[Terrapreta] Where do you get it?

[Kurt Treutlein]

I've raised this question before, and so have others. If we consider the 
large scale production of charcoal, to be used for TP, where is the 
biomass feedstock to come from?

The simplistic answer is "No worries mate, there's plenty of it going 
into landfill and being wasted". And so there is, but I suggest that it 
isn't enough for a really large scale effort.

Past societies have denuded their forests producing charcoal for 
smelting purposes, all the way back to the bronze age, not to mention 
more recent iron smelting in the USA. Today, the humble cooking fire in 
many parts of Africa and India is leading to wholesale deforestation, as 
people endeavor to fill the need for cooking fuel.

Use crop residues! Sure, but then what goes into the soil to replace the 
Soil Organic Material, that the wee beasties in our charcoal, need to eat.

The increased productivity of the soil will give us more crop residues 
and this will provide the feedstock!. Somehow that doesn't seem likely
 either.

Start managing forestry to give a sustainable output of feedstock? That 
might help, especially with coppicing. "Really selectively" log. Another 
possibility. At present a lot of forests are suffering from fatal 
attacks, pine bark beetle for one, fire killed forest areas for another. 
Building logging roads into them is considered too destructive and I 
agree. New extraction methods are needed. A while back someone married 
secondhand helicopters with an airship. It failed, but that sort of 
thing might just do it. Use the slash from legitimate agricultural land 
clearing. I see a lot of that around here and it just gets burnt, or rots.

Algae. I've mentioned that before and won't bore with it again.

Just some thoughts.

Kurt