Permachar
Normally, people bet on the future - not the past but sometimes the old ways are the good ways too.
Biochar Carbon Removal (BCR) could be at the core of a 'regenerative circular economy' with 'circular integration' - the old and the new.
So, here we go...
- 'Ancient Sunlight lever' (blogged previously) pulled for kicking off the Federal Gov 'Just Green Transition' visionary firmware with a comprehensive climate plan announced in the 2024 Budget - I think not. We're talking about a political system that has mostly been captured by the fossil industry. Fossil fuel Corporations are locking us up (including the Minister for Resources of Australia, the Hon. Madeleine King) and they seemed to be invisible in the 2024 budget. Would the LNP do any better?
https://reneweconomy.com.au/labor-caves-in-to-fossil-fuel-cartel-as-it-locks-in-gas-beyond-2050-amid-deepening-climate-crisis/
We need to slow down C pollution and remove it at the same time - both can be done.
- End of fossil subsidies for coal and natural gas producers in Oz eg.Fracking the Beetaloo Basin
https://reneweconomy.com.au/australian-fossil-fuel-producer-subsidies-jump-31-pct-to-14-5-billion/
- Prof Ross Garnaut and Prof Rod Sims model for Fed Gov fundraising to pay for more housing and a lot more besides...since they're broke and have been for a number of years. A
billion bucks doesn't buy very much nowadays - especially for a Country/Continent with high Cultural and Ecological complexity (and low economic complexity which needs more cash if we want to
increase the diversity and stability). That could be changed!
https://theconversation.com/ross-garnaut-and-rod-sims-have-proposed-a-100-billion-a-year-fossil-fuel-tax-and-its-a-debate-australia-should-embrace-223722
- Housing and rental crisis (the big one for a green industrial ecology)
- Green Manufacturing
- Hemp Industry
- Bamboo Industry
- Kelp industry
- Charcrete
- Biochar value adds eg.lime replacement (more research), render, flooring, roof tiles, productive greenery etc.
- solar: vertical to horizontal spaces including driveways, courtyards, rooftop gardens, windows and roofs
- Green insulation with high R value eg. hemp waste
- self-powered buildings with microgrids
- rainwater collection
- greywater recycling (with biochar)
- Atmospheric Water Harvesting (AWH) machines where needed, possibly as a backup water supply
- Canada model for weed, growing system agnostic eg.biochar plus massive tourism dollar
- Regenerative farming eg. Agroforestry
- Indigenous Stewardship for 'Conservation' eg. Half Earth Project
- Green transport
- Public eg.MagLev trains connecting major Capital cities (with Charcrete)
- Civilian/Military/other eg. Carbon-based Perovskite Solar Cells embedded in hemp bio-composite chassis + solid state batteries (Biochar-MnO2 anode + ceramic polymer
electrolyte + ?Cu cathode)
- I should mention a caveat here - batteries are a self-fulfilling Prophecy. Australia controls roughly 47% of world Lithium production. Great for Oz but resources take a long time to develop and I believe Lithium is on the way out but if we develop the resources Li will be locked in for batteries for a very long time. To break this nexus, a lot of R&D in sustainable solid state batteries are needed - that, in my opinion is a better and more ethical bet - which could also slow down the salty brine operations in Chile and Bolivia which use an enormous amount of water for tiny Li yields and destroy the ecosystems where the Lithium is mined. Gaia doesn't respect Nation state political boundaries and neither do climate-related disasters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis
I believe the Earth works on the Karma principle - but is non-specific in her response to polluting regimes. Do we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution, to use an old cliche?
-Our mining economy is deeply connected to just about everywhere else on Earth one could assume. 'Greener' 'critical' (very debatable) mineral mining plus 'critical' C removal/mining in the form of biochar (the debate is over- it's the most sustainably produced, C-negative, versatile and democratised base material on the Planet using mainly biomass waste streams as feedstock) for green materials for green manufacturing of green technologies that can be upcycled or even composted at the end of service could be the key to unlock the Country and make more friends. It's an almost circular economy argument (with linear/subsidised (WTF) 'vertically integrated' 'greener' mineral mining plugged in) where ideally different specialised businesses could network around the circles, at different scales, for 'circular integration' and build industrial to local ecologies that are potentially regenerative/self-healing (if biochar or biochar-based materials are composted (as opposed to inert sinks in some cases) at the end of their use cascade and used to grow more biomass for biochar from plants with multiple economic functions). Circles within circles - holarchies, if you like. One for Tim Winton's 'Pattern Dynamics'. Looks like a research team in 2019 had a similar idea:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1364032119301753
That's worth a PhD, if anyone's interested, using biochar as the protagonist rather than biofuels, that was used for the conceptual modelling in this paper. The diagram below provides an interesting conceptual idea of the above linked research for 'Circular Integration':
- Urban planning
- Permaculture community gardens including funding for climate controlled greenhouses with vertical farming
- Productive wetlands for storm water treatment (like a giant sponge) wherever possible (Earth works + biochar + low maintenance productive multi-purpose plants with
yields)
- 100%+ renewable energy
- Domestic=100%
- Exports=more!
- Solar PVs and thermal eg.biochar, graphite, sand; biomass to biochar, heat and power; wind, batteries eg.saltwater flow, gravity, air, CO2 etc; 'Green Hydrogen' for 'Green
steel'
- Carbon materials research eg.biochar, biochar to ?, Biochar + doped with ?'Critical' Australian minerals. Think - the next generation of virtually every engineered technology under the Sun and
Moon and Cosmos. Plus there's soil regeneration with biochar. Not much budget action there. A bit of a blind spot - LNP to the rescue (without SMRs)? ):
- Computing
- Quantum and Classical neuromorphic supercomputer (a human brain model)
-used for research and when fully developed as a public utility
https://www.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2024/may/new-super-pure-silicon-chip-opens-path-to-powerful-quantum-computers
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/intel-builds-worlds-largest-neuromorphic-system.html#gs.8xjqim
- Free integrated and modular undergraduate degree
- University
- TAFE
- Industry/Business
- Startup, Design and Permaculture modules
-A dose of Permaculture for new Northern bases?
- Bureaucracy
- 6m minimum temp worker contracts (though I just found out from the 2024 Budget that the Gov is trying to scrap temps - a better idea as it will retain Corporate Memory within
shop and use less resources for training new temps)
- Compulsory digital literacy training
- Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with Hybrid private-public clouds
FYI - please read
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair
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