To improve the standard of living of all the world’s people or even to maintain the standard of living we now have; it’s imperative that we return the optics of the Earth’s atmosphere to the only level humanity has ever known.
And that’s a period that goes back a maximum of a hundred thousand years.
First some fundamentals: The temperature of the biosphere is controlled totally and absolutely by the optical properties of the Earth’s atmosphere. These optical properties are in turn determined almost entirely by the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That was until the massive increase in the levels of methane in the atmosphere that has occurred almost exclusively within the last ten years.
Atmospheric methane concentrations ,when being maintained by constant additions to a constant concentration, is well over 200 times more deadly a greenhouse gas as is carbon dioxide.
The collection process for methane has this big and unavoidable problem. It’s a not a solid and it’s not a liquid. Just like air, methane is a gas. It seeps through soil and around, and even sometimes through rocks. It gets to the surface then with the wind.
Any gas that is not already in a sealed container has a will of its own. And once free we can’t recapture it. On land, away from oceans it’s now only found deep underground. It once took centuries maybe millennium to seep to the surface. If it ever did. It was hard to mine.
Then they thought of fracking. It’s the process of injecting liquids at very high pressure into subterranean rocks via boreholes or whatever. This causes a mass of cracks to form. Then the high-pressure liquids force the methane gas to the surface via other holes drilled nearby.
The high-pressure methane finds its way to the outlet holes and it’s collected at the surface. Naturally all the gas doesn’t manage to find these outlet holes. Some bubbles its own way to the surface and come out just about anywhere. It’s gas you can’t recapture. So it’s referred as “fugitive gas”.
Oil is often extracted the same way using fracking techniques. Oil bearing geological rock formations are almost invariably loaded with methane. It’s just part of the many million years long evolutionary history of petroleum oil. But it also means a sizable quantity of methane escapes to the surface at such oil mining operations.
All the methane escape hole locations in oil well extraction are usually as difficult to find as with those associated with direct methane escape hole locations.
Again just where they might be is anybody’s guess.
How much gas is escaping in an area is not as difficult to determine as is finding specific locations. The total quantity of methane fugitive gas discharges in a nominated area certainly better than ballpark guesses. They simply fly over the site on a still day, take samples, then do some clever calculations. With additionally cross checking answers become consistent and believable.
The results show quite clearly that, depending on any site the quantities of fugitive gas produced in a gas mining operation in the US are anywhere between 5% an 15% of the gas collected. Most methane gas mining operations around the world come up with fugitive gas releases similar to those in the US.
In Australia they don’t measure quantities at all. They use some sort of abstract mathematical calculations that give fugitive gas releases often being as low as 0.5% of gas collected – therefore Australia has the lowest fugitive gas leakages as anywhere else in the world.
Although the figures are clearly nonsense, they are the figures Australia supplies to the relevant Unites Nations data collection authorities. I think it’s cheating and I for one find it very embarrassing.
The global warming fix for methane is very different to the fix for carbon dioxide.
Fortunately when we totally cease using methane and stop its escape as fugitive gas into the atmosphere the stuff already in the air will break down and decay into the more relatively benign carbon dioxide. It takes about 12 years.
To beet global warming we must stop miming and using methane for anything at all starting as soon as humanly possible. We must concentrate on ceasing the endless topping up of its current very deadly atmospheric concentration levels.
The fossil fuel agrochemical industries have been selling a twisted argument. Coal has to be the “transition” fuel AWAY from natural gas and ON To all the common nuclear based “renewables” like wind, solar and geothermal.
They sell an image of “Dirty Coal fumes”. But about the only dirt in them is soot. And it’s only “dirty” because the soot comes out of the tall chimneys they generally use. Both coal and nuclear will use the big hollow conical concrete steam condensing towers. The white “smoke you are always shown is not smoke at all it’s condensed steam and has the same composition as a white cloud in the sky.
“Soot wise” they’re in total nowhere near as dirty as the periodic and common old grass fire or forest fire.
It’s worth remembering that much of “big oil” sold all their coal mines and bought into methane -and then sold the methane as almost crystal clear “natural gas”. The word “methane” was apparently, simultaneously dropped.
You have go to give it to them – it was very clever marketing.
PS. Don’t let them destroy any more coal fired power stations. Firstly because they’re only a little worse than oil fuelled power stations and probably a hundred times safer as a greenhouse gas producer than the benign sounding, but incredibly dangerous “natural gas” supply and burning system.
And secondly because generally you can remove the coal fired steam boiler and replace it with a brand-new uranium fired steam boiler. And we still get to keep and utilize all the Electricity generators, wholes rooms full of electric controls, high tension power polls, connections to the existing grid, etc. etc. etc.
Now let’s look at our atmosphere’s carbon dioxide over load.
Carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere is quite stable. It can last a thousand years or more so we must have a way of removing it. Simultaneously we must stop adding huge quantities of CO2 to the atmosphere.
The wisest and most economical way of removing it is by increasing the humus content of all those Earth’s soils under human control. And for that to happen we must pay the owners of that land – where held privately – a guaranteed minimum per tonne of carbon dioxide removed from the air and converted into soil humus.
It must be humus not “soil organic carbon”. Soil humus can last in the soil a thousand YEARS.
Whereas “Soil organic carbon” can easily decompose back into carbon dioxide sometimes in a thousand MINUTES.
In a thousand HOURS it’s all gone. Mostly as carbon dioxide gas but some – rarely over 10% – can itself turn into stable humus.
In the Yeomans Methodology, where the “Carbon Still” and its allied soil screening equipment is used. Non-humus plant material is screened out to the extent where it has negligible effect on payment to farmers for carbon dioxide sequestration.
The Yeomans Methodology – generally described internationally as “The Australian Methodology” – is not approved as yet by Australian Federal Department of Environment personnel. And in accord with the agrochemical-fossil fuel conglomerates, never will be.
That is because the design concepts in the systems used were never envisioned when the “soil carbon sequestration” principals were undoubtably assembled, by those same personal.
When and if the Yeomans Methodology is approved by our Australian Federal Government, only then will ending Climate Change and restoring world weather to preindustrial normals become a possibility.
Australian Federal Governmental approval of the validity the Yeomans Methodology as a means of monitoring soil carbon levels – not necessarily adopting the Methodology- , just its acceptance as a valid system for measuring changes in soil humus levels over time, will be sufficient.
We are at the brink of the collapse of man’s quasi control over the surface conditions of our planet. A few people whose unimagined wealth and lively hood is based on a countries voter’s giving (in effect) permission to use the world’s atmosphere as a dumping receptacle for their products waste. The result of that permission is already causing cruel havoc around the world.
We allowed the atmosphere to be a dump for greenhouse gasses and we didn’t realise and weren’t allowed to realise the importance of our blunder.
Without appreciating the possibility of incredible disasters, we allowed the optical characteristics of our atmosphere to be subtly changed by us buying and burning their fossilized carbonaceous materials for our own energy requirements.
The thermodynamics of the Earth’s biosphere is now shifting in an unknowable manner. The flow of gigantic ocean currents is changing along with unguessable changes in the behaviour of our world’s atmosphere.
We have been fooled. The death toll from our blind naivety is horrendous and it’s rising constantly and rapidly.
These consequences are now becoming startingly obvious. The fossil fuel – agrochemical countries and industries are not breaking any laws. They just, unobtrusively, modify perceived truth. Lobbying federal politicians is not illegal.
Making friends with people in the media is not illegal.
Making friends with administrators in the public service is not illegal.
Supporting political parties that tend to support the fossil fuel – agrochemical conglomerates, is not illegal.
In Australia the end result has become an establishment in which the —
Federal Government’s requirement for participating in soil carbon projects in Australia is now too silly for any farmer to bother being involved in.
It’s all a great victory for the agrochemical industries as the genuine farmer participation rate for enhancing soil fertility to beat Climate Change is still at absolute zero. That’s from zero up to another zero in the twelve years from when laws were enacted in Australia to, supposedly, ensure that we, living here removed our contributing percentage of the excess CO2 warming the biosphere.
Considering the entire world:
There is about on trillion tonnes of excess CO2 to remove from the atmosphere, preferably in the next 15 years. At $15 a tonne CO2-e (carbon dioxide equivalent) it will cost the countries and nations that burnt the fossils that put it there a cool $15 trillion dollars to get it out.
And where does all that money come from? Mainly from not subsidising the industries that actually caused, and is still causing the problem. And paying that money to our farmers for ending it.
All by our farmer creating extremely humus rich and fertile soil. A nice corollary is that we get to eat extremely healthy, nutritious, and much better tasting foods.
There is no way, even remotely more economical and more sensible of removing the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide overload.
A quote from the International Monitory Fund.
“Globally, fossil fuel subsidies were $5.9 trillion or 6.8 percent of GDP in 2020 and are expected to increase to 7.4% of world GDP in 2025 as the share of fuel consumption in emerging markets (where price gaps are generally larger) continues to climb.”
The estimate for 2025 is $7.5 trillion.
Where does the $15 trillion dollars come from to remove the CO2 overload? There are plenty of simple answers.
For one thing; of all those subsidies – fossil fuel and agrochemical subsidies, have to end as soon as possible and the sooner the better. (Now would be a good time.)
And if world fossil fuel subsidies ended now?
In two years we would then have saved enough cash to have the entire carbon dioxide overload removed.
The hardest thing will be to get funding to get the Global Warming “cure” up and running. I personally can fund and do all the testing for about five to maybe ten individual farms. But when they prove successful, and it demonstrates that it all works, farmers will expect their money. That, I personally can’t fund.
First there has to be a beginning, before you can ever have an ending.
Consider one farm of 100 hectares. From my experience a well run farming operation could improve the humus content of their soil to a depth of 12 inches, a third of a metre, by 1% in one first year.
The ballpark figures are –
At just $15 a tonne for carbon dioxide equivalent sequestered into their 4,000 tonnes of soil per hectare $15 per ton C02-e means the famer would generate an income of $1,200 per hectare for that year.
Or in acres that’s approximately $1,200 for 250 acres to earn by removing a part of the atmosphere’s CO2 overload. At $15 a tonne that’s a good $1,000,000
The way I see it that somebody has to be able and be prepared to cover payments to ten participating farmers – ranchers – graziers, each with a maximum test area not exceeding 100 hectares (or 250 acres) for a maximum time of ten years. In that ten years there could well be an increase in total humus content of 6%.
The total I plan is not to exceed say $12,000,000.
It is hoped, and I expect, that Australian laws would be changed when the whole Carbon Still system is seen to be functioning and all with its foolproof accuracy.
We would then suggest and argue that, responsibility for payments to our participating farmers is accepted by our Australian Federal Government. This, we might also extend to reimbursing to us, of the payments to farmers we had already made. One never knows.
Grim reality indicates convincedly that if we stop all carbon dioxide emissions tomorrow, raising the temperature of the biosphere will, never-the-less, continue to rise for decades.
Other effects will then soon manifest even more excessively than we are currently seeing. Rising and erratic temperatures will soon start to look like a rollercoaster. Removing the current optical overload is therefore both essential and urgent.
What I am suggesting is the smallest “showcase” I believe feasible.
Of course, a demonstration on ten farms, or even one hundred would be better, and have more chance of influencing the people we need to influence. And they in turn influence the Governments we need to influence, and influence then all faster. For ending the inexorable rise in the temperatures in the biosphere must ultimately be funded by national Governments.
Allan Yeomans
Gold Coast
Queensland
Australia
As at 23/1/23 and as requested I’m assembling for you a “what to hammer list” of the basic ideas and concepts in my assembled solution to our biosphere’s rapid overheating.
Nutshell reminder list of what we need people to know and understand – especially people who construct the laws we have to live by.
1 Per unit of power produced, coal, oil and natural gas kill over 500 times more people than die from either wind or nuclear or solar. And that’s with the two nuclear bombs that ended WW2 included.
2 Cease all government subsidies to the fossil fuels and agrochemical industries.
3 Convert the air’s carbon overload (existing as carbon dioxide) into soil humus and doing so by any means selected or invented by the farmer. And pay them at least US$10 per ton – carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq) for that removal. It’s the cheapest way to remove it. The quantity removed, however has to be easily and accurately measured. Or nothing happens. The Yeomans Methodology solves that problem. Read it. One farmer’s comment was – “It’s simply unfettered common sense“.
The existing carbon dioxide overload is enough to keep the biosphere heating for decades. Its therefore imperative that we in Australia demand that our federal government use the existing “Carbon Farming Initiative Act 2011” to approve the Yeomans Methodology to create Australian Carbon Credits. Businesses, organisations and governments around the world could use the Methodology to create their own carbon credits and so demonstrate to all, the methodology’s enate practicality.
4 To be clear we are defining “humus” as those molecules that are created from the final breakdown of soil life in the presence of air and water. Humus molecules are also huge – they can have molecular weights in the millions. They have long life-spans – up to thousands of years. In soil they are almost chemically inert. We also include as “humus” soil organic matter that will pass through a 2 mm sieve without any prior grinding. That means the material must have decomposed to the point where it is no longer a fibrous material.
5 In the air, methane gas is 225 to 350 time worse a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
6 Fracking is the process of forcing high-pressure liquids deep into the earth to fracture the rock structures and so release trapped oil and gas. That is oil and gas that’s been safely trapped, usually for millions of years.
7 Apply continuous and enormous monitory penalties to “Fugitive Gas” (methane) discharges that mining companies are constantly releasing into the atmosphere.
8 Ammonia liquid will be, and must be the primary fuel for all our portable energy requirements. It’s the only sane choice we have that we don’t have to grow on farm land, such as ethanol.
9 Ammonia is easy and cheap to produce from air and water and electricity. And now possibly from air and water and strong blue light. Also, ammonia is safer to handle than either gas, or oil, or coal.
( My mother always had a bottle of ammonia in the kitchen to clean the bench top. It’s safe stuff)