[Terrapreta] Ice-age anyone / water content of TP source material

[Greg and April]

 If it triggers a Dansgaard-Oeschger event, the cooling will affect the
 entire northern hemisphere as it reconfigures ocean currents - some think
 that the Little Ice Age was part of one such event, and if so, then that
 would put us currently in a naturally occurring warm period.

 As to the effects of moisture in the source material, what I do know, is it
 will delay carbon formation and take more fuel to char the materials.
 What I don't know, but suspect, is that there might be some steam
 reformation going on with parent material.


 Greg H.


> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Corprew / Zeitgeist" <corprew at gmail.com>
> To: "Greg and April" <gregandapril at earthlink.net>
> Cc: "gordon eliott" <gordoneliott0 at googlemail.com>; "Terra Preta" 
> <terrapreta at bioenergylists.org>
> Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 10:12
> Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Ice-age anyone / water content of TP source 
> material
>
>
>>
>> Relevant details about this can be found at: 
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation and 
>> they say cooling of N. Europe, not an overall cooling for the planet.
>>
>> Note that this is largely irrelevant to the question of Terra Preta, but 
>> I do have an actual TP-related question:
>>
>> I'm in the Seattle area (North-Western Corner of US) currently, and I was 
>> wondering what effect moisture in the source material (mostly blackberry 
>> bushes and bamboo in this case -- those are crazy weeds in this part of 
>> the planet) has on the use of terra preta, or if someone has a technique 
>> they'd recommend for somewhat dampish materials.[1]
>>
>> I've previously used a retort made from a steel barrel in a somewhat 
>> haphard that turned out similar to Folke Gunther's on the list a couple 
>> of days ago[2], but I was wondering if people had any useful technique 
>> advice.  I'm doing this as an experiment in using the spring harvest of 
>> weeds as TP source material, so it's very important that none of the 
>> source be capable of sprouting by the time the process ends.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> --Corprew
>> [1] the current energy requirement to dry out a bunch of wood locally 
>> borders on the hilarious.
>> [2] http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/gunthersimple0408
>