[Terrapreta] Char made under pressurized conditions?

[Greg and April]

It's not so much as looking for free advice, but information as to how efficient their systems are, why did they choose ethanol - rather than methanol or other alcohols like butanol, how small can their system be scaled down and still retain reasonable efficiency.

Then when I'm going through early Terra Preta posts and I see a post from Danny Day, that basically says that if we have any questions about his process, we should ask.    So I did.

I have gone out and bought technical workshop journals, indeed several of them were based on the work of Tom Reed - but with the emergence of char as a beneficial agriculture product, allot of questions as to the variability of the char, are still being asked - and it sure seems like very few answers are coming forward.     Is it because the nature of the char is a company secret, or is it because people don't know?    

If it's due to a company secret, fine - tell me so, and I can accept that, because many times a patent search will at least give a few clues.


***********************


If you can suggest more sources for answers, especially sources on the internet, by all means suggest.    

It was partly an un-answered question, on the gasification list ( Two Tars and Two Stoves ), that provoked my question on this list, in hope to get an answer.

I spend allot of time internet searching, and haven't yet found the answer or even indications of one, and that in part makes me wonder if some of these questions have ever been asked by someone other than me.    Perhaps I'm just using the wrong search terms, but even then someone should be able to point me in the right direction.

I'm willing to do what homework I can, in some cases it's very much a matter of asking questions of those that are beyond what I am able to do for myself, and some questions can only be answered by those that made certain decisions, because the questions are about why they made those decisions.


Greg H.


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Tom Miles 
  To: 'Sean K. Barry' ; 'Terra Preta' ; 'Greg and April' 
  Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 13:42
  Subject: RE: [Terrapreta] Char made made under pressurized conditions?


  Sean, Greg,

   

  We should be grateful for the contributions that Danny Day, Mike Antal, Steven Joseph, Christoph Steiner and other researchers in the field  have made to this list and to the information accessible on the Terra Preta website. Their first responsibilities are to their research, their sponsors and (time) to their families so I'm not surprised if they don't take the time to answer a "cold call" question from the internet. They may have no interest or obligation to reply. Besides, it is likely they are just overloaded.  

   

  Part of the success of this list and the websites like the International Biochar Initiative, Charcoalab and others is that it increases the visibility of these researchers with the result that they get many requests for free advice from people who want them to do the thinking for them. There's too much of that on the internet. You are also asking them questions they have already answered on the list, on related lists (eg gasification, stoves), or in technical papers.  You'll find their discussions of activated charcoal in the list archives and on the websites. Some of the answers you'll find in academic papers you have to pay for.  Why should they feel compelled to answer your questions if you haven't done your homework? You are asking them to share the results of their hard earned experience.

   

  If you show that you've done your homework you'll have a better chance of getting a thoughtful reply. If you show that you have a serious commercial interest in their processes there's even a better chance they will reply.

   

  Tom

   

   
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