2min chapter

Catalyst with Shayle Kann cover image

From biowaste to “biogold”

Catalyst with Shayle Kann

CHAPTER

Is Bio Mass Really a Waste?

As people start developing projects, in particular, things like waste of power or waste to get fuel, there is already starting to see competition around the contract for the off take. And so again, this begs the question, is it really a waste if there's people fighting over it? At that point it's something else. But for now let's call it a waste still. That's one kind of competition. There is a separate kind of competition, which is, what's the best use for it? And here, reasonable people disagree. Some people would say the best benefit is to maximize economic growth. Other people say the bestbenefit is to reduce and remove carbon. Others say the best

00:00
Speaker 1
And that means, when you say they're putting it into a gasefir,
Speaker 2
they're then taking, they're diverting some of that, turning it into electricity, some of it and turning it into fuel, powering trucks and so on.
Speaker 1
Yes, exactly. And you know that that sounds pretty cool. And they're not competing with anything. They run their own trash heap, they have their own gas fire, they have their own utilities. So they're just doing it all themselves. So let's talk about, first of all, just the competition for the stuff, for the feed stock itself. As people start developing projects, in particular, things like waste of power or waste to get fuel, there is already starting to see competition around the contract for the off take. So if you run a facility that converts bio mass to get fuel, you want to be sure that you have at least a 20 years supply of feed stock. And that's true for anybody looking at the same land fill. So there's already some co mpetition on who can get the off take for the contract. And so again, this begs the question, is it really a waste if there's people fighting over it? At that point it's something else. But for now let's call it a waste still. That's one kind of competition. There is a separate kind of competition, which is, what's the best use for it? And here, reasonable people disagree. And this is fundamentally a policy question. Some people would say the best benefit is to maximize economic growth. Other people say the best benefit is to reduce and remove carbon. Others say the best benefit is to serve the communities where this stuff is. There are no clean answers to those questions, right? And so when you try to figure that out. Um, we have not yet come close to the limits of the supplies or the kind of investment we need to get there. So it is going to be philosophical for a while, but only for a while. Pretty soon there's going to to be some loading order priority which a government, a municipal government, or a state government, or a federal government, comes out and says, you know, first use of bio masses for x, second use of bio masses for why. And when that happens, it's really going to shake up the market, because people have contracts, and
Speaker 2
they're going to want to make sure that they are made.

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