[Terrapreta] Earthen Kiln Conjecture

[joe ferguson]

In reply to this thread, I've long ago concluded that for the C 
sequestration goal to be significant, it must be carried out on an 
industrial scale.  By this I mean a scale comparable to the GWatt coal 
burning plants that are cropping up like daffodils in spring.  And this 
scale of operation will require a refined process that captures all the 
by- and co-products, including liquid fuels, heat, possibly electricity, 
feedstocks for other processes, what have you.

By all means carry out the necessary research to determine whether the 
pottery sherds are important for other aspects, such as the agricultural 
effects.

But I don't think we'll get anywhere by trying to reconstruct the 
specific process used by the ancients.  I will posit that there were 
several variations on the process  developed by them depending upon 
where they were  in the development  cycle, and depending very much upon 
the materials and capabilities available to each individual village  
that was involved. 

Let us focus on the goals.

Joe Ferguson

Sean K. Barry wrote:
> Hi Robert,
>  
> Again with this post.  Whatever the Indios did to make charcoal out of 
> whatever they used DOES NOT MATTER TODAY!  When are you going to grasp 
> this?  Recommending to make charcoal in earthen kilns (in the open 
> air) made from corn stalks is a bad idea.  There is no way to do this 
> without massive releases of Methane-CH4, which has been discussed 
> ad-nauseum with you as a significant potential problem with this 
> plan.  Also, just like there isn't enough corn grown in the world to 
> make enough ethanol to supply the world's thirst for transportation 
> fuel, there IS NOT ENOUGH CORN STALKS IN THE WORLD to make the amount 
> of charcoal we need to form enough Terra Preta and/or make any kind of 
> difference on agricultural food production or global climate mitigation.
>  
> Move on.  Your past one idea (Earthen Kiln Conjecture) is too limited 
> and problematic to be a solution or of any value to us, Robert.  
> That's my opinion and widely held in this group, I think.
>  
> Best Regards,
>  
> SKB
>  
>  
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* Robert Klein <mailto:arclein at yahoo.com>
>     *To:* terra pretta group <mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
>     *Sent:* Monday, April 14, 2008 1:14 PM
>     *Subject:* [Terrapreta] Earthen Kiln Conjecture
>
>     Ihave reposted an article by David Bennet with Lehmann on Terra
>     Preta publishedin 2005.  This outlines the most
>     criticalinformation as well as describing the original scope of
>     the Indian civilizationitself. It is
>     at:http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/2008/04/earthen-terra-preta-kilns-and-pollen.htmlAgainthis
>     lays out the limiting factors and fully supports my earthen
>     kilnconjecture, particularly the following quotation.“There has
>     been some pollen analysis. It suggests manioc and maize were
>     being grown 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. In the pollen bank, these
>     crops didn’t
>     pop up sporadically but in large numbers.”
>     Ihave also polished my description of the protocol and am
>     activelypromoting  field trials.Firstly,the maize or corn exists
>     in an environment that mitigated against its use forpurely food
>     production.  There werealternatives far better suited. to the non
>     terra preta environment, startingimmediately with manioc which I
>     think is a rainforest friendly plant. Secondly,the only viable
>     source of meat protein to these peoples at this populationdensity
>     was through fish.  Withoutconfirmation, a pond with tilapia makes
>     great sense. It was a staple for the Maya.The waste from the daily
>     meal could be readily folded into any growing seedhill.  Human
>     waste could simply have beenburied in the field itself avoiding
>     any storage.  This is common practice to this day. Themaking of
>     the earthen kiln is no more difficult than uprooting the
>     dehydratedcorn stalks after harvest and properly stacking them to
>     form an earthen walledkiln with a wall thickness of two to three
>     root pads
>      and an interior of tightlypacked corn stalks.  Obviously, any
>     otherplant material, including wood can be built into the stack as
>     available.  The earthen wall nicely restricts air flowduring the
>     burn phase and lends itself to optimization by changing the
>     wallthickness.  It also minimizes the amountof human effort needed
>     which is through the roof if you are attempting to coveror bury a
>     ten ton pile of stubble or branches. Thisgives you a kiln with
>     vertical earthen walls and a possibly domed top that canbe easily
>     covered with earth.  Again,field trials will optimize this
>     protocol very easily.  The kiln could be squared off or perhaps
>     evencircular though unlikely. The only tool to this point is a
>     strong back ortwo.  We have gathered several tons ofcorn stover
>     over perhaps an acre of land with only a little more effort
>     thanthat annually required to clear the field and burn the waste.
>     Nowwe must fire the kiln.  The easy way isto take a clay lined old
>     basket
>      and fill it up with coals from a woodfire.  Carry this ember
>     charge to thecenter of the kiln top and tip the charge onto the
>     exposed center and place thebasket as a cap to the newly forming
>     chimney.
>     More clay may be necessary to widen the chimney cap.  Throw more
>     earth on top of this to preventbreakout of the fire.  Keep
>     throwingearth on any breakout points that start.
>     The chimney will serve to burn all the volatiles produced as the
>     hotzone expands to fill the collapsing kiln until they are
>     exhausted.  Thereupon the hot zone will cool off leavinga blend of
>     biochar, ash and earth and some root ends for the next kiln.  And
>     yes, we should have a lot of fired clay. Thebiochar itself will be
>     a range of nonvolatile combustion products that willrange from
>     even dried vegetation to activated charcoal following a nice
>     bellcurve.  The material can be then gatheredin baskets and
>     redistributed into the field onto the seed hills again
>     reducingwastage and effort. Irealized originally that the only
>     ancient plant that could accommodate a highenough volume of terra
>     preta production was good old maize.  It just seemed an unlikely
>     option fortropical rainforests. That is when I started looking for
>     references to thepollen record.  The article by DavidBennett and
>     Lehmann is one of those reverences that then emerged. Iwould like
>     to get a full
>      spectrum of the pollen profile since it seems verylikely that
>     while the fence rows held the food trees, it seems more likely
>     thatthey also used a variation of the three sisters using some
>     form of convenientlegume.  Squashes also, of course, butnot nearly
>     as important. Thekey point of all this is that a family can
>     convert a field into terra preta inone short season, allowing them
>     to repeat the process thereafter as necessaryuntil the field is
>     completely transformed to depth.  Today, we can do the same thing
>     using shovelsand a garbage can lid.
>
>
>
>
>          
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