[Terrapreta] Coal as a soil additive

[Mark Ludlow]

So who's advocating anything? The point was that anthracite is an
EPA-approved drinking water filtration substrate in wide use. It's not
likely to harm the soil web.

Power plants burn thousands of tons of coal a day. Mercury is emitted. As it
is during the combustion of many organic materials that come from soils high
in undesirable metals, including trees.

Presumably, no one is going to dig coal out of the ground only to turn
around and bury it (are they?). What proof do we have that massive wood
pyrolysis projects would not be a source of significant mercury and other
toxic metals releases? Show me the numbers, please.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Kurt Treutlein
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2008 4:38 PM
To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Coal as a soil additive

Sean K. Barry wrote:
> Hi Mark and AK,
>  
> Doesn't coal contain levels high of mercury that are released to the 
> environment (unacceptable) when burned in a coal fired power plant? 
And then there's all that radioactive Thorium that a lot of coal 
contains. Some coalfired powerplants put out more radioactive 
contamination than than all the nuclear plants combined (minus Chernobyl 
of course).

Kurt
coal instead of charcoal goes against everything we are trying to do in TP.


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