To RB
Thanks for the kind words, but we are not likely to be admired much by the terra preta researchers. I've read their stuff. It is way out there. We aren't being scientific. But what we are doing, and what the world needs as much as their work, is throwing ideas around about how carbon burial and the modern world might meet in reality rather than in theory. What can Everyman and Everywoman do rather than wait for a technology that may never show up? Maybe one of these ideas will spread, who knows. All I know is that this feels better than sitting around waiting for the world to fry and feeling both guilty and powerless, like most everyone I know feels about global warming. (Which suggests society is heading for a communal neurosis that would let the extremists loose.)
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Originally Posted by RBlack
note the particle size comments on p. 355. This gets into the idea that the Amazonian Indians didn't screen their char through a #50 screen but just sort of used it as is.
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Hold on, Lehmann's paper is a modern experiment and says nothing about what the Amerindians did.
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There does seem to be a fair amount of evidence that the charcoal in the soil adsorbs some of the microbial gas emissions.
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Not sure about this. Activated charcoal, yes, but that is from high temperature pyrolysis and I don't think it occurs in TP. Another explanation, to me more likely, is that the reduction in emissions is directly related to the increase in compounds protected from decomposition within TP soil aggregates, a physical effect rather than a chemical one. Perhaps "all of the above" is the right answer. The issue underlines a need to analyse TP for glomalin and its effects on aggregation, pronto.
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So when calculating the carbon sequestration benefits we need to take into account:
1. actual carbon put into the soil
2. reduction of CO2 emissions and increase of SOM (made from carbon/stores carbon)
3. the amount of carbon taking from the atmosphere by increased biomass production due to soil fertility (if charred and put back into the soil)
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Where is point 2 from? CH4 and N2O emissions are reduced, but who has measured CO2?
To 3 I would add increased glomalin storage from increased fungal biomass. It can be huge over time (6% by weight of one Hawaiian forest soil).
