[Terrapreta] Large-scale experiment opportunities

[joe ferguson]

Here are some ramblings on the topic.

The recent wildfires in New Jersey (US) and still raging fires in the
southeast US (Georgia and Florida) might serve as good sites to
experiment on the nearby soils to see what an abundant local source of
char would enable.  I visualize some of the large machines that I have
seen at work grinding up storm debris going to work on charred snags and
making hundreds of tons of char chips.  Perhaps the local agriculture
officials and academic researchers could get involved, liberate
necessary funding, and start getting answers to some of these questions.

What level of charring is needed to get an impact?
What level of application of char/unit area?
What depth of mixing into the soil?
What kinds of soil are improved by char treatment?
Is the burned clay a critical element?
What mineral mixture of said clay is required?

I believe that the problem of CO2 accumulation is severe enough to have
every avenue explored that might lead to reducing or even reversing the
trend.  But it's necessary to get started, to obtain real data, and to
have knowledgeable  experts from many disciplines  analyze the data. I
visualize participation by a full gamut of agricultural scientists,
biologists, geologists, mining engineers, economists, etc. (and you name
your own lists.)

The scope of the CO2 problem is mind-boggling.  My back-of-the-envelope
calculations show that we couldn't keep up with CO2 released by fossil
fuels even if the product of all cultivated land were sequestered in
some manner as locked-up carbon or CO2.  But until humanity gets a
handle on economically attractive sources of non-fossil energy, we have
to do the best we can.  And the least we can do is to get started.

Perhaps the carbon credits being discussed would provide a source of
funding to defray some of the investment needed to create some
large-scale demonstration projects.  We have certainly seen how some of
the US energy programs can create some UNeconomic projects, like the
"synfuels" programs that would collapse without tax credits and the
ethanol-from-corn nonsense that can't unequivocally  be shown to break
even on an energy basis.  And speaking of the ethanol programs, at least
those operating the fermentation facilities should be required to
capture the CO2 for sequestering.

Joe Ferguson