[Terrapreta] Economics of biochar

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Greg,

I have many of the books too and have been through some, but not all or even much of it.  Although I would say I don't completely understand it yet, like Tom Reed or Agua Das (NREL/BEF), Robert Brown (NREL/UofIA), Michael Antal (UofHI), Danny Day (Eprida) might, I'm slowly getting there.

I have cracked open some of my best college biochemistry books and bought and read from many other books sources and articles; Knowledge Publications, Scientific American, American Association for the Advancement of SCIENCE (AAAS + SCIENCE Journal), Nature, IEEE, IREE (Inititative for Renewable Energy and the Environment in Minnesota), the University of Minnesota, Department of Defense, the IPCC,  United Nations FAO/TPI, and etc.

I read as much as I can, too, of anthropological history like; Jared Diamonds, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" and "Collapse" and Charles Mann's, "1491".  I paid up my US$229 for Dr. Johannes Lehmann's (Cornell University) seminal compilation on Terra Preta, "Amazonian Dark Earth, Origins, Properties, Management".  I read all over Wikipedia and the Internet, too.

To me, it is all so very interesting; the chemistry, physics, engineering, and the applied science is all very invigoratingly thought provoking for me.  I can do it all day and night most of the time.  I think about and talk about it even while eating and sleeping.  I'm steeped in it.
It's just a great big, world wide, scientific research, experimentation, and applied science development project!!!  I'm probably going to stay at it until I die.

I am building a reactor (and more other designs and devices to follow) to do experiments.  I want to make and sell charcoal, biomass energy, gases, and biomass-to-energy/bniomass-to-charcoal conversion devices.  I want to do my own field testing with charcoal in soils and to help others to develop Terra Preta soil testing trials, development soil test procedures, and charcoal making methodologies and recipes.

I'm trying real hard to learn and still learning, because I really want to and I love doing this kind of work.  More than anything else, I think
it is my desire to understand this topic that helps me understand it.

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Greg and April<mailto:gregandapril at earthlink.net> 
  To: Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> 
  Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 9:37 AM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Economics of biochar


  Been there - even have a number of the books - still doesn't make it any easier to understand.


  From: Sean K. Barry<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com> 
    To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> ; Greg and April<mailto:gregandapril at earthlink.net> 
    Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 20:38
    Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Economics of biochar


    Hi Greg,

    I get a lot of my information from the Biomass Energy Foundation library, at www.woodgas.com<http://www.woodgas.com/>

    Regards,

    SKB
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