[Terrapreta] Earthen Kiln Conjecture

[Robert Klein]

Hi Joe

I also would like to see an industrial scale solution to the terra preta problem.  And I have investigated the various issues over in my blog over the past ten months.

The insurmountable problem is that feedstock must be both gathered and transported to a central processing facility.  Tom Miles tackled these costs in his postings rather well I thought.  Agricultural waste is insufficient to even be gathered for most crops with perhaps the exception of corn and bagasse, and wood waste will need an additional grinding phase after charcoaling to be usable in soil.

The so called byproducts fail to stand up either.  The principal portion is pyroligneous acid (if i spelled it right) which looks like a fuel oil but is not.  They are all better burned or mixed into the soil perhaps.  In any event they are certainly a distraction.

That forced me to retreat back to the farm where the principal business is gathering and processing at a short distance in the first place.  That left me with the farm based use of a simple kiln with a lot of ingenuity.  I posted on this back in June and July on my blog.  It is a little hard to visualize though.

For what it is worth, I have recently been presenting the technology as a solution for aspects of municipal waste handling.  No terra preta though as yet.

The problem is that we need to put one ton of biochar into an acre of land each year to have an impact.  Is this worth $1000 per ton?  And is it worth $15,000 per acre for a fully upgraded terra preta field?  Maybe I am missing some obscure fact of agricultural economics, but I do not think so.

The Earthen Kiln concept is essentially internally financed on subsistence farms, and the metal farm kiln needs to be cheap enough to do the job in the developed world.  That is why I am actually optimistic.

bob

----- Original Message ----
From: joe ferguson <jferguson at nc.rr.com>
To: Sean K. Barry <sean.barry at juno.com>
Cc: terra pretta group <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>; Robert Klein <arclein at yahoo.com>
Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 2:49:21 PM
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Earthen Kiln Conjecture

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

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

But I don't think we'll get anywhere by trying to reconstruct thespecific process used by the ancients.  I will posit that there wereseveral variations on the process  developed by them depending uponwhere they were  in the development  cycle, and depending very muchupon the materials and capabilities available to each individualvillage  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
   
   







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