[USCC] Carbon credits and composting food waste.

Mon Jan 22 22:45:49 CST 2007

Jim,

Thanks for the response to my question about carbon credits and composting
food waste.  Very helpful information.  

I have one follow-up question about your math.  In your email below you
started with 200kg of carbon for each dry ton of compost to begin your
calculation that eventually led to a value for fugitive methane prevention.
I was thinking you would start with the amount of carbon in the food waste
that is being diverted from the landfill, which I imagine varies depending
on the type of food waste, and then convert that amount of carbon by a
factor of 15X to convert to a value for fugitive methane prevention. Can you
clarify if it would make more sense to use the carbon in the food waste
being diverted from the landfill as starting point for your fugitive methane
prevention calculation rather than carbon in the compost and what impact
their would be, if any, on your fugitive methane prevention calculation.  

Thanks again, 

David Frischmon
Frischmon Associates
dfrischmon at comcast.net
952-240-1805
-----Original Message-----
From: compost-bounces at composter.com [mailto:compost-bounces at composter.com]
On Behalf Of Jim McNelly
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 12:32 PM
To: US Composting Council Compost Discussion List
Subject: Re: [USCC] Carbon credits.

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At 05:42 PM 1/10/2007, you wrote:

>Andrew and Dr. Brinton,
>
>Two opposing viewpoints on the eligibility for carbon credits for
composting
>organics  - who is the judge ?.  I would like to pursue this issue further
>with the judge but I am not sure who that is or what is the process.  Can
>you point me in the right direction ?
>
>Thanks,
>
>David Frischmon
>Frischmon Associates
>dfrischmon at comcast.net
>952-240-1805

Greetings,

As I have looked into the issue, carbon credits for composting remain 
elusive.  In the EPA assessment of the atmospheric warming impact of 
various solid waste management strategies, for example, they rated 
landfills as the best option since carbon was sequestered underground 
for 100 years or more.  They scarcely mentioned composting as they 
saw it as a "zero sum game", meaning that the rate of oxidation of 
organics from the topsoil was such that little if any humus was 
sequestered in the soil for more than 20 years given current 
agricultural practices.  They did not give credence to compost 
sequestered in planter mixes, mined land reclamation, turf, 
transportation or any application where the soil would not be 
disturbed, keeping carbon sequestered for their magical "100 year"
benchmark.

200 dry tons of compost per hectare for topsoil creation in 
desertification areas with intensive biodiversity and tree farming 
could achieve significant sequestration values.  I recall reading 
that planting 500,000 hectares a year in hybrid poplars would enable 
the US to meet it's Kyoto requirement for net CO2 generation through 
sequestration, even without any fugitive methane credit factored in.

The EPA also ignored the fugitive methane issue entirely, assuming 
100% recovery of methane from landfill gas recovery, which is 
ludicrous.  The number is closer to 10% recovery.  There was no 
consideration of the  role of composting in preventing fugitive 
methane by keeping organics out of the landfill in the first 
place.  After the South Coast Air Quality Management District and 
others have shown that windrows produce a significant volume of 
methane given their anaerobic nature, it is doubtful that windrows 
can qualify for carbon credits as they are not a solution to fugitive 
methane prevention.  The jury is still out awaiting data as to what 
degree fully aerobic composting prevents fugitive methane compared to
windrows.

Through the Chicago Climate Exchange, which in my opinion, is the 
most viable option for getting carbon credits in the US at the 
moment, there are carbon credits for low and no tillage and for 
preventing fugitive methane from manure in lagoons and from 
ruminants.  Data I have seen show CH4 to be 38X the atmospheric 
warming gas as is CO2, but that a fraction is oxidized prior to CH4 
reaching the upper atmosphere and the half life of CH4 is relatively 
short.  The commonly accepted number for CH4 is 21X more than CO2, 
although there is a movement to increase that number up to 25X.  The 
Chicago exchange offers 15X.

At 200kg of carbon per dry ton of compost, it takes ten wet tons at 
50% moisture to reach a net ton of carbon.  With the climate exchange 
currently trading at around $4 per ton for carbon, that is less than 
$.50 per wet ton of compost in sequestration value.  At 15X for 
fugitive methane prevention, we are looking at a potential, as I run 
the numbers, at $7 per ton.  But since the Exchange nor the EPA do 
not currently recognize fugitive methane in landfills as a part of 
the protocol, then this credit is not available for organics diverted 
from landfilling, only manure diverted from lagooning.

Fugitive methane from landfilling is responsible for 9% of the US 
contribution to global warming and fugitive methane from lagoons and 
ruminants is responsible for 11%.  The two together are a greater 
impact than ALL US transportation sources combined!  This includes 
automobiles, airplanes, trains trucks, etc.  Al Gore, of course, 
would have us believe that sports utility vehicles are the root of 
all greenhouse gas evils, whereas all SUVs and pick up trucks account 
for only 2% of atmospheric warming contributions.  Gore hardly 
mentions composting, carbon sequestration or landfill methane.

As I calculate the so called landfill bioreactor equations, I 
estimate that they will actually increase fugitive methane by 300% 
over static dry tombs.  Bioreactors are projected to take the 
entombed, dry landfill organics and get them moist, resulting in an 
increase of biogas generated of at least 500%.  If only 20% of 
entombed biomass in current landfills is moist enough to generate 
methane, getting it all moist is the basis for this increase.  But as 
bioreactors only increase the efficiency percentage of gas recovered 
from 10% to 30%, the increase of five times gas production actually 
results in an increase of fugitive methane by three times, making 
landfill bioreactors much worse for atmospheric warming than static 
tombs.  Theoretically, diverting organics from bioreactor landfills 
could result in a tripling of the carbon credit, up to $21 per ton, 
but I would not bet on that ever actually happening.

In other parts of the world, we are witnessing protocols for carbon 
credit documentation requiring ISO 14000 certification, which is 
problematic, to say the least, for a composting operation.  To recoup 
value for carbon credits, I would suggest that the best option would 
be a controlled anaerobic digestion stage that captures 100% of 
methane and burns it coupled with a secondary aerobic stage with heat 
exchange.  This would allow the operation to qualify not only for 
certification for methane prevention, but also renewable energy 
production and energy efficiency.

Organics management has a place in the atmospheric warming equation, 
but I believe that it will have to be in context with carbon 
sequestration through land restoration, tree farming and coupled with 
energy recovery. Most critically, we need to be using processing 
methods that do not increase fugitive methane or move it from one 
problem source to another.

Jim~ McNelly
Renewable Carbon Management LLC 320-253-5076
NaturTech, NaturSoil, CompostMan
jim at composter.com
www.composter.com 

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