[Terrapreta] Charcoal agriculture: not ready for prime time

[Kevin Chisholm]

Dear Tom

Thanks very much for your clear example that puts a perspective on the 
extent of present carbon additions to the Biosphere.

Basically, if all the available Biomass in the US was turned into 
charcoal and buried, it would "neutralize" about 40% of the carbon 
additions resulting from US coal. Carbon contributions from oil are 
extra. Burying charcoal is clearly not the solution to the US 
contribution to global warming.

Eliminating the other 60% of the carbon additions could be accomplished 
by eliminating about 60% of present coal consumption. That is not going 
to happen willingly.

For the most part, energy conservation only occurs willingly if there is 
a financial return, typically with a Simple Payback Period of up to 
about 3 to 5 years.

It is hard to imagine any significant circumstance where there would be 
a 3-5 year payback period on a program to recover biomass, convert it to 
charcoal, and then bury the charcoal for the sole purpose of 
sequestering carbon.

The simplest way to solve a problem (excess carbon being introduced to 
the Biosphere) is to eliminate it in the first place (Conserve)

There seems to be solid evidence that charcoal additions to the soil 
have no detrimental effects, and that they can have positive effects, as 
Terra Preta.

I would conclude as follows:
1: Burying charcoal cannot neutralize or reverse the US carbon additions 
to the Biosphere resulting from consumption of fossil fuels at the 
present rate.
2: Terra Preta's greatest potential benefit is as an agricultural 
supplement, and its contribution to the alleviation of Global Warming 
will, at the best, be a second order benefit.
3: The only solution to that portion of Global Warming resulting from 
utilization of fossil fuels by Man is to reduce the rate of fossil fuel 
utilization by Man.

Scary, huh?

Kevin







Tom Miles wrote:
> Thinking of an area the size of France gives you a sense of the challenge of
> applying terrapreta to large agricultural areas. I considered this as I
> drove through the former tobacco lands of Virginia last week.
> 
>  
> 
> To get a sense of our current carbon withdrawals think of the unit train
> used to haul coal: 100 to 110 cars each hauling 100 tons of coal. A unit
> train lasts about a day in a large power plant. Wyoming alone mines
> 300,000,000 tons of coal per year. It is delivered to 130 US power plants
> and exported to Canada and Spain. In the US we mine 1 billion tons of coal
> per year . The trains don't stop as they roll through the mines and get
> loaded while still moving.  See: http://smtc.uwyo.edu/coal/trains/unit.asp
> 
>  
> 
> Now think of putting this quantity of carbon back into the soil each year. 
> 
>  
> 
> According to the US Department of Energy we could have a billion tons of
> biomass available for energy use through crops, plantations and forest
> residues. Converting that to bio-char at 40% yield would give us 0.4 billion
> tons of bio-char, or a little more than the coal that is mined each year in
> Wyoming.
> 
>  
> 
> That trip to the Asteroid belt might be a solution but I'd hate to have to
> pick a target. I wouldn't pick France, it would be a waste of good wine. 
> 
>  
> 
> Tom
> 
>    
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: Sean K. Barry [mailto:sean.barry at juno.com] 
> Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 10:06 PM
> To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org; 'Allan Balliett'; Tom Miles
> Subject: Re: RE: [Terrapreta] Charcoal agriculture: not ready for prime time
> 
>  
> 
> Hi Tom, et. al.
> 
>  
> 
> Maybe, we should send a mission out to the Asteroid Belt and fish out one of
> them medium sized (not KT sized) asteroids and have it hit Paris, France, so
> we could have another "area the size of France" covered in charcoal (burnt
> French biomass, a.k.a. French fries).  Or, maybe if were lucky, we could
> sink the entire northern hemisphere into another Ice Age and fix this dern
> Global Warming thing once and for all, huh?
> 
> Do you think we could feed half or a third of the worlds living population
> (remaining) with the land area in Brazil?
> 
>  
> 
> SKB
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> 
> From: Tom Miles <mailto:tmiles at trmiles.com>  
> 
> To: 'Sean K. Barry' <mailto:sean.barry at juno.com>  ;
> terrapreta at bioenergylists.org ; 'Allan Balliett'
> <mailto:aballiett at frontiernet.net>  
> 
> Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 11:25 PM
> 
> Subject: Spam: RE: [Terrapreta] Charcoal agriculture: not ready for prime
> time
> 
>  
> 
> Or we can just look for layers of charcoal left over from a passing comet or
> asteroid and the resulting wildfires.  
> 
>  
> 
> See: http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/kennettcomet
> 
>  
> 
> Tom
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
> [mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Sean K. Barry
> Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 8:18 PM
> To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org; Allan Balliett
> Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Charcoal agriculture: not ready for prime time
> 
>  
> 
> Hi Allan, Michael,
> 
>  
> 
> I agree with Allan.  Neo Terra Preta (renewed charcoal agriculture) not
> ready for prime time?!  Balderdash.  Now is the absolute best time to
> develop charcoal in agriculture.  The simplest way to harvest CO2 from the
> atmosphere, reduce NO2 emissions from the industrially fertilized soil and
> reduce CH4 emissions from animal manure is to harvest energy from biomass
> and animal waste, and use agricultural land as a sink for carbon in the form
> of charcoal.  It is our absolute best chance to mitigate the effects that
> humans have made on global climate.
> 
>  
> 
> The possibilities for improving the productivity of cultivated crops is
> there and real too.  It is evident by the existence of "an area the size of
> France" covered in Terra Preta soils in the Amazon River basin.  We may not
> have the recipe for to make Neo Terra Preta the same as the original Terra
> Preta yet and it may take 50 or 100 years for us to make it that useful as
> an agricultural paradigm, but we ought to get started.  The ancient Amazon
> people didn't just build that soil for shits and giggles.  It did work.  It
> did improve agriculture in the soils.  It still works today there.  Its only
> a mystery to us now.  It's not ancient magic.  We can do it again.
> 
>  
> 
> Clearly, the current anthropogenic flux of carbon into the atmosphere is
> primary cause of global climatic change.  The IPCC has studied it long
> enough to have verified that and thousands of scientists are in agreement.
> The critics are in handfuls and they've got axes to grind and the wrong kind
> of corporate backing for their researches.  It amounts to like 5.4-6 billion
> tons of carbon goes into the atmosphere as a result of human activity.  That
> carbon was not there before.  It was buried and has been buried in the
> ground for hundreds of millions of years.  Mining fossil fuels and burning
> them to harvest the energy they contain is probably not going to stop
> anytime soon either.  The mining and oil interests alone are going to throw
> every bleeding psuedo-scientific quack at trying to debunk an anthropogenic
> cause for global warming until doomsday comes.  They do not want to pay to
> clean up the mess.  They do not want to pass the cost along for cleaning up
> the mess to consumers (clearly that is what they would do too!)
> 
>  
> 
> The outputs from human civilization of carbon in the form of CO2 and CH4
> (methane) are not the only greenhouse gases we generate.  NO2 is a gas which
> is released from industrial fertilizer that has been put into soils which
> have little or no organic matter to retain the fertilizer nutrients.  For
> more than thirty years, soil scientists at the USDA have tried to convince
> farmers to increase the soil organic matter in their fields by promoting
> "no-till" and "low-till" farming practices.  Although effective if
> practiced, these methods take a long time.
> 
>  
> 
> Profit and politics are the most impatient, short sighted endeavors on the
> planet.  That is why we are in the pickle we are in.  We need to revert to
> our old mores and and old way of doing things, to reward the efforts of hard
> working people all over the world.  Huge governments, oil companies, and
> mining companies need to become dinosaurs and extinct themselves.  Neo Terra
> Preta is something that all people can be a part of.  It can be formed on
> any land with any biomass.  Anyone making charcoal and burying it in soil
> should be able to receive a carbon credit.  They will be creating a real
> value to the world.  They will have sequestered carbon, effectively and
> cheaply for thousands of years.
> 
>  
> 
> Our world is as populated as it is, because of the success of human
> agriculture.  We are 6 billion because we can feed the world.  That did not
> happen because of magic or politics.  The profit of the farmer has been for
> centuries to feed his family.  Just in this past century farmers have
> learned and developed ways to feed many, many families.  There is great
> potential in agriculture, still.  Hundreds of thousands of acres and
> hectares of land, which were previously uncultivated, are going in new
> production now.  These agronomists can do it economically too.
> 
> The arable land is not unlimated, though, and they will eventually need ways
> to improve the productivity of the lands they cultivate.  I believe farmers
> will find a way to do it using Neo Terra Preta.
> 
>  
> 
> You know, too, it was not politics or profit which put a man on the moon,
> either.  That cost a great deal of treasure for the space race, here and in
> the former Soviet Union.  The consequent arms race cost a great deal too.
> We have yet to profit from either of them.  Both the space race and the arms
> race were accomplished by the work science and engineering professionals.
> They did it.  It was not for profit and it was only directed and financed by
> politicians, even if it was economic folly.  Scientists, engineers, and
> farmers can build a working solution to the global warming crisis.
> Scientists, engineers, and farmers can build a working solution to how we
> are going to possibly feed 10 billion people on this planet by the end of
> the century.  I think we need to listen to scientists, engineers, and
> farmers about how and what to do and do some of the things they say should
> be done, some of the things they can do.
> 
>  
> 
> Neo Terra Preta is a great hope, possibly our "Last Great Hope".  All the
> the renewable energy sources like solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, wind,
> geothermal power, and ocean tidal power, cannot boast what biomass use and
> Neo Terra Preta can.  They are only "carbon neutral energy" and can only
> reduce future emissions (population growth alone will likely offset any
> gains in output reduction).  But Neo Terra Preta from biomass is the one
> "carbon NEGATIVE energy" possibility.  Neo Terra Preta from biomass is the
> only way to REVERSE the current trend in increasing carbon output to the
> atmosphere.  Neo Terra Preta is the only way we can clean up the mess and
> take back all of that CO2 pollution that we out into the atmosphere.  We can
> still use all of the renewable energy technologies.  We can harvest carbon
> from the atmosphere and energy from the biomass and we can clean up this
> mess.  It only took 150 years to make the mess.  We can clean it up as fast,
> I think.  We just have to change how we get energy.  If we do this, we will
> see a cleaner world in our lifetimes.  We may also see the benefit to
> agriculture that Neo Terra Preta promises.
> 
>  
> 
> Neo Terra Preta alone can clean the world and feed the world.
> 
>  
> 
> But we have to act NOW!  We must begin doing this work immediately.  It must
> be seen that the IPCC is not telling us that global climatic change caused
> by humankind is a serious problem.  It must be seem that the IPCC is telling
> us that it is an international emergency.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Regards,
> 
>  
> 
> Sean K. Barry
> Principal Engineer/Owner
> Troposphere Energy, LLC
> 11170 142nd St. N.
> Stillwater, MN 55082
> (651) 351-0711 (Home/Fax)
> (651) 285-0904 (Cell)
> sean.barry at juno.com
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> 
> From: Allan Balliett <mailto:aballiett at frontiernet.net>  
> 
> To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org 
> 
> Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 8:48 PM
> 
> Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Charcoal agriculture: not ready for prime time
> 
>  
> 
> Michael (et al) - Please correct me if I'm wrong here, but all the 
> info we have on this 'we can't make terra preta' thing is an 
> unsubstantiated quote in a Scientific American article, isn't it? 
> Gosh, after biological farming for a couple of decades I'm STILL 
> continuously surprised by how many unaccounted far factors can affect 
> the productivity of a planting or of a piece of ground. I'd sure like 
> to see 'more sciene' on this 'conclusion.' Without seeing some 
> replication and, really, without the involvement of some biological 
> farmers - - you know, the ones who were telling science that compost 
> is a good way to grow plants for about 70 years before science 
> started supporting the idea of a 'soil food web - - in that 
> replication, I have a hard time thinking that terra preta nova has 
> been debunked.
> 
> Or, have I missed something here?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> -Allan
> 
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