[Terrapreta] Making Soil from Oil

[Randy Black]

Duane, 

You make a good point on the cycle of forest fires and charcoal. One
thing I have read is the 97% of the forest goes up as carbon dioxide
(and of course other gases), and 3% goes to charcoal and into the soil. 

What I envision in the future is that we manage our forest so we have
less forest fires by harvesting the wood and turn that massive amount of
carbon into charcoal for agricultural purposes. Of course forest fires
play a part in the ecosystem that we would have to replicate (smaller
controlled burns after most of the forest is harvested is a
possibility), and some charcoal would need to be put back into the
forest. But at the conservative rate of 40% charcoal product by weight
from wood, we can sequester a lot more carbon and use it for agriculture
via Terra Preta. Also the forest (if managed well), would grow back and
sequester more carbon and if we returned 10% of the charcoal back to the
forest ecosystem (instead of the natural 3%), what increase in growth
and production would the forest have via the Terra Preta effect. This
also leads to a line of thought about just adding charcoal/carbon to
different ecosystems and what effect it might have down the road 5 or 10
years latter as Terra Preta type effects happen. What growth or
biodiversity might occur and what would nature do with extra charcoal.
Of course this is more Terra Mullata not Terra Preta because we would
not be adding the organic material the helps make Terra Preta.

Someday our "fossil fuels" era may be looked upon as a good thing
because we mined the carbon from under the ground and introduced it back
into the environment to enhance the earth for plant production.

Randy Black