Editorial-John Kerry: Our Historic Agreement With China on Climate Change

The United States and China are the world’s two largest economies, two largest consumers of energy, and two largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Together we account for about 40 percent of the world’s emissions.

We need to solve this problem together because neither one of us can solve it alone. Even if the United States somehow eliminated all of our domestic greenhouse gas emissions, it still wouldn’t be enough to counteract the carbon pollution coming from China and the rest of the world. Likewise, even if China went down to zero emissions, it wouldn’t make enough of a difference if the United States and the rest of the world didn’t change direction.

That’s the reality of what we’re up against. That’s why it matters that the world’s most consequential relationship has just produced something of great consequence in the fight against climate change.

Today, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping are jointly announcing targets to reduce carbon emissions in the post-2020 period. By doing this – together, and well before the deadline established by the international community – we are encouraging other countries to put forward their own ambitious emissions reduction targets soon and to overcome traditional divisions so we can conclude a strong global climate agreement in 2015.

According to John F’in Kerry, the US and China account for about 40 percent of the world’s emissions. He says if the US OR China completely eliminated emissions it would not help.
So eliminating 100% of our emissions is useless, but eliminating 25% over the next 15 years will be effective?
For example if the US eliminates 100% of our emissions = 20 % of world CO2. This is declared inadequate. The agreement Kerry is praising calls for us to eliminate 25% of our emissions (5% of world CO2). If China agrees to the same (another 5% reduction) the total is 10%. So he is saying a
10% reduction is more effective than a 20% reduction. The man is an idiot.

Typically, the pellet producers that ship overseas in bulk(not bagged) are not the same companies that sell bagged product in the North American market.

The Europeans have been burning wood pellets for years in their homes and electric producing plants. Pellet burning is a much bigger share of the fuel mix in Europe than it is in North America. Again, much of this is shipped in bulk. There has always been a lot of demand offshore. The change has been the increase in domestic pallet demand here in the US since the price of heating oil has maintained $3.00 or more /gallon.

The major technology change is what is called torrifcation of wood pellets. This makes the wood pellets similar to charcoal. The BTUs/ton increases. The other major benefit is they will not take on moisture like regular wood pellets. This is a major concern when shipping them in bulk.

The European countries have mandated that X amount of their electricity must come from carbon neutral sources. Torrified wood pellets can be added to the mix of a coal fired electric plant to achieve this mandate. Therefore, there are plans to build these plants in Maine and NC just to ship to Europe. There have been many new pellet manufactures and expansion of current domestic producers over the last couple years. Home Depot and Lowes are the biggest sellers here in NH. Ever since they got into pellet sales, many of the independents, like my company got out because you can not make any money on them anymore. So, I do not foresee a pellet shortage this year. I paid $239/ton for 4 tons just about a month ago. With the increase in demand, production has increased to meet that demand. The other good thing that has happened, is there are now standards for pellets ash content, etc. printed on every bag.

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