[Terrapreta] Sustained Biochar

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Richard, Adriana, et. al.

It also will not match the release of Methane from permafrost as the Earth continues to warm.  But, we cannot ignore "BEST practices" (excuse it Richard and look, Adriana, at that pun you get to benefit from, "BEST practices").  We can't just all go and "filth up" the planet some more, with insane blunders over how to do "very extremely huge -ass, large scale, production of lots and lots and lots of charcoal, either.

Right?

I lean much more toward your viewpoints on the dire nature of our situation, Richard, as I think you might know.  But, I am an engineer.  We scientific/industrialist types think in certain "weird" ways about things.  We don't like to just build machines.  We like to build machines that actually work.  We like to understand deeply about what we are trying to do in order to try and make things "work".  We better engineers would like the machines we design and build to actually do the job we intended for them to do, without any ill effects.

This global climatology business is very complex.  Add to that the nascent "Neo Terra Preta" technology business and you can't hardly get a scientist/engineer to ever shut up about the technical details.  We'll leave it to the anarchists to purge on foreward with all the ideas; wild ones, and good ones, which they can muster up.  You are loose, Richard;  Don't forget, I've met you and seen you and that I've also met your even "looser" cohort, Larry Williams, too (he he).

Carry on, geese (loosey goosey)!


Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Richard Haard<mailto:richrd at nas.com> 
  To: Adriana Downie<mailto:adriana at bestenergies.com.au> 
  Cc: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 9:46 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Sustained Biochar


  Hello Adriana


  While I respect the high standards you and Best technologies maintain on not contributing to global warming the relative contribution from thousands of mound charcoal piles,  a technology which has not changed for a few thousand years, cumulatively, does not match the methane contributed to the atmosphere by permafrost destruction from petroleum development in the Prudhoe Bay oil field alone.


  I had the privilege of meeting Dr Tim Colette, a scientist with US geological service who is working on commercialization of methane hydrates locked in permafrost of the circumpolar north. He made a study of the actual amount of methane released to the atmosphere by permafrost destruction by hot oil moving up drill stems through the  frozen ground in the giant Prudhoe Bay, Alaska oil field. His calculations show that the methane released from this source only,  an oil field perhaps 15 by 20 miles is 23 times the  total energy value of the all oil taken from the field.  So for every 100 million barrels of oil taken from Prudhoe to feed our energy needs in the USA 2.3 billion barrels  oil equivalent of methane have been released to the atmosphere.


  We need our hands on experience with charcoal in soil and the environmental cost of our small scale studies  is minute relative to the real scale of the problem. With global population at full tilt - 6 billion and growing , and near universal demand for economic growth, with positive feedback global warming mechanisms at play , survivalism or primitivism as a study topic at least is a rational alternative to your approach the industrial - technological fix. As we finish this fossil fuel feast of the last 100 years and as we reach our  global population limits  created by this past 10,000 years of agriculture our numbers will return to our sustainable level , most likely something less than 1 billion souls.  


  Our mission needs to be how we might humanely return this earth to sustainable levels of human habitation. 


  I do value your insight on this and  follow your comments on what to expect from experimenting with charcoal in soil very closely. I am in the midst of my first year of a 2 year project at my farm and next year starting a project in closed canopy conifer forest. You do need to let us charco-anarchists loose. You never know what we might come up with. 


  Best Wishes


  Rich Haard
  Bellingham, Washington


  By the way here is a link to a DVD that has been released recently by some unaffiliated people in eastern US who foresee our future in a return to our pre-agricultural roots while bringing with us wisdom learned in this technological era.


  ' What a Way to Go'  'Life at the end of empire'  Tim Bennett, director, Sally Erickson, Producer


  http://whatawaytogomovie.com<http://whatawaytogomovie.com/>/


  On Aug 29, 2007, at 6:37 PM, Adriana Downie wrote:


    Jon, so do you not believe that humans are not altering our environment and that ‘creation will cope’ with anthropogenic emissions and therefore we should all stop worrying about global warming? This is how your post reads. If so why are you interested in this concept at all??

     

    Most of the conversation on this list has come from the fear that unburnt methane and all the rest of the ‘unnatural’ compounds we are emitting are causing detrimental effects and the planet simply can’t cope, or rather cope to a degree that ensures our continued quality of life. 

     

    I certainly don’t find fault in pre-columbian practices; however a lot has happened since then, the industrial revolution for example. What was good for them is not necessarily good for us. It is irresponsible to continue to knowingly emit unburnt CH4, unless you don’t think global warming is of concern of course.

     

    Adriana. 

     

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Jon C. Frank [mailto:jon.frank at aglabs.com<mailto:jon.frank at aglabs.com>] 
    Sent: Thursday, 30 August 2007 7:47 AM
    To: Terrapreta
    Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Sustained Biochar

     

    The big fear over unburnt methane is overdone.  If it was so bad then the creation of all the original terra preta soil in Latin America would have doomed the earth to destruction.  Obviously that didn't happen--nature coped and we are all here today.  Nature makes unburnt methane all the time (so do you and I). So what.  Believe me creation was designed in such a way to cope.  This is one of those "The sky is falling" fears.

     

    The creators of terra preta did not have all our advanced chemical industry to utilize the gases the way we can now.  If we can utilize these gases for energy great--lets use the industrial model and make charcoal available for soil improvement.

     

    On the other hand many people, especially in developing countries, do not have access to expensive pyrolysis units but still wish to improve their soil by making charcoal without capturing the gases.  This is also great.  Lets also encourage the primitive model to improve the soil.  After all that's what the natives did in Latin America with great success.

     

    In whatever way people can, we should be increasing the carbon content of soil.  The other aspect that needs to be done at the same time is soil remineralization with rock powders.  The concept is more fully explained at:

     

    http://www.highbrixgardens.com/restore/remineralization.html<http://www.highbrixgardens.com/restore/remineralization.html>

     

    and

     

    http://www.remineralize.org/about/context.html<http://www.remineralize.org/about/context.html>

     

    When the soil is carbonized with charcoal/biochar and remineralized with rock powders the soil biology greatly increases and the amount of carbons retained in the soil dramatically increases.  In other words carbon sequestration significantly enhanced.

     

    The main goal with making charcoal by either process (industrial or primitive) is soil restoration on a large scale.  When that happens the soil and plants will automatically clean up the air.  The best response will come from people getting much more nutrition in their foods and the increase in health that results from this.

     

    Jon  C. Frank

    www.aglabs.com<http://www.aglabs.com/>

     

      -----Original Message-----
      From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org [mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org>]On Behalf Of Sean K. Barry
      Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 11:58 PM
      To: Adriana Downie; Larry Williams
      Cc: Miles Tom
      Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Sustained Biochar

      Hi Larry,

       

      Conversion of biomass to charcoal in an "open air" retort, depending on conditions of moisture content, pyrolysis temp, and air flow, can retain as much as ~63% of the original carbon in the feedstock (giving ~25% charcoal on a weight of charcoal/weight of of dry feedstock basis).  Usually under best practices, more carbon can be retained in the charcoal, than is released in the exhaust gases.

       

      The critical problem with the "open air" mound or retort is the release of UNBURNED methane (CH4), which can be a relatively small part of the producer gas output and contain a relatively small part of the original biomass carbon.  It not the amount of carbon that is the problem, though.  It is the methane (CH4) molecules that are the problem.  The reaction of burning methane is just

       

          CH4 + 2(O2) => CO2 + 2(H2O)

       

      One methane molecule is oxidized (burned) with two oxygen molecules producing one carbon dioxide molecule, two water molecules, and heat.  So, when "burned" (or "flared" as it is called), the methane (CH4) puts one GHG molecule (the CO2) into the atmosphere.

      This CO2 molecule has no more effect on the atmosphere than any of the other CO2 molecules that would have been released as part of the producer gas "exhaust" output from the pyrolysis reactor.

       

      Left UNBURNED though, that one methane molecule, has a much more potent GHG effect than any single CO2 molecule.  Its GHG effect ranges from over 100 times more potent in the first 20 years to 30 some times more potent 100 years later, on average 62 times the potent than a CO2 molecule.

       

      So, its 62 times more important to NOT release the carbon as methane (CH4), than it is to prevent the release of carbon as CO2 molecules.  If you retain 60% of the carbon in the charcoal and the rest goes into the air as CO2, then you will have taken more CO2 out of the atmosphere than would be released.  The exhaust gas CO2 would contain only 40% of the original carbon

       

      Producer gas is roughly 20%-H2, 20%-CO, 10-15%-CO2, 40%-N2, 2-3%-CH4, plus some <<1% trace gases.  The 40% of the biomass carbon which is released in the producer gas, goes into 3 molecules CO, CO2, and CH4, in the ratio #CO:#CO2:#CH4 of 20:15:3.

      So the methane can contain ~3-4% of the original biomass carbon, 40% x (3/(20+15+3)) = 40 x (3/38) = ~3-4%

       

      3% x 62 = 186%!,   4% x 62 = 248%

       

      So, this shows that the detrimental effect of releasing unburned methane(CH4) is 3 to 4 times (186%/60% to 248%/60%) the beneficial effect of storing all of the charcoal that could possibly be produced into the soil.  And, it would only reduce to being only this bad of a thing to do after 50-75 years!

       

      The lesson for anyone making a "simple" charcoal retort is to BURN the or "Flare Off" the producer gas any way possible.

       

       

      Regards,

       

      SKB

       

         

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