[Terrapreta] Long term durability of Low Temp Chars

[Michael Bailes]

This is an extremely important question.
How we are going to get the answers without a 10 or hundred year study I
don't know.
If GW keeps speeding up as it is we don't have that sort of time.

In the future we will have international carbon credits scheme and the USA,
Australia and Leichestein will be signed up to the new Kyoto protocols which
are to be decided in Copenhagen in 2009(?). The 2009 *conference* is
especially important because it is the year the *Kyoto* *Protocol* expires.
some background
http://www.eea.europa.eu/pressroom/newsreleases/ghg-2003-en
http://www.eea.europa.eu/

> Quote:-The latest IPCC report on climate change estimates that there are
> only two decades to implement effective greenhouse gas reduction measures to
> control and limit global temperature increases
>

When a farmer puts charcoal in his soil he needs to know how much will stay
there and for how long if he is to claim carbon credits (At the moment soil
amelioration with carbon/charcoal does not attract carbon credits - under
Kyoto.)
 Most people I talk to say that charcoal stays in the soil for a very long
time; perhaps eons.
Research well.. . . . .
It seems no one in 1AD made a note of how much char he put in his Amazonian
garden.(very slack)
 So we really don't know for sure how long it lasts.
Additionally it seems that charcoal peculates down though the soil to the
rock sub-strata of the soil.
 So you need to dig some big holes to find all of it.

The Japanese have been doing using charcoal in soil for generations.
 I did not meet any Japanese at the IAI conference.
 If they know it all; someone needs to hire a Japanese/English speaking
scientist and sit them down for six months to start translating the old
Japanese research on char for us.
 (A idea suggested to me by an intelligent Kiwi  at the IAI confrence  ).

I don't know what else can be done. If TP farmers are to talk sense, and get
on the credits bandwagon at Copenhagen in 2009.
Perhaps someone out there has a brilliant research design; or a clever bit
of materials testing equipment I don't know about.
If TP wants to make a significant contribution to a CO2 "wedge" we need
information on how long charcoal &carbon lasts in the soil urgently
MB


>
> Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Long term durability of Low Temp Chars
>  Hi AJH
>
>
> Carbon dating of "chunks" of charcoal still in the soil can tell about the
> surviving "fixed" carbon in the charcoal vs other organic carbon matter.
> EPRIDA has scanning electron micrographs of charcoal bits from Terra
> Preta.  It still shows the structure of the original cell walls from the
> plant that was pyrolyized to make the charcoal.  That same charcoal bit is
> dated back 2500+ years.  I don't think that it is doubted that anything less
> than a very high percentage of the original charcoal matter that was put
> into the soil over some thousands of years ago, is not still there.
>
> SKB
>
>
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