This was also Kim Yeadon as a former electrician (?) and then NSW Forest Minister in the 90ies, industrial vision for the south coast logging industry out of native forests as the loss making sector gouges the profitable plantation public balance sheet. People may recall the slogans against the “Mogo Charcoal Plant” on the Nature Coast about 2001-03. Beaten in the 2003 election here by the greens.

Another form of charcoal feedstock would be alot less controversial.

Significantly as the paper industry goes backwards in the GFC the Eden chipper, 100% Japanese owned, is still keen to use native forest as feedstock for “bio-energy” which I suspect includes biochar also. Processing of plantation tree chips or offcuts will be alot less controversial, as long as they are not via recently cleared land (say 10 years plus).

I also seem to recall hearing in the last 24 hours some goose on radio recently that there is alot more carbon in the vegetation than in the soil. Methinks it’s potentially the other way round where there is healthy topsoil like say in a mature wet forest.

The big wasteful use of power is in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (AC especially at this time of year and in the daytime peak electricity hours) and another substantial hunk for lighting (which means bigger cooling requirements).

The racks of power-guzzling electric air-conditioning “inverters” on these buildings can be swapped — very cheaply in terms of electric power and especially premium-priced *peak* electric power saved per dollar spent — for a larger-scale absorption cooler running on gas or, for a double-whammy, on the exhaust heat from a small electric co-generation plant. These could also conceivably derive energy from solar hot water — no expensive PVs required.

Lighting can be fixed not just with Turnbull’s magic low-power light globes (and newer LED lighting which is cheaper again) but also far more simply (though not more cheaply) by knocking out blank walls and putting in some decent windows.

Victoria, the benefits of biochar are recognised and proven most especially for low-carbon and low-nutrient cleared-rainforest soils, replacing “slash and burn” agriculture with “slash and char”. Biochar potentially has much to offer grassland and near-desert areas in warm climates. The benefit for “boreal forest” soils is lower, if only because the soil carbon here is already very high. It may still be worthwhile if it boosts agricultural productivity,as studies indicate it does.