Storm debris disposal/Mass Biochar kiln

So this is my oddball idea of the day,

I was thinking about Mayfield, KY and the amount of destruction, debris and disposal issues along with the cost of cleanup.  Also, Mayfield is hardly a unique case (similarly situations happen in hurricane county all the time).

What came to mind was the tremendous volume of 2x4’s, 2x6’s and similar lumber (excluding plywood and treated lumber).  I was thinking that normal, dimensional lumber must make up a huge volume of debris that will need to be buried for disposal or perhaps burned.

Why not recycle that otherwise benign wood and maybe “dispose” by turning it into Biochar by giant rocket kilns designed to produce Biochar.  It seems to make sense that tuning scrap pine into Biochar is a better option than burial.  Also maybe the char could be sold to offset recovery costs.  Moreover, a kiln could be set up on the edge of town for disposal, thereby reducing the number of trips that disposal trucks would need to take to a distant landfill.

I am sure there are technicalities to work out but maybe an idea worth considering?  Another disposal item for consideration might be the large number of trees blown over and needing to be disposed.  In any rate, I would want to use this option as first a service to the city and storm victims and as a resource/profit making enterprise secondly—no need to further traumatize storm victims.

So, any thoughts?

Eric

Having recently done some residential demolition for the first time, my first thought is that separating the stick lumber from all the other crap might take more time than the wood was worth unless it's OK to just toss all kinds of stuff in. On the other hand, we did make a burn pile for stuff that wasn't treated or painted or laminated, so even if you couldn't economically get it all, getting some is better than sending it to the landfill.

I saw such a machine in a post a while back.  It was semi-trailer sized and you could bring it to a site to char woody material.  It might have been aimed at logging operations but it would be pretty close to what you're talking about.  

Separating the clean wood from the other stuff would be an issue.  Some builders glue drywall to the studs so there's more contamination to worry about.  And they glue the subfloor to the joists.

Fair points about separating good from bad materials, and I think that would be the biggest technicality to overcome.

Mike, I actually was thinking about something shipping container sized—fill it up and light it up!  I imagine that a burn that sized would take several hours.

I did see a forestry slash disposal device called an air curtain burner that burned slash very completely thus reducing smoke and air pollution (it was also shipping container sized) but of course that simply turned everything to CO2, leaving behind no usable products.

So yes, technical challenges, but a thought.

Eric

Most of the problems around toxicity could be addressed if the char was not used as agricultural biochar, but used for carbon and resource offset.  What I mean is that if all wood substances, including stuff that had toxic glues on it, were charred and then the resulting char was used to replace sand in concrete, there would be multiple wins:  less waste in the landfill, less finite resource extraction and processing, and less carbon loss over time.  Sure it would be a bit of a toxic air quality burn potentially, but the wins could be well worth the small loss there, especially as it is a short-term part of the equation, and much of it could probably be scrubbed out.  The char processor could also heat water or do other functions such as charge batteries for power tools in the disaster zone.

Roberto, that is a good idea I had not thought about.

Eric

One question I have is; does wood even break down in a land-fill? Converting wood to biochar does release something like half of the carbon content I want to say. I know here in Oregon all our trash gets packed onto trains and shipped out to the desert where they presumably are building some sort of giant garbage mountain. Without water, buried wood should last just about forever.

I know in scandinavia they have district heating plants that can burn all sorts of garbage, and being industrial in scale they can likely mitigate toxic emissions a little better. That way you at least recover some energy and offset carbon intensive heating somewhere else.

I seem to recall that construction/demolition wastes makes up something like 1/3 to 1/2 of all solid waste going to the landfill, so finding a way to build structures that dont blow down all time, or need to be torn down every 50-75 years would be a huge step in the right direction. I suspect that we have the technology to build a house that would stand for 1000 years, but it would cost too much for people to be willing to shell out the money (or downsize to a reasonably sized house).

Anyway, interesting thoughts.

Crazy trivia for the day: Here in Kentucky it is perfectly legal to burn a tree, or a branch, or whatever, but once that tree is sawn into dimensional lumber, it becomes illegal to burn it. This is from a firefighter I know, so I assume it is reliable.

On another Debbie Downer note, I think the larger issue is that the lumber is mixed in massive piles of debris, much of which is still attatched in various ways to it. A tremendous amount of this rubble could be reused or repurposed in addition to the lumber; it is just a matter of getting people in the mindset of being willing to roll up their sleeves to sort through it. Considering many of these people are not willing to do such in normal times, trying to convince them to do so when they have just lost everything and need a house in which to live ASAP will likely prove difficult. I think this is the overall prevailing issue of permaculture, really. I think the methodry is about ten percent of the battle. Changing the mental paradigms is the other ninety percent.

Jordan,

A whole tree is ok to burn but a 2x4 is off limits—crazy law!

I do imagine that recycling storm waste would be a better use than burning, Biochar, or even energy capture.  I have no idea how large quantities of storm debris gets recycled—I assume that landfill disposal is the ultimate destination, too bad.  If efficient recycling is doable, sounds like a great idea.  I was just looking at all that plain wood lying in piles that are now functionally useless and thinking of some way to dispose and get something practical in return.  Char fits this description, as does energy capture as has already been mentioned.

There is actually a company called AllPowerLabs based out of Berkeley, CA that specializes in using carbonaceous materials (mostly wood, but some ag waste works too—they like nut shells in particular) to run a generator.  It’s a pretty fascinating looking machine, the largest is based on a shipping container.  I was thinking of something along the lines of that shipping container device.

Eric