[Terrapreta] (no subject)

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Kurt,

You said it, "... realize that to neutralize that movement of carbon out of the earth the same amount of carbon has to be going out to be incorporated into the soil."  I agree.

You said, "Even using the best renewable methods, we could never keep up with what is coming out of the ground. ... Perhaps we really need to ... use the sun for power, ... we need to use less."  Wholeheartedly, I agree again.

Solar energy is actually the entire "source" for all the energy we do use or could use on Earth.  It grew the plants that were turned into coal and oil.  It drove the weather cycles to bury the fossil fuels under layers of rock.  It makes the winds blow now and the ocean waves.  It makes all the living plants grow now.  It is the one truly renewable (virtually unending and free) energy resource.

Absolutely, energy conservation (reduced energy consumption) is vitally important.  It's far cheaper to reduce energy consumption and thereby reduce carbon emissions, than it is to build and use any renewable energy technology.  That is most true today, but it will need to change.  Harvesting and using renewable energy sources has to get cheaper than mining and burning fossil fuels.  I believe the path to that is to make fossil fuels pay for the actual cost to society that their use exacts.  Carbon positive energy (BURNING) should be required to pay for the CO2 pollution!  That will give renewable energy sources the economic edge to compete and they will become cheaper.  That will reduce the use of fossil fuels and the consequent CO2 emissions rate.  Then we can keep up with trying to sequester carbon away and make our world footprint "carbon negative" for a century.  Heal the world and quit bathing in our piss!

You also said, "There need to be less of us."  If the world does not grapple soon with the problem of global warming and reduce the amount of carbon emissions that we make to obtain the "cheap fossil fuel energy", then I believe there surely will be less of us.  We will die out like so (too) many bacterium in our little petridish full of urea.  It's just biology, man.

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: rukurt at westnet.com.au<mailto:rukurt at westnet.com.au> 
  To: Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> 
  Cc: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 2:07 AM
  Subject: Re: 


  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

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