[Terrapreta] What does Carbon Sequestration really mean?

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Frank,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_sink<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_sink>  <= I just love that URL.  It is one of the first ones I looked at, when I became aware of Terra Preta.  We've got some in here who think Wkkipedia is written by liars and anarchists, to dupe the masses.

You say, "And this, whether or not plants grow faster with extra CO2....they are evidently not growing faster enough to suck it all back up."
^ Watch out for that statement.  There are those in here who will tell you now, that you do not understand how plants use CO2?!

My quandary, Frank, is about this statement you made, => "There seems little doubt in my mind that the biosphere does indeed hold carbon out of the atmosphere."  I think I used to agree.  Now, I am not so sure.  The Biosphere includes the atmosphere, doesn't it?  The numbers of plants there are now, couldn't get CO2, nor the animals get O2, without the atmosphere.  There is no atmosphere, nor any plants, nor animals on the Moon, right?
I think the atmosphere is very closely tied in with the "living" Biosphere.  If more CO2 means more plants take in more CO2 and grow more, then more plants die, and more microbes and other animals feast on the biomass and produce more CO2.  If putting more carbon into the soil enhances the "living", functioning plants or animals, then it seems that they are just going to be naturally passing more CO2 in and out of the atmosphere.

Carbon sunk into the "living" soil just does not seem like it will behave like carbon buried under "non-living" subsoil, out of the cycle, for eons.

What do you think?

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Frank Teuton<mailto:fteuton at videotron.ca> 
  To: Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> ; Kevin Chisholm<mailto:kchisholm at ca.inter.net> 
  Cc: terrapreta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 9:06 PM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] What does Carbon Sequestration really mean?


  Dear Sean, others on the list:

  When lists go off in strange directions I often return to baseline documents, eg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_sink<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_sink>

  There seems little doubt in my mind that the biosphere does indeed hold carbon out of the atmosphere....all life as we know it on earth is carbon based. If a big chunk of old growth forest were hit by a medium large meteorite or a red hot lava flow and ignited, there is little doubt in my mind that a huge burp of carbon dioxide gas would be released. Indeed, a forest is a store of carbon like an oil reserve is, but seemingly unlike the oil reserve, can renew itself after consumption.

  (Some have put forward a theory that oil is a geologically produced abiological material that may be self renewing, or georenewing, much more rapidly than previously thought....about this I say nothing except to include it in the 'brainstorm': http://forum.oilvoice.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=135<http://forum.oilvoice.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=135>  http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Hot-Biosphere-Fossil-Fuels/dp/0387952535<http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Hot-Biosphere-Fossil-Fuels/dp/0387952535>  )

  Whether or not oil regenerates very slowly (the conventional theory) or more quickly, it seems likely) to most folks in the know that we are using it, along with carbon stores of other kinds such as coal, natural gas, humus in soil, (living, dead, and very dead), forests, and prairies, much faster than they are presently being regenerated in many (but not all) cases. Old growth forests, virgin soils, mature prairies and fossil fuel carbon stores have all been greatly used in the last 250 and more years. Heck, if you count fish stocks in the oceans we are using those up way faster than they are replenishing themselves as well.

  This it would seem accounts pretty much fully for the extra CO2 in the atmosphere....our using up of carbon stores in various forms. Homo sapiens sapiens is the culprit. What is that 'wisest of wise men' thinking?

  And this, whether or not plants grow faster with extra CO2....they are evidently not growing faster enough to suck it all back up.

  It strikes me that we need a full court press here, to explore all the possibilities. Should we aim to restore something like climax system sequestration levels through better land management, regenerative agriculture and forestry? Sounds reasonable to me....should we look at pumping CO2 back into the ground through various methodologies, of which terra preta is arguably one? Seems worth exploring....Can we figure out if terra preta has synergistic potentials that make it economical ? Soil improvement, carbon negative energy, long term sequestration?

  By the way, soil organic matter has been defined as including the following: the living stuff ( plants, animals, fungi, protozoans, bacteria, and such other and further stuff as the latest biology textbook might include); the dead stuff, all of the above in dead forms; and the very dead, relatively long lasting humus matter.

  Humus is complex stuff, and comes in many forms. As some have noted, the humus of prairie soils is reputedly shorter lived than that of forest soils; others have noted that the clay humus crumb structure also resists breakdown. The longer lived versions of humus can be called 'Restistant Organic Matter'. Some composters seek this by adding a percentage of clay to their composts. For a recent relevant post on this subject to the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SANET for short) see:

  http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0705&L=sanet-mg&T=0&P=18971<http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0705&L=sanet-mg&T=0&P=18971>

  If we like, we can think of carbon stores as full carbon sinks. What we need to do is refill the emptied sinks, and perhaps also reduce our CO2 emissions, to reestablish an appropriate atmospheric CO2 level. Terra preta gives us a technology that may expand the potential of the soil as a carbon sink while valorizing alternative energy production that is carbon negative and give us better soil fertility in the bargain. That is worth researching.

  Dismissing living systems from the equation makes no sense. Digging up a lot of dirt in your backyard makes no sense either....;-)

  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a713719964~db=all<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a713719964~db=all>

  We have degraded a lot of living systems, we wise wise men. We need to find ways to undegrade them. I was glad to see Wendell Berry mentioned. We need to also mention Wes Jackson, whose New Roots for Agriculture was a real eye opener for me:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Jackson<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Jackson>

  Here's a real simple explanation of carbon sequestration: it is carbon held out of the atmosphere. It could be sequestered in limestone, it could be sequestered in oil, it could be in wood, it could be in an earthworm, or a tortoise, or a mayfly, or you. It could be sequestered for a short or a long time.

  (By the way limestone is a real kick in the pants as far as CO2 emissions are concerned, I was somewhat surprised to read: http://www.cababstractsplus.org/google/abstract.asp?AcNo=20053099977<http://www.cababstractsplus.org/google/abstract.asp?AcNo=20053099977>

  "Based on our best estimate, the application of 20-30 Tg of aglime in the U.S., consisting of 80% limestone and 20% dolomite, would have resulted in a net 4.4-6.6 Tg CO2 emissions in 2001."

  All remineralization is not created equal, I suppose...)

  In any case, carbon is held out of the atmosphere in many forms, some living, some dead, some very dead. All such carbon is sequestered for whatever time it is so held. Not seeing this is, as we chess masters like to say, 'not looking at the whole board'.

  My two cents, 

  Frank Teuton
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> 
    To: Kevin Chisholm<mailto:kchisholm at ca.inter.net> 
    Cc: terrapreta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
    Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 5:48 PM
    Subject: [Terrapreta] What does Carbon Sequestration really mean?


    Hi Kevin & the terrapreta list,

    This discussion we all have been having about increased plant growth with increased CO2 concentration and the supposed increased microbial growth with charcoal in the soil, etc. has had me thinking very hard this morning.   I've been digging a trench out in the yard for four hours now.  Its amazing what looking at dirt and mud and rocks can do for cerebral activity.

    What I have been pondering is how Terra Preta could possibly do anything to change the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
    I've spent some time in these recent few days, typing postings to this list, trying to say that I do not think increased plant growth is going to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels.  Plants grow faster with higher CO2 concentrations.  I knew this.  I agreed with this when people were trying to beat me over the head about it.  Nonetheless, even with all the increased growth that increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere could bring, I do not see that it can reduce the atmospheric concentration of CO2.  Plants live finite lives.  Then they decompose.  Decomposers expire CO2.  Decomposition of a living tree occurs at a higher rate than a tree grows.
    Ergo more outgo.  Get it?

    Focus for a bit on an observation that the living ecology of plants, animals, microbes, and soil actually expires CO2 into the atmosphere as well as inspires it.  There is a graph of continuous atmospheric CO2 readings.  It has been made rather famous by Al Gore, in his movie, "An Inconvenient Truth".  One of his college professors had started and been recording atmospheric CO2 levels since some time in the early 60s.  The graph has a SAWTOOTH appearance and an overall rising slope.  The sawtooth is clear evidence that the influx and outflux of CO2 to/from the atmosphere follows a seasonal pattern.  He said this in the movie.  Brian and Jon have both pointed out recently, that CO2 probably cycles diurnally as well.  The rising slope of the graph indicates that there is more carbon in the atmosphere than there was previously.  Feel free to argue any of these points with me.

    CO2 is part of the living respiration of the Earth.  If there is more carbon available to the living Bipsphere, then I think the concentrations of carbon in ALL parts of the overall system will increase.  The living systems just kind of push carbon around, passing it in and out of the atmosphere.   Plants are always performing photosynthesis in the spring and early summer, combining CO2 and H2O, with energy from the sunlight, to get at some of that energy, and they build carbohydrate structures (made with carbon bearing molecules) to get at more of that energy.  They slow at this in the fall and winter, releasing CO2 and/or not inspiring so much as at other times.  Animals and microbes are always pulling off the energy that is carried in complex carbon bearing molecules.  We all eat carbohydrates and expire CO2.  Humans "burn" hydrocarbons and expire CO2, also.

    Now, I come to something Kevin Chisholm said some time ago.  He was saying that carbon has to be removed from the Biosphere in order to be sequestered.  I hope this is an acceptable paraphrasing of your statement, Kevin?  I understood this to mean that carbon could not be sequestered, if it was still somehow involved in the living systems.  In light of this recent discussion about CO2 off-gassing by soil fauna and animals and CO2 uptake (and/or off-gassing) by flora, I have begun to believe that we cannot just invest carbon (in the form of charcoal) into living soil, and hope that it will somehow reduce atmospheric concentrations of CO2.

    It may force carbon to reside for a while in soil, but the overall affect of TP soil to increase both plant growth and soil microbiological growth, may not necessarily change the flux of carbon into/out of the atmosphere.  It is not absolutely clear, either, that charcoal stays permanently in the soil.  It seems to have a much longer half-life in soil than carbohydrates, though.

    Fossil carbon fuels are the difference.  The carbon they contain (in complex hydrocarbon molecules) had once been in the Biosphere.
    Fossil fuels are fossils of plants that grew on the Terra Firma once.  But, they have been buried, very deep, in the subsoil, below the livng soil, and out of the living Biosphere for a very long time (circa 300 million years).  Does everyone realize that humans have actually SET the half-life of fossil fuel carbon in the ground at circa ~300,000,150 years?!  Here it is now, with us and the rest of the animals and the plants, up here, above the lifeless subsoil ground, and all participating again in the global climatic cycling of carbon.

    Methinks, that putting it only as deep as Terra Preta, only as deep as the living part of the soil, IS NOT going to change the concentration of it in any part of the living Biosphere.  The living soil and the atmosphere, and the plants and animals are all part
    of the Biosphere together.  The carbon concentrations are up.   They are likely to increase everywhere.

    We CANNOT "Sequester Carbon", if we sequester it where there is life.  This is just my considered opinion.  You people can kick it all apart, as many of you are want to do.  This realization of mine has diminished my enthusiasm somewhat for Terra Preta.
    I hope to hell someone soon will be able to prove that Terra Preta soils do not need as much fertilizer as other soils to grow productive crops.  This may be its only redeeming value.  I am retracting my staunch statements of belief that Terra Preta can "Sequester Carbon".  I don't believe it can provide "carbon negative" energy, either.




    Regards,

    SKB


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