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Jason Christian's avatar

Here in California we had a grant-funded drive for small-scale (~1 MW) wood-burning gasifiers, which can produce liquid or gaseous biofuels. A 21st Century version of what Peter Bauer described as “appropriate technology,” at village scale. This technology is stupid for California, where our needs to remove biomass from the forests demands grid-scale facilities, especially since we have a grid. But it fits Africa like a glove.

Africa is a big winner in the adoption of carbon economics that recognize the carbon-sink values of forests restoration. Think Burundi. Those were magnificent forests that the Belgians hauled away. They may, with investment, be magnificent once again, and the whole world will benefit from the Forests Bank of Burundi.

The Forests Bank(s) support investments across the range of carbon-capture technologies. Quico Toro urges us to consider fertilizing the oceanic gyres so that they act like the famous one, the Saragossa Sea, as a large scale carbon sink. This is exactly the sort of project that a mature Bank will consider, as well as all manner of projects that, in addition to delivering global benefits, take good care of the people who restore and tend the forests that once were lost and now are found.

In Burundi and Burma (obsolete alliteration), in Brazil and Peru, in the ancient lands of the Maya and the Washoe.

Si se puede.

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Matthew Huggett's avatar

As soon as moralism made its way into finance, nonsense was bound to ensue.

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