[Terrapreta] Strong warning against "simple" charcoal kilns

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Lorenzo,

Thanks for this post confirming my admonition against attempting Terra Preta Nova with millions or billions of simple "charcoal-in-a-barrel" kilns.  We cannot use stone age methods to solve this very modern day set of problems.  Rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere hold enormous numbers of tons of carbon.  No less than some trilllions of tons of CO2 have been produces by humankind and introduced into the atmosphere that had not seen this kind of influx in hundreds of millions of years.  We could NEVER change that using barrel size kilns that make 1 kg a day (and probably release 2-5kg a day of carbon).  We can't use only WOOD!  Wood fixes carbon longer than many other forms of biomass.

1) Feed the world by improving soil fertility

2) Reduce GHG concentrations in the atmosphere

3) Supply the worlds energy demand when fossil fuels are dwindling into expensive and rare commodities.

This WILL NOT happen with barrel sized charcoal kilns that lose more then they extract from biomass sources.  Even when we develop ways to make charcoal cleanly and harvest bio-energy and biochemical feedstocks, then we will still not SOLVE any of these problems completely.
I do not think that the scope of the undertaking we propose is well understood by most.

Here is a common engineer's explanation to requesters,  "Good, fast, or cheap?  Pick TWO."

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Biopact<mailto:biopact at biopact.com> 
  To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Sunday, April 27, 2008 9:28 AM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Strong warning against "simple" charcoal kilns


  It has been repeated here a few times. We should be careful not to ruin the potential of Terra Preta by coupling it to inefficient, GHG emitting charcoal devices.

  Many of these simple devices are 10 to 20% efficient at best. Biochar's only way to make a difference is by using highly efficient pyrolyser units that maximally exploit the energy content in the biomass and that minimize GHG emissions. Syngas, heat, pyrolysis oil - all these he byproducts must be explicitly used to offset fossil fuels. 

  So I urge all of us to limit references to "simple" charcoal kilns, and then only in the context of biochar trials that look at the effects of char in soils. For the rest, I think we should continuously stress that one of the most urgent needs is the development of highly efficient pyrolysis units.

  Else, we could be ruining the entire Terra Preta venture. Remember, there are many people reading these texts, and they may spread amongst journalists. If they get the impression that we are a bunch of people who just pyrolyse our way through this concept, then the initial potency of the very concept may get lost. 

  Cheers, 
  Lorenzo
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