[TheForge] eucalyptus charcoal OT

[Erik Gutfeldt]

On Aug 19, 2005, at 5:36 PM, schade at acegroup.cc wrote:

> At the Nucor website http://nucor.com/enviropages/articles/03- 
> RenewableCarbonSource they show the "Net Loss to the Environment"  
> as 1.1 tons of CO2 per ton of Pig Iron using eucalyptus charcoal.  
> v. 2.2 tons of CO2 per ton of Pig Iron using "the traditional method".

Ok, I think I figured this out. Good 'ol marketing, with creative  
accounting.

On their web site

http://nucor.com/enviropages/articles/05-MagnitudeOfProject.htm

they say
forest required: 156 sq miles
Offset forest required by Brazil: 156 sq miles
Total size of forest: 312 sq miles

Seems like they need 156 sq miles of forrest land to support their  
blast furnaces. The Brazilian government requires them to set aside  
an equal area of forrest, and presumably NOT use it.

Instead of seeing this as a "problem" they spin it. You see, that  
other area of forest is ALSO pulling CO2 out of the air. So they have  
a big net loss of CO2 to the environment.

Pretty clever, maybe even true...

Erik