[Terrapreta] Feedstock source?? Where??

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Kurt and All,

Yes, it is a big problem.  Estimates of carbon flux into the atmosphere by human activity are 5.4 to 6.0 billion tons per year.  There are industrial plants that can process 500 tons of biomass a day (see Dynamotive Energy Systems) into charcoal.  At a conservative 25% yield that's like 130 tons of carbon made into charcoal each day, which can all be sequestered into soil.  It would take 24 billion tons of biomass and like 20-25,000 500 ton/day biomass-to-charcoal plants like that to make 6 billion tons of charcoal every year (a very BIG enterprise, but not impossible).  Some have estimated that by 2100, the production of renewable energy biofuels could also produce 9.5 billion tons of charcoal every year from agricultural waste, forest arisings, and biomass from only some of the non-agricultural lands.  The charcoal would be in addition to an almost equal amount of carbon neutral fuels and energy yielded from the process.  This renewable energy fuel resource will offset the CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuel.

When it is shown that charcoal in soil reduces the amount of fertilizer needed, then reductions from the 150 million tons of industrial fertilizer used every year will also reduce fossil fuel use and fossil fuel emissions.  When it is shown that charcoal improves soil fertility and plants grow 300% greater biomass yield, then the carbon uptake by the greater biomass will also reduce atmospheric CO2.  I think there are positive feedbacks to using charcoal in soil as a carbon sequestering technique.  I think "Neo Terra Preta" is a very good remediation for global warming.
It can be done now.   Pyrolysis technology is very simple (your top load up draft gasifier does it!).  Even if it takes 50 or 100 years to figure out how to make the magic of "Terra Preta" grow better and more food crops on more lands (and I doubt it will take that long), putting charcoal into soil IS already a very good way to sequester carbon.  Humans have already, in The Amazon river basin, sequestered enough carbon in charcoal to cover France!

We can do that again.

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: rukurt at westnet.com.au<mailto:rukurt at westnet.com.au> 
  To: terrapreta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 3:00 AM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Feedstock source?? Where??


  One of the things that bothers me about remediating Global Warming is 
  the question of where is all that biomass going to come from? It's 
  simple enough to say that waste crop residues will do it. No they won't, 
  there is nowhere enough of that available. Besides, the soil also needs 
  organic matter to be added to it to feed all those wee beasties that the 
  charcoal will be providing tenements for. You can't just grow crops in 
  soil containing nothing but charcoal as an amendment.
   Stuff is going to have to be grown on purpose to do it. And coppicing 
  all the forests in the world isn't likely to do it either. For a start 
  the Conservationists aren't going to let us do that.
  There may well be an answer. Over in the "Oil from Algae" list they 
  actually claim to eventually be able to take all the CO2 from a power 
  house exhaust stack, run it into algae growing bio-reactors and turn it 
  all into oil producing algae. The resultant oil can then be turned into 
  bio diesel and there you are. The remaining oilpress cake can be fed to 
  animals, used as fertiliser you name it. This will allegedly be better 
  than liquifying all that CO2 and pumping it underground or into the deep 
  sea, but I don't quite see it that way. I see the CO2 coming out of the 
  diesel exhausts containing the same carbon as was mined in the first 
  place. That concept got a very negative reception over there.
  HOWEVER!!! Growing oil producing algae is a bit difficult and finicky, 
  the cultures tend to get infected with algae from the environment. So 
  growing just any old algae might be a better way to produce biomass. The 
  potential yields are tremendous, one can dry the resultant algae and 
  pyrolise them into charcoal which one can then bury, thereby getting rid 
  of that carbon for eons. If one is growing them on CO2 from the 
  powerhouses stacks one could simply feed it all back into the powerhouse 
  and cut out the mining entirely. The energy for all this comes from 
  sunlight of course. And of course, there is no need to use stackgas, the 
  air, anywhere contains CO2. Neither does one need complicated highcost 
  bio re-actors. Shallow ponds will do just as well.
  I don't know how effective algae charcoal will be for terrapreta, but 
  that is still to be seen.
  Another point---- ever seen a loaded coal train go by, seems to take 
  hours of big fat cars, stuffed with coal going by. Every bit of that 
  carbon will have to be turned into biomass charcoal and buried to get 
  rid of the CO2. And consider those huge tankers presently carrying oil 
  to your shores. Same story. Every bit of that carbon will have to be 
  sucked back out of the atmosphere and re-buried. A mindboggling prospect.

  Kurt

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