[Terrapreta] Fw: Nature Story on journal Climatic Change Editorial- offlist

Sean K. Barry sean.barry at juno.com
Sat Jan 12 01:53:41 CST 2008 

Hi Peter Read!

Thank you for posting onto this list.  After reading Erich Knight's post regarding an article referring you, I wished to speak/email to you?  I hope you will stay a subscriber to this list and join our discussions. 

You said in your post,

"With carbon capture and storage placed on top of a biomass-based energy system it is conceivable to actually reduce the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.  Shifting to a biomass-based energy system soon would position us for this 'back off' possibility."


That's an excellent point!  To really achieve the back off possibility, we need to change the carbon flux, back out of the atmosphere and into or onto ground, or biome?  Maybe with charcoal into the soil ... Terra Preta?  This is and has been a way organics have maintained a livable environment for themselves.  To live, they just clear some wastes from out of their environment.  It's not all that complex and maybe kind of "anal", if you think about it too much.   It's seen in the simplest of life, like bateria and urea in a petri dish.

Taking carbon out of the air directly also reduces our so called "carbon footprint" (a sociological term?).  This "carbon footprint" thing can just be all about not making big ones out of fossil carbon.  But carbon is ubiquitous, as organics or waste (in the atmosphere), so these footprints on the atmosphere, made out of fossil carbon can be made out of any other carbon.  Does that make sense to anyone?

Based on this ubiquitous status of carbon, anyone of us can do anything that shifts any carbon into or out of the atmosphere.  Based on observable levels of waste carbon around us in the atmosphere, we could take a hint and try and reduce some of that.  So, taking carbon directly out of the atmosphere, any way we can is a reasonable thing to do, if we accept that whether we put or take carbon into/out of the atmosphere has anything to do with atmospheric carbon levels.  This is just the same as whether we accept the IPCCs premise, that if we put carbon into the atmosphere, that atmospheric carbon levels will rise and we will endure the effects of GW and GCC, etc.

This energy management policy that sounds prudent after all; conservation and conversion to renewable energy sources, right?

I think we can do otherwise with management of our carbon wastes.  I think there may be really only one biochemical possibility for us to avoid any more deleterious effects on the climate. that are being caused by fossil fuel burning.  We do need to go beyond the obvious, which is to just STOP BURNING FOSSIL FUELS!  We must reduce CO2 from the atmosphere another way, more directly, even if we need to use energy to do it.  We can deal with waste CO2 in the atmosphere in a better way.  Considering taking carbon directly out of the atmosphere is just a carbon waste management scheme, for sure, a big one.  But I think, it really is the only possible way, ... direct atmospheric carbon reductions now!  At full throttle in reverse gear.

The atmosphere is moving now, radically, in an very altered direction.  I think, we are about to "twist the bejesuzz" out of our ankle here, if we don't adjust our tread on this path with carbon flux to and from and on the atmosphere.  There is no good scientific reason, not to see what we are doing to the atmosphere with human fossil fuel burning.  Fossil carbon burning also has no evidence that it is going to stop or let up even anytime soon either.  Perhaps not quite before any of it is all gone?  Dealing with carbon in our lives can be "the issue of our time", if we need it to be, maybe?

So, yes, I think we need to stop burning fossil fuels as much as possible now.  Then getting the energy we need will have to come from another source.  We will have to find ways to reduce are use of fossil fuels, are "carbon footprint", some call it.  Carbonless, renewable energy is a way to go on finding the energy, because it reduces our "carbon footprint".  This is what they say, right?

Well, I think that all we need to do could be this simple ...  Just clean up our "carbon footprints" on the atmosphere.  Just that simple; take our footprints out of the atmosphere and put them back on the ground.  This seems like a stupidly simple thought to me somehow, it's like your mom talking to you about cleaning up your bedroom and your boot prints in the mud room of the house.  I wonder if the obvious thing is to " ... not make a mess, clean up your mess, and try not to make any more messes like that in the future"?  

So, there is anther way to fight and reduce our carbon effect.  Do like Mom says, and "We can all actively do things that promote picking up things around here and taking care of in our lives and around here !"  It's the uptake of our "carbon footprints" from our bedroom.  There are ~6 billion of us.  We can all just take 1 ton of carbon out of the atmosphere every year (our yearly chore).  This would equal ~6 billion tons of carbon.  Just like the size of the estimated positive fossil carbon flux into the atmosphere, which is supposedly being caused by humans.  So, we all offset it, by each chipping in and cleaning up our 1 ton of carbon per year.  Maybe we could even get paid to do that?!  Like an allowance?!

Keep in touch.

Regards,

Sean K. Barry
Principal Engineer/Owner
Troposphere Energy, LLC
11170 142nd St. N.
Stillwater, MN 55082-4797
(651)-285-0904 (Work/Cell)
(651)-351-0711 (Home/Fax)
sean.barry at juno.com<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com>

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Peter Read<mailto:pread2 at attglobal.net> 
  To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 4:32 AM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Fw: Nature Story on journal Climatic Change Editorial- offlist


  Hi terrapreta people
  Nice to join you
  My response to the question raised by Erich furthest below is as immediately below
  Despite my grumble over Climatic Change reviewers it is an excellent journal aiming to present inter-disciplinary research
  best
  Peter


  -----Original Message-----
  From: Peter Read [mailto:peter at read.org.nz] On Behalf Of Peter Read
  Sent: January 10, 2008 12:12 PM
  To: still.thinking at computare.org; Shengar at aol.com; terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Nature Story on journal Climatic Change Editorial


    Hi Duane and everyone



    The essay in Climatic Change contains a passage that runs



                ""More generally, the stocking of carbon, once fixed by photosynthesis can be:

      ·         pre-combustion - standing forest (Read 1996),

      ·         post combustion - CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) (Obersteiner et al. 2001),

      ·         partial combustion - pyrolysis to yield bio-oils plus stable carbon biochar that can be permanently stocked in the soil, raising fertility (Lehmann et al. 2005), or

      ·         nothing to do with combustion - wooden houses and other structures.

      These examples show that negative emissions energy systems are a sub-set of the negative emissions systems that yield economic benefits. In turn, a larger set includes systems that yield no economic benefit, such as 'pickling logs' and the direct capture of CO2 from the air and its storage underground (Keith and Ha-Duong 2003).""

    So biochar was not forgotten.  That said, the focus of the essay is on the potential of biosphere management to control carbon levels much more rapidly than is possible while priority is given to emissions reductions.  But note that the calculations that yield this result were done early in 2005 and have been surpressed by the gatekeepers of mitigation orthodoxy [i.e. reviewers at Climatic Change] for over two years, hence missing the IPCC's 4th assessment report. Those calculations can be accessed though Read and Parshotam, 2007  http://ips.ac.nz/publications/publications/show/205<http://ips.ac.nz/publications/publications/show/205> and, if I recall correctly, include a small role for biochar.  At that date I was too uncertain of biochar data to give it a large role, as I would if re-doing the arithmetic today.  The IPS Working Paper includes the comments of reviewers G and H along with my rejoinders, which may entertain.



    A propos the Nature report I have asked them to publish a letter correcting certain errors, as attached 



    Have a good 2008



    Peter





      ----- Original Message ----- 



      From: Duane Pendergast<mailto:still.thinking at computare.org> 

      To: Shengar at aol.com<mailto:Shengar at aol.com> ; terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 

      Cc: Peter Read<mailto:pread2 at attglobal.net> 

      Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2008 7:00 PM

      Subject: RE: [Terrapreta] Nature Story on journal Climatic Change Editorial



      Eric



      I believe Peter Read initially started out to propose that carbon dioxide from burning of biofuels could be sequestered by pumping it underground as is proposed for fossil fuels. He noted that this would constitute a means of establishing negative emissions.  I think he later he became aware of the charcoal and terra preta concept. He participated in the conference Danny Day organized in Georgia in 2004.



      His paper is available on the Internet and he does include the production of char as a soil enricher.



      http://www.springerlink.com/content/rt798740226381q8/fulltext.pdf<http://www.springerlink.com/content/rt798740226381q8/fulltext.pdf>





      The Nature story you posted Eric, suggests to me that Climatic Change and editor Stephen Schneider are both a little slow to pick up and expose new ideas. Better late than never though.  



      Congratulations Peter for fighting this through the publishing system. Maybe you would like to contribute to the list and help to enlighten us - or correct my understanding of the progression of your interest in this.





      Duane Pendergast







      --Original Message-----
      From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org [mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Shengar at aol.com
      Sent: January 9, 2008 10:14 PM
      To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
      Subject: [Terrapreta] Nature Story on journal Climatic Change Editorial



      Hi All,



      No direct charcoal wording in the text of this Nature story, 

      I couldn't find the Climate Change journal article, but from this Nature story ...I have one question.

      Does Peter Read's proposal involve Charcoal to the soil via pyrolysis?

      Referees at the journal Climatic Change rejected Read's paper, but editor Stephen Schneider elected to publish it as an editorial commentary.

      Published online 9 January 2008 | Nature 451, 113 (2008) | doi:10.1038/451113a 

      News

      Could global gardening fix climate change?
      Biomass proposal could hugely reduce carbon dioxide levels.

      http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080109/full/451113a.html<http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080109/full/451113a.html>





      Erich




--------------------------------------------------------------------------

      Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape<http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aolcmp00300000002489> in the new year. 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------

      No virus found in this incoming message.
      Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
      Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.17.13/1213 - Release Date: 1/7/2008 9:14 AM



----------------------------------------------------------------------------


    No virus found in this incoming message.
    Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
    Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.17.13/1213 - Release Date: 1/7/2008 9:14 AM

  _______________________________________________
  Terrapreta mailing list
  Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
  http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/
  http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org
  http://info.bioenergylists.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /attachments/20080112/2f3e11ec/attachment-0001.html

More information about the Terrapreta mailing list