Terra Preta in the news

[erich]

Hi Michael,

The film has Dr. Hepperly (Rodale) and Flanagan talking of Organic methods cutting CO2 20%, no mention of char

When Dr. Hepperly wrote that article on TP a year or more ago , I sent him my TP post and called twice, but have received no replies.

Erich

[scalbers]

Today on the radio/TV show "Democracy Now" there was broadcast an hour long address by Tim Flannery recently given in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He mentioned pyrolysis and char as an important component of solving global warming. In a few hours this will be available as an on-demand video from the Democracy Now website.

[Michaelangelica]

New Zealand Herald

Search Results

Roles focus on charcoal's benefits
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Two professorships at Massey University have won Government funding for
wide-ranging research of "biochar". Studies overseas have ...

Govt funds two professors for research in biochar sector
Friday, December 14, 2007
Two professorships at Massey University have won government funding for
wide-ranging research of "biochar". Research overseas has ...

Brian Fallow: Price signal faint at first but the key to tackling emissions
Thursday, September 20, 2007
... is crucial both to reducing the country's net emissions in the short to medium term
and to ensuring there is a plentiful source of biofuels, biochar and green ...

NZ Herald: Search for biochar

Mangawhai Earthwhisperers(BLOG)
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Dr Peter Read to talk about Agrichar

What is the Agrichar process?


Agricultural feedstocks such as animal manure, rice hulls, peanut shells, corn stover or forest waste are pyrolized at low temperatures to produce a char product (Agrichar or biochar) and separate bio-energy streams, in the form of oils and/or gases. The biochar captures about 50% of the carbon in the feedstock, and can be used as a soil amendment to improve soil fertility, stability, and productivity, and to store carbon in the soils, as a means of mitigating global warming.

Mangawhai Earthwhisperers: Dr Peter Read to talk about Agrichar

[Arjen]

Hello Infinite...,

Well I am busy with a small research about charcoal effects on a sandy soil in the Netherlands. I am looking especially to N-cycling. So I measure N-leaching, N in soil and N uptake by a crop.
While I was busy I found a nice video. you can find it on google : The Secret of El Dorado. I can't attach the video, because of the rules in this forum :S. Well, I attached it partly, just put http...in front

Enjoy!

Arjen

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2809044795781727003

[InfiniteNow]

Hello Arjen,

Welcome aboard. Our resident passionate gardening and planet saving cool info sharing member Michaelangelica has an entire thread just for this video, available at the following link:

The Show that Started it All?


And, as you've probably noticed, there is an entire sub-forum (within the Earth Science forum) dedicated to the discussion of Terra Preta.


Regardless, I've posted your link below again on your behalf since it is such a good video. Thanks for saying hello, and enjoy yourself.

BBC - Horizon - The Secret of El Dorado

[Michaelangelica]

The Solution on our Dinner Plates
by Guy Dauncey


What we can do about food and forests :: Changes from the ground up

Total global emissions are the equivalent of 31.6 gigatonnes of CO2 annually.
The world’s agricultural meat industry contributes 5.7 gigatonnes of that, and 6.3 gigatonnes comes from forest destruction.

Eighteen percent of the climate change problem is associated with raising, feeding, and transporting meat. Cutting back on meat consumption is a way to immediately reduce climate impact. Picture of Cow. Photo by Dagmar Nelson, milkaway.smugmug.com
Eighteen percent of the climate change problem is associated with raising, feeding, and transporting meat. Cutting back on meat consumption is a way to immediately reduce climate impact. Photo by Dagmar Nelson, milkaway.smugmug.com
The farm industries that put beef, pork, and dairy on our dinner tables account for 18 percent of global greenhouse emissions—a larger share than all the world’s transportation.

Animal agriculture unleashes some of the most baneful greenhouse gases—methane from cows’ stomachs (25 times stronger than CO2) and nitrous oxide from animal manure and the use of nitrogen fertilizer (298 times more potent than CO2). And too often, both cows and animal feed are raised on slashed and burned rainforest land, releasing more CO2.

What We Can Do About Food and Forests :: Changes from the Ground Up
40% of NZ's emissions are due to burping cows.
Total global emissions are the equivalent of 31.6 gigatonnes of CO2 annually.


The world’s agricultural meat industry contributes 5.7 gigatonnes of that, and 6.3 gigatonnes comes from forest destruction.

Here's an idea that, unlike clean coal, is within reach of local authorities and serves multiple purposes. While keeping carbon out of the atmosphere and generating electricity, it can also make our soils more productive.

Tasmania has no shortage of plant waste, rich in carbon. Much of it disappears into the atmosphere by burning or is left to rot and relinquish its carbon over time. We can put it to better use.

Biochar ("bio" as in plant matter and "char" as in charcoal) is a product that its advocates believe can replicate the ways in which the world's most fertile soils -- "terra preta" or "dark earth" -- cycle their nutrients, hold their water and grow plants better than anywhere else.

Biochar is basically small granules of charcoal obtained through heating plant waste in an age-old process called pyrolysis, by which we once produced charcoal for fuel. Modern pyrolysis technology reduces carbon emissions to practically zero while producing heat that can generate sufficient electricity to power some small industrial plants.

The residue from the process is carbon in the form of biochar, which has the capacity to revitalise our soils, giving long-lasting fertility while also improving moisture-carrying capacity.

That's making carbon work for us, not against us. Which is the way nature always intended.

Peter Boyer is a writer, illustrator and publisher who has written extensively about science. Since 2006 he has been a presenter for The Climate Project (Aust

Carbon tamed to work two ways | Mercury - The Voice of Tasmania

[erich]

This is the first system I've seen to produce "Agrichar" from fossil fuel.
I would first like to see this Agrichar side by side with Biochar under an electron microscope to see if the fungi like it as well;


Synthetic Agrichar?

The Toronto Star reported earlier this month on an interesting new technology that promises cleaner burning natural gas with potentially valuable solid carbon as a by-product.

CarbonSavor is the trademarked name of this new technology privately developed by Atlantic Hydrogen Inc. It uses a "low temperature plasma reactor process" to separate hydrogen gas and solid carbon from the natural gas stream without releasing any carbon dioxide in the process. The gaseous hydrogen is then re-routed back into the natural gas line creating a hydrogen enriched mixture that is about 20% hydrogen gas.

Hydrogen enriched natural gas is purported to be compatible with existing appliances, furnaces and automobiles. According to the Toronto Star article the hydrogen enriched natural gas burns with a 7% reduction in carbon emissions. Furthermore, they claim that automobile exhausts have 50% to 60% reduced nitrogen oxide content when using the hydrogen enriched natural gas fuel. Two demonstration applications are slated for 2008.

The solid carbon by-product created in this process may have several uses. It may have manufacturing applications, such as a in components for automobile or airplanes.

Then, the Toronto Star takes one step too far:

"It could also be permanently stored in soil – used alongside fertilizer to regenerate depleted farmland. This approach, often referred to as biochar sequestration, could fetch revenues in the form of saleable carbon credits."

Biochar sequestration? Not really.

Biochar looks like charcoal and is sometimes referred to as agrichar or terra preta. It is primarily carbon and is made by heating bio-mass in the absence of oxygen. Bio-mass comes from plants and animals. It contains carbon removed from the atmosphere during plant growth. When biomass is made into biochar and used as a soil amendment it sequesters carbon in the soil for hundreds of years. Production of biochar also generates a number of carbon negative bio-energy options.

Carbon separated from natural gas is a poor substitute for biochar with respect to global warming. It is derived from fossil fuel, not bio-mass. It converts fossil carbon to soil. It does not sequester atmospheric carbon. It is "synthetic agrichar". If synthetic agrichar is cheap and abundant, it may stifle the adoption of genuine biochar.

On the other hand, I can't argue with a 7% per unit volume reduction in carbon emissions for natural gas. Synthetic agrichar could be the catalyst that American agriculture needs to start examining the potential benefits of soil carbon sequestration. Farmers need more research to determine the usefulness and correct application rates of agrichar on various soil types. This synthetic product may generate the funding for that research.

Synthetic agrichar leaves me scratching my head. More technology gives us more options. But, do I want more fossil fuel options? Is hydrogen enriched natural gas a step towards a hydrogen economy? Will carbon from natural gas actually prove valuable? I welcome your thoughts.
By B Goodspeed at 2007-12-26 03:34


Synthetic Agrichar? | Energize America



Also...a little off topic but looks promissing;

Carbon capture gets crystal powered
UCLA researchers have created a new material that could replace toxic chemicals used to filter greenhouse gases.
CO2 has been captured in the lab using a new class of materials designed by UCLA chemists called zeolitic imidazolate frameworks, or ZIFs.

The UCLA team also said the ZIFs can store five times more carbon dioxide than the porous carbon materials that are available today, with each liter of ZIF holding 83 liters of carbon dioxide.

Carbon capture gets crystal powered | Cleantech.com[EmailLink]

Cheers ,
Erich

[Michaelangelica]

Interesting erich
Chevon Mobile has a huge gas field off the WA coat. The Gogon Gas field.
The previous government gave them 60mil (like they really need the money!) to look at carbon sequestration projects (i.e., pumping it back down the hole)
As I understand it the natural gas they extract contains a deal of CO2 with the Natural Gas when they bring it to the surface.
I could be wrong.

[erich]

CarbonSavor's plasma process takes elemental carbon off the natural gas, CH4, leaving H2, which is mixed back with the CH4 to make it a "greener" fossil fuel, I don't know about the amount of CO2 bye gas in CH4 production.

[erich]

Drawing down carbon - Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University talks Bio Char
Fri, 2008-03-07 07:23 — admin
We talk to Professor Johannes Lehmann about Bio Char

Drawing down carbon - Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University talks Bio Char | Zero Emissions Climate Change Global Warming Solution


Beyond Zero Emission's Lehmann Interview;

"I have talked with farmers who are right now producing biochar on their farms with large scale pyrolysis machines that are absolutely not interested in producing bioenergy. They're completely content in producing biochar from sustainable biomass production and putting that biochar in soils without even thinking of bioenergy at this point. There might be others who are interested in remediating soils in remote areas in mine??? soils where it also would be difficult to transport the energy anywhere else; it would cost more energy than the energy is worth begin with".



Who are these Farmers?................ and why aren't they on the TP list?

Erich