Terra Preta in the news

[Eclipse Now]

For instance, has the summary statement below ever been independently verified by someone like the CSIRO? If so we may have some hope for the rural agricultural sector at least! (The rest of us in the cities can cycle or use short EV trips).

10 tons of any woody or plant biomass and turns it into 1 ton of charcoal and 3.2 tons of diesel.

[Michaelangelica]

A great summary of the whole deal
Journal Blog Archive Biochar and Terra Preta

[Eclipse Now]

Yeah, Big Gav's a mate... another Sydney peak oiler.

I don't think that article answers the questions about how much fuel this could provide to the farming community though, and how dispersed the Biochar factories would have to be to make it fuel economical. How much biomass can those big-rigs carry to the factory, how far, using how much fuel, and then carry all the biochar and fuel back?

How are we going to do farming if oil imports are cut by 50% over the next 10 years? (rationing)
How are we going to continue mining, farming, freight and construction of the next generation of renewable energy systems (including Biochar power-plants) if many nations hit as low as 1/5 their fuel in the same amount of time? (Australia peaked in 2000 and our oil production has plummeted! If we can't import... we're stuffed. Instant Greater Depression, just add water. Well, remove oil. )

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Eclipse Now

Yeah, Big Gav's a mate... another Sydney peak oiler.

I don't think that article answers the questions about how much fuel this could provide to the farming community though, and how dispersed the Biochar factories would have to be to make it fuel economical. How much biomass can those big-rigs carry to the factory, how far, using how much fuel, and then carry all the biochar and fuel back?

Good question that why i would like to see mobile rigs
Or factories with large amounts of waste to have their own plants
Most council separate green waste now so we could have a plant at every council depot and the char milled fine and given to gardeners to save water, river-run-off-pollution ,and fertiliser. Milled fine it would be more difficlt to burn.

I notice my local Land Care Group harvests bags of weeds every week and 'tidies up' things like fallen bits of tree etc. In effect they are harvesting from the land every week. Some charcoal could be given to Land Gare Groups to make up for the lack of regular fires, & therefore charcoal, that the bush used to get.

How are we going to do farming if oil imports are cut by 50% over the next 10 years? (rationing)
How are we going to continue mining, farming, freight and construction of the next generation of renewable energy systems (including Biochar power-plants) if many nations hit as low as 1/5 their fuel in the same amount of time? (Australia peaked in 2000 and our oil production has plummeted! If we can't import... we're stuffed. Instant Greater Depression, just add water. Well, remove oil. )

You could of course collect bio-oil from the pyrolysis waste stream.

you can use algae and sugar cane.
BUT
Lets hope we have cracked the hydrogen genie by then.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Eclipse Now

Yeah, Big Gav's a mate... another Sydney peak oiler.

I don't think that article answers the questions about how much fuel this could provide to the farming community though, and how dispersed the Biochar factories would have to be to make it fuel economical. How much biomass can those big-rigs carry to the factory, how far, using how much fuel, and then carry all the biochar and fuel back?

Good question that's why I would like to see mobile rigs.

Or factories with large amounts of waste to have their own plants.

Most council separate green waste now so we could have a plant at every council depot and the char milled fine and given to gardeners to save water, river-run-off-pollution ,and fertiliser. Milled fine it would be more difficlt to burn.

I notice my local Land Care Group harvests bags of weeds every week and 'tidies up' /collects things like fallen bits of tree etc. In effect they are harvesting from the land every week. Some charcoal could be given to Land Care Groups to make up for the lack of regular fires, & therefore charcoal, that the bush used to get.

How are we going to do farming if oil imports are cut by 50% over the next 10 years? (rationing)
How are we going to continue mining, farming, freight and construction of the next generation of renewable energy systems (including Biochar power-plants) if many nations hit as low as 1/5 their fuel in the same amount of time? (Australia peaked in 2000 and our oil production has plummeted! If we can't import... we're stuffed. Instant Greater Depression, just add water. Well, remove oil. )

You could of course collect bio-oil from the pyrolysis waste stream.

You can use algae and sugar cane.
BUT
Lets hope we have cracked the hydrogen genie by then.

If you think bio-char has problems,energy wise, look at this wacky idea from Professor Garaut!
How can people ignore Terra preta so profoundly?

Ross Garnaut has bush answer to climate change

Michael Stutchbury and Christian Kerr | September 30, 2008
On the eve of delivering his final report on climate change, Professor Garnaut said this would include so-called bio-sequestration, which could be as simple as revegetating much of Australia's marginal wheat and grazing land back to its original mulga coverage.

This could include a form of rotation in which parts of the revegetation would be chopped down and buried to store the carbon. "In this country there might be huge opportunities for doing that over the next 30 or 40 years," he told The Australian. "It basically could do the job for the next 20 to 30 years."

By absorbing carbon, such land restoration could help halve Australian emissions, he said. But this would require a change to the international rules for accounting for carbon use under emissions reduction schemes, which would provide monetary incentives for such measures.

Ross Garnaut has bush answer to climate change | The Australian

[Eclipse Now]

We can crack the water genie to get hydrogen, easy. But it's a non-starter because you take relatively expensive renewable electricity to produce 1/4 the energy in the car. At least batteries are about 50% efficient.



Maybe, just maybe we'll have government subsidies for farmers and essential trucking industries to do the uber-expensive hydrogen thang, if there's no other way. But I understand it's really going to cost society doing it that way.

Hydrogen will always be a premium fuel for the essential sectors, not you and I. We'll get around on dinky little EV's with a 120 km limit (before 5 hour recharge).

I was just hoping that we might have some of the alternative fuel for farmers here, in biochar fuel. (Biochar fuel will not power broader society or fill my 6 cylinder Mitsubishi wagon!)

[Michaelangelica]

Look at this Dingbat
Ross Garnaut has bush answer to climate change | The Australian
The guy who is supposed to present Australia's National and International views on global Warming!!!!!
The Lord Preserve us!!!!!

Opps, using Austrian again

DINGBAT = Dingbat:= a stupid person, such as someone who can't figure out what a dingbat is.

Toxic Custard Guide To Australia - Language and slang

[Eclipse Now]

Dingbat is great, but what is opps? With my army background I thought "opps" were something you did at night with Vegemite smeared all over your face. Oooops. Maybe that wasn't meant to be Vegemite, but you never know when you'll need to ward off drop-bears!

[Essay]

At the risk of being "on topic," I'm gonna post this here.
Sorry if I'm just repeating someone else's "news" from another thread, but I think this is....

Originally Posted by Nov.18, 2008

Cornell Chronicle: Black carbon affects climate predictions

A detailed analysis of black carbon -- the residue of burned organic matter -- in computer climate models suggests that those models may be overestimating global warming predictions.

A new Cornell study, published online in Nature Geosciences, quantified the amount of black carbon in Australian soils and found that there was far more than expected, said Johannes Lehmann, the paper's lead author and a Cornell professor of biogeochemistry.

The findings are significant because soils are by far the world's largest source of carbon dioxide, producing 10 times more carbon dioxide each year than all the carbon dioxide emissions from human activities combined. Small changes in how carbon emissions from soils are estimated, therefore, can have a large impact. ....
"We know from measurements that climate change today is worse than people have predicted," said Lehmann. "But this particular aspect, black carbon's stability in soil, if incorporated in climate models, would actually decrease climate predictions."
...
"It's a mistake to look at soil as one blob of carbon," said Lehmann. "Rather, it has different chemical components with different characteristics. In this way, soil will interact differently to warming based on what's in it."

"...overestimating global warming predictions."
...maybe in this one area, but they're no doubt underestimating in other areas.
Not to be an apologist, but I just don't want quotes like the above to be used as "rock-solid evidence." No doubt it'll only be a few days....

Stuff like this is a part of a holistic undertanding of soil/climate dynamics,
yet to be fully discovered, IMHO.

~

p.s. I wouldn't have run across this link without a bit of web-wandering, motivated by
that great Nat.Geo. Link "Lost Cities of the Amazon."
Expedition Week | Lost Cities of the Amazon | National Geographic Channel
(1-2pm Sunday!)

Thanks all!!!

[Michaelangelica]

The Case for Burying Charcoal

Research shows that pyrolysis is the most climate-friendly way to consume biomass.
By Tyler Hamilton

* Audio »
o Listen - Flash

Carbon capture: Heating biomass such as wood pellets (right) in an oxygen-free environment produces char (left) and byproducts such as methane that can be burned.

Research shows that turning biomass into char and burying the char is a good way to avoid releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.


Several states in this country and a number of Scandinavian countries are trying to supplant some coal-burning by burning biomass such as wood pellets and agricultural residue. Unlike coal, biomass is carbon-neutral, releasing only the carbon dioxide that the plants had absorbed in the first place.

But a new research paper published online in the journal Biomass and Bioenergy argues that the battle against global warming may be better served by instead heating the biomass in an oxygen-starved process called pyrolysis, extracting methane, hydrogen, and other byproducts for combustion, and burying the resulting carbon-rich char.

Technology Review: The Case for Burying Charcoal

Turning Slash into Cash

A portable plant might make it economical to transform huge amounts of logging "waste" into energy -- right in the forest.

Technology Review: Turning Slash into Cash

Observing Buried Carbon Dioxide

A project proves that millions of tons of the sequestered gas can be safely monitored.

Technology Review: Observing Buried Carbon Dioxide
Really?
this is where the BIG money is until farmer's organisations get on the Terra preta bandwagon.