Science Forums 2

[Taildragerdriver]

David:

It might be interesting to you to know that I'm not focused on Global Warming as the reason for getting to work on Terra Preta. For most people the problem is far to big a problem for them to get their interest up because they know even with a big change it will be many years before they see any results. So I am talking about some immediate benifits of Terra Prata.

So I use the following ideas:

If Terra Preta works there are the immediate benifits to farmers.

The first and most improtant is the ability eliminate or substantially reduce the need for chemical fertilizer. This is a very expensive cost of production for most farmers.

Second is the potential to reduce the water needed for irriagtion which is another big concern for many farmers.

Third is the idea of reduced pollution from leaching of neutrients from farm fields. This is a big concern for farmers as well since they may have to invest money in not allowing runoff to go into rivers for example.

For these reasons farmers and ranchers can get behind this idea.

If we can sell charcoal to farmers then there is a potential for a great new industry in depressed rural areas

If you make charcoal you only get 40% charcoal out of the wood you put into the process. The good thing about this is that you want to produce the charcoal as close to the source of wood as you can. This means the charcoal would be produced in these little rural communities close to the forests.

The second idea is that there may be several great byproducts for charcoal making that we could make verious forms of energy from in cogeneration.

These are things that local people in rural communities can get behind.

If we can make charcoal we can reduce the excess fuels in our forests that contribute to forest fires.

One of the big concerns in the west is the forest fires that start every year and may burn up forests we recreate in and may burn our homes. Currently these fuels are only removed by burning slash after thinned the forest area. This contributes to smoke in the air which is limitied by each state so much of the slash can't be burned each year.

Making charcoal could be a soulution to this problem so many people support the idea.

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This is a very cursory view of three reasons to get started with Terra Preta but as you can see it solves immedate problems for people where I live. I tell them Terra Preta can also be a solution to Global Warming, they say thats fine, but it isn't the reason they are supporting what we are doing.

Thanks and good luck.

Taildragerdriver