[Terrapreta] Responding to Part 1 (size of activity) of John Cowan's "thoughts" message of 18 April

[Ron Larson]

John:   

    Thanks for a lot of useful ideas in your 18 April message.   I have kept my own thoughts, in this message,  just on your part 1 - so we can separate out the several valuable new threads you have initiated (and this starts also a response to AD Karve, with whom I also disagree).

1.  You said 
 
> First off, Terra Preta is about adding charcoal and other 
> organic-derived nutrients to the soil. The spinoffs of somehow saving 
> the earth from runaway carbon dioxide by dreaming of massive charcoal 
> production and soil incorporation are just a bit unrealistic when you 
> consider the scope of the problem, the complexity and who controls the 
> infrastructure resources of the planet to make such a program possible.
     (ADDED EMPHASIS)

2.  Not sure i have correctly interpreted your term "just a bit unrealistic"  - but am assuming you have doubts that we will ever see TP as a major international activity.  I am also not certain and can appreciate your doubts.  But I believe that major world effort is justified to check it out.  So far, I am aware of only 2 US federally - supported TP research activities.  I used to work at the US National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) - and can assure you they have some TP supporters who have done some good internally-funded work (and none on-going at the moment).  I feel the climate concerns are so serious we should be talking of thousands of Federally (and corporate) supported TP projects (needed ASAP).

3.  Now on why I think there is a good chance for getting this greatly increased funding.  First is that even though the introduction problems are at least as difficult you have indicated, I believe that the costs and difiiculties of almost every other climate mitigation approach are higher (excepting wind and some solar thermal approaches).  We might be able to technically justify more coal, shale, tar sands, etc with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) - but I think costs and public concerns about safety (CO2 being a deadly gas) will kill that approach - which anyway takes no CO2 out of the atmosphere.  Removing CO2 is sometimes discussed ( combusting biomass with subsequent CCS using liquid CO2) as a negative carbon approach, but I am pretty sure that TP will be a cheaper and more publicly-acceptable approach for actual CO2 removal.  My main point in this paragraph is that we are seeing huge public opinion changes this year on CO2 - and I predict that opinion will soon switch, because of increasing perceptions of urgency< in favor of supporting negative carbon approaches (and again - I think TP is the clear negative carbon leader). 

 4.  Fortunately, I think TP also helps solve several serious energy supply problems as well as the soil and biomass productivity improvement aspects about which we still know so little (but with apparently great potential as you  and many others on this list have indicated).  This aspect should turn AD Karve into a believer.  More on this in a later message.  TP is a net energy gainer - not a loser (because of out-year productivity gains).

5.  Many on this list, like yourself, come to this discussion group from the soils side.  I come from the other two sides (that you mention above):  charcoal production and climate concerns.  I agree that charcoal production on the scale of removing a "wedge" (a gigaton C per year) is a formidable task.  But I submit that pyrolysis is easier than gasification and maybe about the same as combustion (being lower temperature).  We need lots of work on many production scales, but today's pyrolysis equipment availability and costs will/can see the same improvements that we have recently seen in the wind and PV areas (learning curve slopes of .8?) when we (the world - probably led by the Japanese and Germans) really get into gear.  Also, a pretty good hunk of the world's energy supply already is coming from biomass.  Converting most of this from combustion to pyrolysis is not out of the question.  I see no shortage of land or labor.  Indeed, the organization 25x25 has (sort of) endorsed charcoal sequestration - largely for rural economic development reasons.  Even though the US Department of Energy still is waking up, I am told that our Department of Agriculture has this on their radar screen - because the Farmer's Union and Farm Bureau both see big advantages to farmers of adding energy crops to their portfolios.

6.  Lastly, just a bit more on my climate thinking.  Today, we are seeing carbon offset prices of maybe $10/ton (I think even in the US where there is no real market yet).  However, I have seen many projections that we will see $100/ton in the relatively near term (and in energy price terms this is not a big deal!).  If this or the next US Congress passes significant greenhouse gas control legislation,  funding for areas like TP will rapidly expand.  Because we have had a stupid US national policy of ignoring renewables in favor of nuclear, coil, oil, and gas - the tables must soon turn and I predict TP-research will be a big beneficiary, because it is carbon negative.  We now know very little about how cheaply we can produce charcoal nor how soil-valuable it will be (for many years, not one) in the ground.  So I think it is way too early to say we are dreaming or that our discussions are "just a bit unrealistic".


  (John -  sorry for taking so much space [I have more in the wings] - but think you have raised the most important issue to date on this list; here's hoping we will see more thoughts on this topic.)

Ron
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