[Terrapreta] pyro-7 for field production of charcoal

[Gerald Van Koeverden]

Because of the huge transportation costs for charcoal, I keep looking  
for ways of making charcoal directly in the field from corn stalks,  
just as a few people on this site have claimed that the Amazonian  
Indians must have made it.

Pro-natura has a small-scale continuous pyrolysis unit for vegetative  
biomass (Pyro-7).

"http://www.pronatura.org/projects/green_charcoal_en.pdf"

  Form their description, it seems simple enough that it could be  
increased in size somewhat and re-designed to be mounted on a  
platform to be pulled behind a tractor to process cornstalks as they  
are gathered and chopped up, allowing the char produced to be spread  
simultaneously as it is produced??

If this could work, then it would be the cheapest way of producing  
char for the field to promote the idea of terra preta, since both raw  
material and char transportation costs become zero.


Gerrit