or roughly 700 square miles. That's nearly the size of Rhode Island. This year is exceptional, mainly because the fires are near population centers.

Oregon is nearly 95,000 square miles - much of it steep and only accessible on foot. Figure a fully laden smokie can manage 4 miles a day if they're cutting firebreaks and you get an idea of why it *can't * be done.

The only way for most States to afford prescribed burn an area that size is with inmates providing labor.



https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2020/08/21/28756155/prison-inmates-are-fighting-oregon-wildfires-for-under-10-a-day

[Roger Feeley]

Thanks for the perspective, folks. I freely admit my ignorance in this matter. I’m from Kansas where the terrain is much less lumpy. In fact, someone did a study that found that Kansas is almost flatter than a pancake. There’s a high point out west that made it less flat.

[Malcolm McLeod]

True, we are short-sighted. I am not a forester, but from reading I understand that the under-story (mid-level) trees can enable a fire to get to the canopy of an old growth forest - and so spread catastrophically. Without that middle layer of fuel, a fire can burn the detritus 2-3 feet off the ground and never seriously impact the larger trees. If this happens periodically, there is limited opportunity for un-controlled fire conditions.

We forget that fire is a natural part of any ecosystem. It is so easy to blame climate change, but at some point you have to look in the mirror and re-consider the impact of your land management practices.

As example, mesquite is a plague on Texas ranchers (et al.). 100 yrs ago, it was largely unknown; today you'd think it was the state tree. It is an invader over much of the state, consumes massive amounts of water, and shades out grasses that dominated the plains for millennia. It was held in check by lightening-caused fires. Then humans built houses and fires had to be fought. Now mesquite has taken over. In many areas where/when wind conditions allow, ranchers will do controlled burns of their range. Grasses burn as low as 3-4 inches off the ground, kill the mesquite, and the grass is back in 6-8 weeks. Many areas have even had surface water (magically) re-appear - and streams flow. An alternative is root-plowing (bulldozers), but is expensive and less effective.

I am going to guess that CA has applied similar absolute fire control practices for the last 100 yrs or so. Look at old photos of an area. Was it grass, or brush, or trees 150 yrs ago? (Watch the 1956 movie "Giant", filmed near Marfa TX. Look at the range land in the film. Then go visit the area. You won't think they filmed anywhere near Marfa.)

Any way you look at it, humans have altered their environment. We can either stay out, leave it alone, and allow it to return to its native state - fires and all, or learn to live with the results of our land management practices; and maybe concrete houses.

Edit.....
Sorry. Just realized this is very 'either-or' sounding - and not my intention at all. I thought it might be obvious we could adjust our land management practices to some middle ground too. Maybe it was obvious; maybe not:D.

[mike stenson]

Yea, I forgot the bufflegrass. It's an invasive, fire loving, species. The saguaro's, mesquites, palo verdes, etc.. that also occupy chaparral and grasslands here.. are not. Leaving a more barren, and unnatural/unsustained, landscape post fire.

[Bill Dufour]

The only way for most States to afford prescribed burn an area that size is with inmates providing labor.

Due to covid California inmate crews are at 2/5 of normal and will stay that way for the duration.

The federal fire crews have finally recovered from the 2001 forced replacement of all fire fighters over 35. They finally have firefighters with 20 years experience. Something they did not have 10 years ago.
Bill D.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/news/releases/usda-increases-entry-age-firefighters

https://www.hcn.org/issues/208/10653

[Kev Williams]

If they have 3 trillion bucks to throw at the economy during a pandemic to put food on people's tables, seems a piece o' cake to hire - read: decrease unemployment and add economic growth- lumberjacks and heavy equipment operators etc. to clear deadwood so people have a table that's not on fire...

Too simplistic, maybe, but what's the cost to the taxpayer to hire 'fire preventers' versus the cost of paying to fight the fires, and the FEMA costs of rebuilding? And how many lives will be lost preventing the fires in the first place versus those lost to the fires?

As to 'prescribed burn', they do that around here all the time. Good idea, until the 'prescribed' fire turns into an 'Oh, S*^# fire :(

[Rod Sheridan]

Roger, I have no idea, however I think it’s the wrong question.

I believe the question should be “what is the best solution for the ecosystem?”

Selective logging, using animals such as goats to reduce material, removal of dead trees as tinder by felling.

There are lots of things to do, there are many experts who could fashion a solution and I would expect it would vary by area or situation.

[Jim Matthews]

The federal fire crews have finally recovered from the 2001 forced replacement of all fire fighters over 35.

I would be surprised if anyone over the age of 35 could handle the demands of humping a full pack in today's heat, only to jump into a Shake and Bake more than once.

Yikes

[Steve Eure]

Here in the southeastern part of the country, its a normal occurrence to control burn every year during late winter, early spring before the green starts shooting up. We have experts here, and I do mean experts, with several big plantations who have offered to go to the western part of the country to give advice on how to manage their resources. They were pretty much laughed out of the state of Cali from all the tree huggers and green deal hippies over there. Outside of the occasional Okefenokee fires, it's not much of a problem here. It all has to do with management. Oh, and by the way, the reason the Okefenokee burns out of control occasionally, is because much of it is Federal land that will not allow prescribed burns. Only natural fires can occur so the tinder builds up significantly because most of it is pines.

[Bill Dufour]

Brushing requires tools gasoline/oil and workers then chipping and haul off costs.
Burning requires one match. and a good pair of running shoes.
Bill D

[Thomas McCurnin]

I have a wilderness cabin in California and yes it is the fire area.

Forest Management is an entire four year course at Agricultural Colleges. There are a lot of theories, the most recent, and I believe the best, is cutting down small trees and letting the larger ones grow. I forget what the spacing is but it is something like 20-30 feet between trees. Another good practice is limbing or skinning the trees, which is cutting down small limbs below 12'. So even if there is a fire, it will burn the needles and brush and not catch the trees on fire with small limbs. The larger trees with thick bark are actually quite fire resistant, evidenced by controlled burns. I use a 12' Stihl power pole pruner (chain saw on a stick) to limb trees within 20-30 radius around the cabin.

We use a McLeoud type rake to yes, rake the forest, as stupid as that sounds, to rake up and remove pine needles in a 20-30 circle around homes. The needles and brush are thrown into canyons and dry creek beds for erosion control. I think the cabin owners around my immediate area dumped nearly 25 pickup truck loads of pine needles this way. I do this once a year. Others are no so diligent.

All trees which are under 16" in diameter are cleared from around the cabin, in a 20-30 foot radius.

All pine needles are removed from the roof. All combustible products (firewood, chairs, etc) are removed from outside the cabin and kept, you guessed it, 20-30 feet away from the cabin.

The above are requirements from our insurer and requests by the US Forest Service.

Controlled burns are no longer an acceptable way in our forest--there are just too many ways they can get out of hand.

[William Chain]

This is all well and good for a homeowner. But it is functionally impossible to apply to the whole forest.

There's no management that will compensate for what, a 10+ year drought? Despite what anyone says - the fire problem is not fixable by raking up anything.


I have a wilderness cabin in California and yes it is the fire area.

Forest Management is an entire four year course at Agricultural Colleges. There are a lot of theories, the most recent, and I believe the best, is cutting down small trees and letting the larger ones grow. I forget what the spacing is but it is something like 20-30 feet between trees. Another good practice is limbing or skinning the trees, which is cutting down small limbs below 12'. So even if there is a fire, it will burn the needles and brush and not catch the trees on fire with small limbs. The larger trees with thick bark are actually quite fire resistant, evidenced by controlled burns. I use a 12' Stihl power pole pruner (chain saw on a stick) to limb trees within 20-30 radius around the cabin.

We use a McLeoud type rake to yes, rake the forest, as stupid as that sounds, to rake up and remove pine needles in a 20-30 circle around homes. The needles and brush are thrown into canyons and dry creek beds for erosion control. I think the cabin owners around my immediate area dumped nearly 25 pickup truck loads of pine needles this way. I do this once a year. Others are no so diligent.

All trees which are under 16" in diameter are cleared from around the cabin, in a 20-30 foot radius.

All pine needles are removed from the roof. All combustible products (firewood, chairs, etc) are removed from outside the cabin and kept, you guessed it, 20-30 feet away from the cabin.

The above are requirements from our insurer and requests by the US Forest Service.

Controlled burns are no longer an acceptable way in our forest--there are just too many ways they can get out of hand.

[mike stenson]

Almost two decades of drought. This will just become the norm I suspect.

[Rod Sheridan]

Almost two decades of drought. This will just become the norm I suspect.

Mike, due to GHG emissions this will just be the beginning.

A 10 year drought, hard to imagine for me..........Regards, Rod.

[mike stenson]

Mike, due to GHG emissions this will just be the beginning.

A 10 year drought, hard to imagine for me..........Regards, Rod.

Rod,

I keep telling my wife she's never seen a 'normal' monsoon season in Arizona (she's been here for 20 years now).

[Tom M King]

I manage a few hundred acres of timber, on relatively flat land. There is no way there would be a forest here, of any kind, if we didn't get periodic rains. We get some dry spells once in a while, which always raise the worry, and it's a great relief when we get the next rain. It's just plain stupid to think you can keep forest land raked. Just look down when you're in an airplane, and see how much space forest land takes up. Even large trees with a lot of space around them are always dropping stuff that will dry, and burn.

It seems like even the Sahara was not always a desert. No forest management plan would have changed that.

[Roger Feeley]

Yeah, a big fire was started when they set off a pink/blue smoke bomb. I’m really naive about the dry brush situation but I don’t see how they did it. Maybe they had too many mimosas and didn’t notice something smoldering?

[mike stenson]

Yeah, a big fire was started when they set off a pink/blue smoke bomb. I’m really naive about the dry brush situation but I don’t see how they did it. Maybe they had too many mimosas and didn’t notice something smoldering?

Dry grass will literally take seconds to get out of control. It's actually better tinder than newspaper for starting a fire.

[Roger Feeley]

Dry grass will literally take seconds to get out of control. It's actually better tinder than newspaper for starting a fire.

i guess I was just raised differently. Any time we shot off fireworks, the first thing we had to have handy was a hose to pre-wet the ground and a bucket of water for the duds. If we were out in the country, my dad wouldn’t let us shoot anything unless it had rained. Often, that meant waiting for the next weekend. Sometimes it meant going to a lake and shooting over the water. But we were always aware of where the fireworks were going to go.

hmmm... maybe the safety rules for fireworks aren’t all that different from using tools and machines. I never thought of it that way.

[mike stenson]

i guess I was just raised differently. Any time we shot off fireworks, the first thing we had to have handy was a hose to pre-wet the ground and a bucket of water for the duds. If we were out in the country, my dad wouldn’t let us shoot anything unless it had rained. Often, that meant waiting for the next weekend. Sometimes it meant going to a lake and shooting over the water. But we were always aware of where the fireworks were going to go.

hmmm... maybe the safety rules for fireworks aren’t all that different from using tools and machines. I never thought of it that way.


Yea, this to me would have been considered 'common sense'.. but we've had a forest fire here that was caused by a trained federal agent using reactive targets for a gender reveal, in the middle of dry grass, too. So, I guess that sense isn't so common. Either way, I don't see this drought ending any time soon (we've had a complete bust of a monsoon season this year). So the west is going to suffer from these fires more often.

[Nicholas Lawrence]

Mike, due to GHG emissions this will just be the beginning.

A 10 year drought, hard to imagine for me..........Regards, Rod.

From the NYT in 1994:

"BEGINNING about 1,100 years ago, what is now California baked in two droughts, the first lasting 220 years and the second 140 years. Each was much more intense than the mere six-year dry spells that afflict modern California from time to time, new studies of past climates show. The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur."

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/science/severe-ancient-droughts-a-warning-to-california.html

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Controlled burns can be used but have to be done very carefully under very specific weather conditions to prevent the burns from getting out of control. It's not just a matter of lighting a match and see what happens. I was involved for a few years with several sportsman organizations and had the opportunity to tour a couple national forests with the crews maintaining those forests. In one case, the FS supervisor had about 30 of us tour the forest with his crew as he was out of the country teaching controlled burns.

[Doug Garson]

Not an expert in wildfire management but gotta think the extremely rough terrain combined with extremely dry conditions makes both of the options mission impossible. Also too many of these fires are started by incredibly negligent acts like gender reveal pyrotechnics.

[Bill Dufour]

People from the Midwest and east do not understand California climate. There is a so called average rainfall. In a normal season California will receive 50% or 150% of that number. Very seldom does it come close to the so called average. We are hoping to get a little rain by the end of the week. It does not rain in summer in California except in the highest mountains. Normal dry season is about April to October or November.
Bil lD.

[Doug Garson]

Note also that the weather in Norway which he likes to compare to is totally different from California. Maximum temperature rarely exceeds 80 F while California often exceeds 100F.

[Thomas McCurnin]

Raking only occurs around structures. But the US Forest Service and my Insurer both require it. It is sound policy.

[Jim Matthews]

We have experts here, and I do mean experts, with several big plantations who have offered to go to the western part of the country to give advice on how to manage their resources. They were pretty much laughed out of the state of Cali from all the tree huggers and green deal hippies over there.

CITATION OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN
What's the highest point in swamp country - 150 feet?

The well managed, long-settled Blue Ridge forests are third and fourth generation forests.



Outside of the occasional Okefenokee fires, it's not much of a problem here. It all has to do with management.

Never mind the drought.

https://www.drought.gov/drought/states/oregon



Oh, and by the way, the reason the Okefenokee burns out of control occasionally, is because much of it is Federal land that will not allow prescribed burns. Only natural fires can occur so the tinder builds up significantly because most of it is pines.

Anybody live in the swamp?

Give it a rest.

[Roger Feeley]

Tom,
you wrote that you dump the stuff in a dry creek bed. Are there plenty of good places for that stuff or are people wondering what to do with it.

i ask because I ran across an interesting new business. There’s a guy who is going to use pyrolysis to convert biomass to bio-oil. He will then get companies wishing to be carbon neutral to pay him to pump that oil into the ground. His plan is to use either injection wells or Kansas salt caverns. The world is full of failed pyrolysis schemes but this chap may have something. The problem with bio-oil is that it takes a lit of post processing to remove water and contaminants. He does care about that because it’s all going int the ground.

what he has is a fairly efficient atmospheric carbon capture scheme. Carbon is taken into plants from the atmosphere. His pyrolysis process produces bio-oil and syngas which is used to fuel the process. The output is very concentrated carbon in the form of oil. Another virtue is that his bio-oil is heavier than water so it wants to stay buried.

he says he can refine his process to $45/ton of oil. There are a great many companies who would like the marketing karma of being carbon neutral but they just can’t get there. That’s his market.

He’s planning to use corn stalks. I wondered if he could use collected forest biomass.

[Brian Holcombe]

It’s worth considering that Carbon offsets can be bought at $10/ton.

[Lonny Rowley]

I live in the Great Northwest, and I'm not going to minimize climate change because here in Oregon we have had the hottest years on record these past 5 yrs. That being said, we also have a horrible record of forest management. I lived in Central Oregon during the great Pine Beetle infestation. It's probably still going on but you don't hear about it anymore. Anyways, when the Beetle killed off countless 10's of thousands of trees, instead of harvesting the trees while there was still usable lumber, the forest service decided to just let them stand. Over the course of several years, those trees were allowed to stand and drop dead debris on the forest floor. We had several huge fires in the regions where these trees stood because those areas are very prone to fires set my lightning. Needless to say, all that debris and dead trees was like burning paper. Yes, it's expensive to do forest management the way it should be done but tell that to the people that just lost their homes and in some places entire neighborhoods. One thing about the Pine Beetle though, it starts its life out under the soild and eventually makes its way up the tree as it matures and bores into the Pine tree thus killing it. Many, many decades ago, forest fires were allowed to burn by the Native Indians because they understood that those low burning fast fires would kill off the Beetle. Not only that but less desireable brush was burned off as well and the huge Pines thrived. A big Ponderosa Pine has very thick bark and can sustain a low and fast burning fire. Maybe it's time to go back and ponder how Native Americans managed the environment because the White man hasn't done such a good job.

[Jim Matthews]

I manage a few hundred acres of timber, on relatively flat land. There is no way there would be a forest here, of any kind, if we didn't get periodic rains.

It seems like even the Sahara was not always a desert. No forest management plan would have changed that.

I couldn't have said this better.

Same thing happened to the tree cover in Iceland.
Once the topsoil is gone, there's literally nothing to save.

[Lonny Rowley]

Again, it's too little too late. Forest management is appalling or should I say forest mis-management. The wind event we had here in Oregon was truly out of the ordinary. I live close to the Columbia Gorge and we're no stranger to wind but have never in my 66 yrs. experienced that high of wind that time or year and coinciding with recently ignited forest fires. It was a deadly mix of events. We have had the last 5 yrs. of hottest years on record for Oregon. Idiots are out intentionally setting fires as well. Just yesterday the arrested a man for setting a fire. He had just been released from jail for setting a fire a week earlier.

[mike stenson]

Well, the 100 years of fire prevention forest management policy sure didn't work out. Did it. Combine that with a record drought, and every year being hotter than the last.. and poof.. the west burns.

[Mike Soaper]

"Once the topsoil is gone, there's literally nothing to save."

My guess is that much of top soil comes from the fallen leaves, pine needles, branches and trees that some folks want to, or need to, clean up.

When I was digging holes for my home I was struck by how thin the topsoil layer is, 6-10", compared to the diameter of the planet and considering how long the woods in this area have been living.

[Stan Calow]

To the original question of which is more expensive, I think the premise of the question assumes that there would be equal outcomes. Thats probably dependent on too many variables to make generalizations. But it doesn't really matter as the American public is too short-sighted to spend tax money on preventive measures of any kind, for any disaster. We'd much rather pay higher insurance rates and fund charitable bailouts than prevent developers from building in danger zones.

[mike stenson]

To the original question of which is more expensive, I think the premise of the question assumes that there would be equal outcomes. Thats probably dependent on too many variables to make generalizations. But it doesn't really matter as the American public is too short-sighted to spend tax money on preventive measures of any kind, for any disaster. We'd much rather pay higher insurance rates and fund charitable bailouts than prevent developers from building in danger zones.

The scale prevents either. Which is ultimately the point.

[William Chain]

Beware those exploding trees!

[Roger Feeley]

Wouldn’t those be power that’s created without adding carbon. This guys process is subtractive.

[Doug Garson]

Wouldn’t those be power that’s created without adding carbon. This guys process is subtractive.
Not sure I understand what you are saying (or who's post you are responding to). If he is using pyrolysis to convert biomass (corn stalks or waste wood) to oil he's not removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the biomass removed the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If he converts the biomass to oil then burns it to generate power he's putting the carbon back in the atmosphere so at best its carbon neutral.
I agree carbon neutral is good because it reduces the amount of power generated by burning fossil fuels which adds net carbon to the atmosphere.

[Roger Feeley]

Not sure I understand what you are saying (or who's post you are responding to). If he is using pyrolysis to convert biomass (corn stalks or waste wood) to oil he's not removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the biomass removed the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If he converts the biomass to oil then burns it to generate power he's putting the carbon back in the atmosphere so at best its carbon neutral.
I agree carbon neutral is good because it reduces the amount of power generated by burning fossil fuels which adds net carbon to the atmosphere.

doug, it’s my understanding that when plants convert CO2 to O2, they keep the carbon. To my knowledge, plants don’t get much carbon from the soil. So I can reasonably assume that the carbon in any plant came from the atmosphere. If I could figure out a way to extract and concentrate that plant carbon, I am taking carbon from the atmosphere. That’s what this guy is doing. He’s just letting nature gather carbon for him. Then he’s converting that plant carbon to oil. To be fair, some benefit is lost when he takes the syngas output of the pyrolysis to power the process. But in the end, he gets a lot of carbon in a stable form and then he stores it underground.

[Doug Garson]

doug, it’s my understanding that when plants convert CO2 to O2, they keep the carbon. To my knowledge, plants don’t get much carbon from the soil. So I can reasonably assume that the carbon in any plant came from the atmosphere. If I could figure out a way to extract and concentrate that plant carbon, I am taking carbon from the atmosphere. That’s what this guy is doing. He’s just letting nature gather carbon for him. Then he’s converting that plant carbon to oil. To be fair, some benefit is lost when he takes the syngas output of the pyrolysis to power the process. But in the end, he gets a lot of carbon in a stable form and then he stores it underground.
OK if he converts the biomass to oil and then permanently stores the oil underground I agree he is removing carbon from the atmosphere (with natures help). I misunderstood and thought he was producing oil to burn for power generation. I believe what he is doing is referred to as carbon sequestration. Thanks for clarifying, I was wondering why he was storing the oil underground thinking that it was intended for power generation. Love to see a link to an article about the process.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

Here we don't have much of a wild fire problem. It rarely gets that dry. Some forestry manangement still keeps fire trails open for just in case. A water company has an easement across the ravine I own. I was shocked that they were able to get a machine in there to mow brush etc. Then last year I saw the machine. It is remote control and on tracks. The guy said it can climb 45 degree slopes unless the ground is too loose. It cuts a five ft swath and can take down saplings up to three inches in diameter. I hate to think of what that thing cost.

[Lee DeRaud]

The scale prevents either. Which is ultimately the point.^^This.

I think sometimes people east of the Mississippi (or, more to the point, in Washington DC) lose track of the kinds of numbers involved. The fires in California total out to more than the size of Connecticut. One of them (the August Complex) is larger than Long Island NY.

Could be worse, I guess: it could be like Australia, where an area the size of Indiana burned.

[Malcolm McLeod]

Same thing happened to the tree cover in Iceland. Once the topsoil is gone, there's literally nothing to save.

...The well managed, long-settled Blue Ridge forests are third and fourth generation forests.

CITATION OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN
...
Give it a rest.

Odd set of values, but gotta be a name for it.

[Roger Feeley]

OK if he converts the biomass to oil and then permanently stores the oil underground I agree he is removing carbon from the atmosphere (with natures help). I misunderstood and thought he was producing oil to burn for power generation. I believe what he is doing is referred to as carbon sequestration. Thanks for clarifying, I was wondering why he was storing the oil underground thinking that it was intended for power generation. Love to see a link to an article about the process.

Yes, permanent sequestration. His main competition is direct carbon capture which is very expensive. The beauty of his plan is that he’s avoiding the expense of removing the contaminants that has bedeviled other pyrolysis schemes. It costs too much to make a bio-oil useful. It cost very little to sequester it.

heres the link
https://charmindustrial.com/

[Jim Matthews]

Odd set of values, but gotta be a name for it.
Bane of Snowflakes?

[Stan Calow]

[QUOTE=Roger Feeley;3055089 The beauty of his plan is that he’s avoiding the expense of removing the contaminants that has bedeviled other pyrolysis schemes.
[/QUOTE]

It cant be worse than removing the impurities in petroleum, can it? Were the costs of collecting, transporting and storage of the biomass included?

[Doug Garson]

Thanks for the link, sounds like a promising development. Not clear how the financial side of it will work but I'm a retired engineer not accountant so I probably wouldn't understand that side of it anyway. Perhaps under a cap and trade carbon market, companies would fund carbon capture projects using this technology to offset carbon emissions they produce to achieve carbon neutrality.
I would guess agricultural waste or biomass waste such as sawdust from sawmills would be more practical as feedstock than debris scattered around the forest floor so this would more effective in fighting climate change than reducing available fuel for wildfires but I think we need to do both.

[Roger Feeley]

From the NYT in 1994:

"BEGINNING about 1,100 years ago, what is now California baked in two droughts, the first lasting 220 years and the second 140 years. Each was much more intense than the mere six-year dry spells that afflict modern California from time to time, new studies of past climates show. The findings suggest, in fact, that relatively wet periods like the 20th century have been the exception rather than the rule in California for at least the last 3,500 years, and that mega-droughts are likely to recur."

https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/19/science/severe-ancient-droughts-a-warning-to-california.html
Nicholas,
Interesting point. Jared Diamond who wrote, “Guns Germs and Steel”, wrote a book called “Collapse” where he described civilizations that disappeared and how their collapse happened. I believe one chapter was the Vikings failure in Greenlsnd. If I remember, they arrived during an unusually warm period. When the weather returned to normal, they couldn’t make a go of it.

i highly recommend both books.

[Wade Lippman]

I read about all these fires in the west and it made me wonder. Say you have the political will to be proactive. Your choice is to remove the flammable materials or se a fire yourself and try to control it. If you do a prescribed burn, you have to have a lot of people to keep it from getting out of control. If you remove the material, you have to stash it someplace.

would anyone know the economics?

California has 33,000,000 acres of forest. If you have to remove an average of 6" (I really have no idea, but 6" seems about right) you would have 700,000,000,000 cubic feet. That is about 2,000,000,000 dump truck loads. Assuming each truck can make 2 runs a day, 250 days a year, you would need a fleet of 4,000,000 trucks. You need people to load, unload, run and maintain the trucks; maybe 20 people per truck; so you need 80,000,000 people for the operation.
I won't even speculate on where you might put this material.

[Lee DeRaud]

California has 33,000,000 acres of forest. If you have to remove an average of 6" (I really have no idea, but 6" seems about right) you would have 700,000,000,000 cubic feet. That is about 2,000,000,000 dump truck loads. Assuming each truck can make 2 runs a day, 250 days a year, you would need a fleet of 4,000,000 trucks. You need people to load, unload, run and maintain the trucks; maybe 20 people per truck; so you need 80,000,000 people for the operation.
I won't even speculate on where you might put this material.I won't even speculate what percentage of the 33M acres is even accessible by truck.

In any case, at the moment about 10% of it is already on fire: at this rate the problem will solve itself within a decade. :(

[Roger Feeley]

Thanks for the link, sounds like a promising development. Not clear how the financial side of it will work but I'm a retired engineer not accountant so I probably wouldn't understand that side of it anyway. Perhaps under a cap and trade carbon market, companies would fund carbon capture projects using this technology to offset carbon emissions they produce to achieve carbon neutrality.
I would guess agricultural waste or biomass waste such as sawdust from sawmills would be more practical as feedstock than debris scattered around the forest floor so this would more effective in fighting climate change than reducing available fuel for wildfires but I think we need to do both.

it’s a matter of putting his plant in some spot where he can depend on a continuous source of biomass. He’s currently planning on corn stalks. It occurs to me that if folks in California would like to remove flammable material, then at some point that stuff is in a truck. Maybe now, the stuff is thrown in a pile. They could just as well dump it off at a plant where the carbon would never go into the atmosphere.

[Lee DeRaud]

it’s a matter of putting his plant in some spot where he can depend on a continuous source of biomass. He’s currently planning on corn stalks. It occurs to me that if folks in California would like to remove flammable material, then at some point that stuff is in a truck. Maybe now, the stuff is thrown in a pile.See post #54: he's gonna need a much bigger plant.

And for some reason the phrase "spontaneous combustion" just jumped into my head...

[Doug Garson]

it’s a matter of putting his plant in some spot where he can depend on a continuous source of biomass. He’s currently planning on corn stalks. It occurs to me that if folks in California would like to remove flammable material, then at some point that stuff is in a truck. Maybe now, the stuff is thrown in a pile. They could just as well dump it off at a plant where the carbon would never go into the atmosphere.
A continuous source of biomass is the easy part, how do you finance the plant and pay for its operation and maintenance since you are not producing a sellable product? I'm guessing, as I suggested, you are selling a carbon offset (if that's the correct term) so a company that produces CO2 can avoid going over their allotted limit. Again, engineer not accountant.