[Terrapreta] Biomass sources

[Kurt Treutlein]

Hi folkes,

We're getting a lot of yaketty yak about carbon taxes, what have you. 
It's way too early for that. We're getting all sorts of missionary zeal 
about turning  as much biomass as possible into char, so it can be 
buried, perhaps to improve soil productivity and certainly to sequester 
CO2 from the atmosphere. Very nice, but-=----

Where is all that biomass to come from? Cut down existing forests?? Not 
good. Grow it on agricultural land? Also not good, we're short of food 
now and certain activities to produce bio fuels are exacerbating that. 
Use all the "waste" crop residues (eg corn stover)? Also not good. If 
you remove that and turn it into char, where is the Soil Organic 
Material going to come from? We're short of that virtually everywhere 
now, are we going to end up with sterile soils that need artificial 
fertilizers to produce anything at all? I mean we've basically got that 
now, in many places. Will the improved productivity of the created 
Terrapreta Nova make up for it? We don't know, and personally, I doubt 
it. We still have to find out if this works anywhere but in tropical 
soils like the Amazon.

Were is the biomass going to come from? Sure, there is quite a bit of 
waste available, but nowhere enough to provide what we need. (I'm 
talking municipal waster here, not socalled "crop waste"). There IS a 
possibility:. *ALGAE*. If you haven't already, have a look at 
"oil_from_algae" a mailing list that's a next door neighbour. Especially 
the early posts as I suspect it's also bogged down in talk about 
subsidies and all that crap, at present. An acre of algae pond can 
produce huge volumes of biomass. Some of it even has oil in it which 
would be usefull for fuel. Easier to grow would be ordinary algae, such 
as maybe spirulina. Dry it, pelletize it and pyrolise it--- there could 
be your char. Where would you grow it? Desert areas come to mind, even 
floating farms, on the sea. Many algae grow quite happily in salt water 
so water supplies might not be a problem, though spent water disposal 
might be.

The benefits? No degradation of existing farm land, or virgin land 
areas. Utilisation of otherwise impossible land areas. Use of the sea. 
There would even be the possibility of energy extraction, as such ponds 
would heat up in the sun and quite possibly need cooling. Organic 
Rankine Cycle power plants come to mind. They are already in use.

Lets try thinking outside the square paddock on land.

regards,

Kurt