[Terrapreta] re Cameron Smith has some questions

[Cameron Smith]

Lloyd,

Thanks for your response. I want to spend some time considering it,  
and I'll get back to  you. In the mean time, I'd like to ask, if I  
may, that you don't quote me out of context. When I said "Taking  
carbon out of circulation might not be a good idea," I was talking  
about, what appeared to me, to be the inadvisability of destroying  
what could become soil, with all the minerals and nutrients intact.  
Gasification unquestionably breaks the biological  carbon cycle.  
Whether this is something we should accept, or something we should  
resist, is the issue. You've given me the argument for. What I  
haven't got yet is a life cycle analysis of the of the gasification  
feedstock.

You are undoubtedly aware of the study prepared for the Regional  
Municipality of Niagara, which did a full cost accounting of various  
waste management schemes. It took into account not just operating and  
capital costs. It also looked at the cost health and environmental  
impacts. One of the things it didn't look at was the cost of the  
impact of breaking the carbon cycle. No doubt there will  
disagreements with the study. I have some myself. In any event, under  
this particular study, energy to waste systems didn't do very well.

As a society, we haven't begun to engage in full cost accounting and  
life cycle analyses, and until we do, we'll remain a long way from  
practicing sustainability.

All best regards,

Cameron Smith


On 26-Jun-08, at 1:52 AM, Lloyd Helferty wrote:

> Jeff, Cameron,
>
>   Sorry for the late reply, but I just wanted to come back to this  
> message.
>   I'm going to forward this to a new grouping of people in Ontario  
> who have come together to talk 'Biochar'.  We are calling ourselves  
> "Biochar-Ontario".
> I am also copying the folks on the TerraPreta BioEnergy List for  
> discussion there. (I can forward you a compendium of their  
> responses at a later date if you would like.)
>
>   My own response would be as follows:
>
> You say that "Taking carbon out of circulation may not be a good  
> idea."  This statement actually astounds me. Humans are adding over  
> eight billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year  
> from the burning of fossil fuels (natural gas, coal and oil)!   
> (3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide is equivalent to 1 tonne of solid  
> carbon.)
> This is why the Global atmosphere is warming, polar ice caps are  
> melting, and we are at such a critical point with respect to the  
> biological equilibrium that keeps us all alive.
>
> You correctly point out that all living things are part of the  
> carbon cycle and that carbon is continually turned over during the  
> natural progression through birth, growth, death, decomposition and  
> re-birth. It is always in a state of flux, moving between plants,  
> animals, soils, microbial biomass, the atmosphere, rivers and  
> oceans. Some of the carbon atoms in our bodies at this moment have  
> in the past been constituents of the plants, animals and soils  
> present on earth many millions of years ago. People are around 18%  
> carbon, wood around 50% and the organic matter component of soils  
> are around 58% carbon.
> Importantly, the processes that build new topsoil require that more  
> carbon be stored in soil than is lost to the atmosphere!
> In a healthy ecosystem, vibrant, living soils are one of the most  
> important and dynamic parts of the carbon cycle. The carbon  
> compounds added to soil (usually naturally, as exudates from active  
> plant roots and the decomposition of plant and animal residues),  
> are the 'fuel' for all of the biological processes that improve  
> soil structure, which in turn increases oxygen and moisture  
> retention and creates better conditions for more life.   
> Deliberately adding additional carbon to soils is intended to  
> leverage this natural process.
>
> 82% of the carbon in the terrestrial biosphere is already in the  
> soil -- not in the living biomass above the soil.  For instance,  
> healthy grasslands may contain over 100 times more carbon in the  
> soil than on it.
> The world's soils hold three times as much carbon as the atmosphere  
> and over four times as much carbon as all of the vegetation  
> combined. Soil therefore represents the largest carbon sink over  
> which we have control.
>
> Up to 80% of the carbon has already been lost from the topsoil in  
> many farmed soils, often as a direct result of the loss of the soil  
> itself. Even today, most farming businesses continue to lose soil  
> carbon - their most valuable asset!
> As a result, landholders invest a great deal of time and effort in  
> forcing ‘dead’ soils to be productive ~ using ever increasing  
> quantities of natural and chemical "fertilizers".
>
> Soils under healthy perennial pasture may contain up to 350 tonnes  
> of carbon per hectare and sustain high levels of microbial  
> activity. Conversely, there is very little organic carbon left to  
> lose from the surface horizons of many farmed soils.
>
> Increasing soil carbon levels will result in improved soil  
> structure, lower bulk density, greater porosity, higher  
> infiltration rates, more effective use of rainfall, enhanced water  
> quality, higher cation exchange capacity, greater sequestration of  
> nitrogen and sulphur, enhanced availability of phosphorus and trace  
> elements, reduced costs, reduced inputs, improved biodiversity and  
> increased productivity.
>
> These positive outcomes are all linked to what should be the core  
> business of EVERY farm business – the sequestration of atmospheric  
> carbon!
>
> For every 2.7 tonnes of carbon that can be sequestered into soil,  
> this represents 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide removed from the  
> atmosphere.  Humans would have to bury over 2 Billion tons of  
> Biochar every year to make up for what we are adding to the  
> atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels.  We won't be able  
> to do it alone.
>
> Our intention is to put the Biochar back into the soils and use the  
> Biochar as a type of 'catalyst' to assist and accelerate nature's  
> own processes to create ever more life so that nature herself can  
> do the job of sequestering all of that excess atmospheric carbon  
> for us.
>
> Biochar doesn't just "fix nitrogen".  Biochar can potentially  
> benefits the soil horizon by:
>     * Enhancing plant growth
>     * Suppressing methane emission
>     * Reducing nitrous oxide emission (by up to 50%)
>          -- Nitrous Oxide is a major greenhouse gas. The  
> atmospheric concentration of nitrous oxide has grown by about 15%  
> since the mid-1700's. It has 310 times more impact on global  
> warming per mass unit of carbon dioxide (CO2).
>     * Reducing fertilizer requirements (by at least 10% in already  
> depleted soils)
>     * Reducing the leaching of nutrients
>     * Lowering soil acidity
>     * Lowering aluminium toxicity
>     * Increasing soil aggregation due to increased fungal hyphae
>     * Improving soil water handling characteristics
>     * Increasing soil levels of available Ca, Mg, P, and K  
> (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and potassium -- all of which are  
> essential for plant growth)
>     * Increasing soil microbial respiration
>     * Increasing soil microbial biomass
>     * Stimulating symbiotic nitrogen fixation in legumes
>     * Increasing arbuscular mycorrhyzal fungi
>     * Increasing cation exchange capacity
>
>   And, most importantly, for storing carbon in a long term stable  
> sink.
>
> But it won't be just Biochar alone that will be able to do this.   
> It will require substantial changes in a multitude of human  
> 'systems' -- including the restoration of vast expanses of  
> agricultural lands that have now been so degraded as to be nearly  
> unusable without their chemical inputs. (This can be done through  
> the use of organic methods of farming, i.e. Permaculture, without  
> having to sacrifice the production of food ~ although food  
> production would become more labour intensive and thus more  
> expensive.  But we are seeing the latter anyway, especially with  
> the rising prices of oil & natural gas.)
> Basically, it will require that we (humanity) work to re-establish  
> and re-establish (re-naturalize) what we have effectively depleted;  
> the most important resource we have: the natural ecosystems of this  
> Earth.
>
> As Jeff has so correctly pointed out, Biochar is "The Mother of All  
> Wedges".
>
>     Lloyd Helferty, Engineering Technologist
>     Thornhill, ON
>     905-707-8754
>     647-886-8754
>
>
> From: Jeff Berg [mailto:jeffberg at rogers.com]
> Sent: June 17, 2008 9:07 PM
> To: Bruce Darrell; Douglas Prest; Lloyd Helferty
> Cc: Cameron Smith
> Subject: re Cameron Smith has some questions
> Importance: High
>
> Gentleman I present to you Mr. Cameron Smith, Mr. Smith meet what I  
> call the burgeoning biochar brain trust.
>
> Lloyd Helferty: GPO Research and Innovation Candidate and an energy  
> technologist.
> Douglas Prest: (if I remember correctly) Is a professionally  
> trained engineer and working with Lloyd on a business model for  
> biochar.
> Bruce Darrel: Is a trained architect and FEASTA researcher where he  
> has worked with Richard Douthewaite for the last couple of years.
>
> Cameron as most of you will probably already know is a writer and  
> thinker of some renown, writes articles for the Toronto Star, and  
> is a man who has been on the right side of the ecological ledger  
> for many decades now.
>
> Gentlemen below you will find a few questions by Senor Cameron on  
> biochar. (Or what I like to call 'The Mother of All Wedges":-)
>
> ton confrere,
>
> J.F. Berg
> www.postcarbontoronto.org
> www.pledgeTOgreen.ca
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Cameron Smith
> To: Jeff Berg
> Cc: Wayne Roberts ; Tyler Hamilton ; Adria Vasil
> Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 12:56 PM
> Subject: Re: Biochar/Gassification Experimentation Kit
>
> Jeff,
>
> Thanks for sending me this material on the experimenter's kit.
>
> I have a concern that I haven't yet been able to resolve. As I read  
> it, biochar is like coke. It takes carbon out of circulation for a  
> long period of time. I've been searching, so far without success,  
> for a life cycle analysis of the carbon that is being sequestered.  
> What would it have been doing in the specific environment in  
> question if it had been dealt with in other ways? For instance, the  
> compost you get from biodigesters can be returned to the soil in  
> ways that allow carbon to ensure the availability of minerals and  
> nutrients. As we know, carbon operates in a zillion way to create a  
> healthy soil, and good and abundant food comes only from healthy  
> soils. I keep seeing assertions that biochar is a good fertilizer,  
> because it fixes nitrogen. But carbon's role in ecosystems goes way  
> beyond that.
>
> Globally, we've lost 20 per cent of topsoil within the past 50  
> years. I don't have an equivalent figure for soil degradation, but  
> it also is a major concern. Taking carbon out of circulation may  
> not be a good idea. I keep running into technological proposals all  
> the time where there hasn't been a thorough examination of  
> ecological effects, and so I keep trying to go back to basic  
> ecological principles.
>
> Can you help with this?
>
> Cameron
>
> On 11-Jun-08, at 1:27 AM, Jeff Berg wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Gasification Experimenter's Kit
>> Jeremy Faludi
>> May 29, 2008 10:27 PM
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Want to make your own carbon-negative fuel at home? You may soon  
>> be able to. We wrote last fall about gasification and biochar  
>> being a way to burn agricultural waste or other organic matter in  
>> a special way that (theoretically) sequesters more carbon in the  
>> resulting charcoal than it emits into the atmosphere while burning...
>

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