[Terrapreta] Terrapreta Questions

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Kurt,

# Where to get the right charcoal
>... the Indios used hardwood ... 

Perhaps they did?  Christoph Steiner made a comment just today, that making charcoal from rainforest (or any forest, for that matter) might not be so good an idea.  He suggested that making charcoal from something that is going to "renew" soon might be better than taking out an already "fixed" store of carbon from a big tree.  I thought that made some sense.  If we want to sequester carbon fast, then we could probably stand to leave what standing carbon we can and char up the stuff that re-grows a bunch every year or few years.

# How to incorporate it into soil
>A light discing, perhaps, so as not to disturb the natural soil structure--- as little tilling as possible.

I've been wondering about this too?  The Amazonian Dark Earths are 2 meters deep in some places.  Maybe they were just piling it up over time?  But the sites are not mounds 2 meters tall, so had they dug a hole and filled it for 500 years?  I don't know why it was so deep?  If the whole site was a mound, then they would have had to haul in a lot of soil along with the charcoal.

We keep saying here, that the charcoal sort of "invigorates the activity" of the microbiology in the soil.  So, maybe the Amazon people had deeper rooted crops (Mangos?, Papyas?) and they wanted to make the soil better all the way down to the deep root zones.
There could be some benefit we aren't seeing for this charcoal enhanced soil zone to be deeper?  I think it might be worth an experiment to see how depth might make any difference.

...

# *What are the national permit and legislation aspects*
# *What are the application follow up control practices*
# *What are the comprehensive environmental and human health safety 
aspects* (life cycle analyses
>None that I know of. Someone mentioned that flaring off the smoke from 
>"make it in a drum" charcoal systems ignored the great danger from 
>particulates ...

I think that was Adriana Downey who mentioned the particulates.  Smoke is carbon soot, from what I have read.  It is blown off the biomass when rapid heating is occurring during full combustion.  When pyrolysis occurs, the limited oxygen prevents the combustion, the rapid heating, and hence no smoke.  "Flaring" the H2, CO, and CH4 from the "producer gas" is only going to produce CO2 and H2O, no smoke either.  But, there may be some tars or aromatic hydrocarbons, etc. also in the emissions with the gas.  I don't know that these would or would not also be completely combusted in a "flare"?  If not, then then condensed vapors might constitute some sort of toxic particulate.  It the gas is cooled and sent through a cyclone filter before "flaring", then I think this could be prevented.  That is not probably going to happen with anyone making charcoal in a 55 gallon (200 liter?) barrel, though.  I'm pretty sure, that if you can make a a limited primary air, charring reaction in a barrel burn a flame with secondary air at the top of the char bed and without smoke, that particulates are not a problem.  I think particulates are visible.  So, if no visible "smoke", then no particulates?  That is kind of a guess for now.  But I know who to ask about it.

Regards,

SKB

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: rukurt at westnet.com.au<mailto:rukurt at westnet.com.au> 
  To: terrapreta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 10:52 PM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Terrapreta Questions


  Sean said:

  Hi again, Kurt,
   
  Did you have any valid input to any of the recent discussions about 
  Terra Preta? 
   
  I thought maybe that the list members might discuss the topics list that 
  Kevin Chisholm and Edward Someus presented ...
   
  # Where to get the right charcoal

  A good question. When I was messing around making charcoal in Queensland 
  I was using bamboo, because I had a large supply of it and because 
  japanese work suggested it was good stuff. Additionally I tried making 
  some from Lantana scrub, a bad weed, of which I also had entirely too much.
  What I've read about Terrapreta suggests that the Indios used hardwood 
  from the forests in which they gardened. Yes, I know that trees are 
  difficult to cut down with stone axes, but the people of New Guinea told 
  me that it was entirely possible and I quite believe them, having seen 
  them do it. They much prefer steel axes though.

  Now that I'm in Tasmania, I'm thinking of using Gorse and Blackberries, 
  both weeds of which there are rather a lot. In addition, there seem to 
  be large supplies of Hawthorn in hedge rows around the place. 
  Additionally, there are now lots of Blue Gum plantations destined for 
  this new pulpmill that is causing a lot of argument around the place. 
  Who knows what the future will bring, perhaps ther influence of "peak 
  oil" will have unforseen effects on the paper pulp industry and a lot of 
  that timber will become available for other uses.

  # What qualities to look for

  Blowed if I know

  # What are reasonable costs

  Practically free would be nice and enabling farmers to clear the weeds 
  with a beneficial influence on their land would be nice.

  # How much per acre

  Who knows, enough to make a difference I guess. Time will, hopefully, tell.

  # How to incorporate it into soil

  A light discing, perhaps, so as not to disturb the natural soil 
  structure--- as little tilling as possible.


  # How to modify conventional fertilizer practices

  No idea at this point.

  # How to manage for the long-term

  No idea

  # How to assure effective microbial inoculation

  There's a company up in Queensland in a little town called Eumundi that 
  deals in microbes and various microbe feed etc etc substances. I have 
  their catalogue and did a course with them. At the moment all that is 
  hidden somewhere in a removal carton. When I locate it and am ready to 
  use it, I'll look into that


  # *What are the national permit and legislation aspects*
  # *What are the application follow up control practices*
  # *What are the comprehensive environmental and human health safety 
  aspects* (life cycle analyses

  None that I know of. Someone mentioned that flaring off the smoke from 
  "make it in a drum" charcoal systems ignored the great danger from 
  particulates. Where I live at the moment practically every house has 
  wood fired heating and or cooking appliances, they all send smore into 
  the atmosphere.  While I type this, in mid New South Wales, they are 
  figjhting bushfires that are putting hundreds (maybe thousands) of tons 
  of smoke and particulates into the atmosphere. Such particulates may be 
  a problem in LA, or the San Joachim valley or most of Europe, but we 
  haven't yet reached the point of having large amounts of legislation on 
  those sorts of things. Here in Tassie people live too far apart to be 
  troubled. To be perfectly fair though, Launceston has a problem with 
  wood smoke--- fine, Paradise where I will be living is way out in the 
  country.

  So there you are Sean, what with the sale of my place in Queensland, 
  packing up and triaging 30 years of accumulated stuff, moving down here 
  to Tassie, settling into temp rental accommodation here, searching for a 
  new place, quite a bit smaller than the last one, finding and buying it 
  and moving into it and getting settled there quite a bit of time is 
  elapsing. At least another 6 to 8 weeks before I'll be ready to do 
  anything more on Terrapreta.  But--- I've worked my way through some 400 
  messages here, plus another thousand or so on other, in some cases 
  totally unrelated subjects, and I'm up to date on Terrapreta anyhow.

  regards all,

  Kurt
  who will be living (hopefully) in Paradise.

  _______________________________________________
  Terrapreta mailing list
  Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
  http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/<http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/>
  http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org<http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/>
  http://info.bioenergylists.org<http://info.bioenergylists.org/>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/terrapreta_bioenergylists.org/attachments/20071004/39d6de24/attachment.html