Global Carbon Sink Holding Up So Far

The Location of the US Forest Carbon Sink

CO2 Concentration in "Panic and Repent" Scenarios

So Far, So Good: The Global Carbon Sink in 2011

Makanda Inn Visit

Global Carbon Sink Not Degrading Yet

Durisol Foundation House

SIP Home Embodied Emissions

Straw Bale Model House

Embodied vs Sequestered Carbon in a Model Conventional House

Carbon Offset Value of Straw Bale Houses

Image credit

Agriboard

I'm pretty interested in this general question of agricultural residue management for carbon capture.  As far as I'm able to determine there are three possibilities of varying degrees of "greenness":

• Turn the residues into cellulosic ethanol
• Biochar (briefly mentioned the other day)
• Turn the residues into building materials

The most famous possibility amongst the last is straw bale construction, but I wanted to briefly mention another version of this which strikes me as having more potential to scale industrially - there's a company called Agriboard in Texas that turns straw into a kind of Structural Insulated Panel used for green buildings.  There's a company in England, Stramit, that's been around a lot longer and does something similar.

At the moment, there's an interesting series on the first house in California being built with Agriboard by the architect, Michael Cobb (from which the picture at right is drawn).

The Scalability of Biochar

Visualization of approximate amount of wood that would have to be charred and buried annually to offset carbon emissions of one United States resident.  (Picture credit)