[Terrapreta] (no subject)

[rukurt at westnet.com.au]

Sean K. Barry wrote:
> Hi Kurt,
>
> In some paper I read last night, referred off this terrapreta.bioenergylist.org website, I read covering 10% of all arable land with 1.4% carbon mixture would keep up with the 6 gigatons/yr carbon emissions rate from fossil fuel burning to CO2.  That rate may or may not compare relatively similar to the one you proposed, it depends on the thickness of the layer?  Then again, maybe the back of an envelope person was trying to roll back carbon in the atmosphere to prehistoric levels.
>   

I think the carbon sequestration aspect of terrapreta is a bit of a 
chimera, a potential feel good to help farmers and gardeners do some 
terrapreting. Consider just how much carbon is coming out of the ground 
every day and being burnt. It's not just the fuel aspect of it all. 
There is also the heavy industry aspect. Just how much carbon is used in 
smelting up a ton of iron, making a ton of steel out of it, and what 
about other metal smelting that depends on the oxygen grabbing ability 
of carbon, to turn ores into useful metals.

Of course, cast iron and carbon steel both contain a lot of carbon, but 
they also burn a lot, and not just for heat, it's fundamental to the 
process that hot carbon grabs the O out of iron oxide, making CO2 and 
leaving molten iron behind.

See how many tanker loads of oil deliver every day, watch a miles long 
coal train go by and realise that to neutralise that movement of carbon 
out of the earth the same amount of carbon has to be going out to be 
incorporated into the soil.

Back in the early iron age whole continents were cleared of forests to 
do this very thing. Even using the best re-newable methods, we could 
never keep up with what is coming out of the ground. Perhaps we really 
need to get off the earth, capture asteroids, use the sun for power--- 
go sci-fi. Or, we need to use less. There need to be less of us.

Kurt
feeling introspective