[Michaelangelica]

"Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Humanity Should Aim"

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0804.1126

For supporting materials:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0804.1135

[Michaelangelica]

A new list group, just on TP and Global Warming Issues

Biochar and Climate Change:

biochar-climatechange : Biochar and Climate Change

Intended focus: using Terra preta to address climate change and global warming.

[erich]

The DOE needs to expand this funding of CCS to include Biochar systems;

The department's restructured FutureGen program is looking to invest $1.3 billion in multiple projects.
U.S. DOE puts out the call for new CCS projects | Cleantech.com

[Michaelangelica]

(above: part of the Mechabolic)

At WorldChanging Jeremy Faludi speculates on the combined use of gasification and terra preta for the creation of carbon-negative fuel:

I can’t promise that using gasification for energy and using the resulting char as terra preta fertilizer will be a carbon negative fuel, because I haven’t seen a credible lifecycle analysis of it.
(If anyone has, please post it to the comments.) But it’s quite plausible.
Consider that it takes a certain amount of CO2 to grow a crop, such as corn.
You harvest the crop and sell the food part, which leaves you with all the agricultural waste. Instead of burning it in the open air, or landfilling it (which is what’s done today — basically topsoil mining), you gasify it. You then burn the fuel gas you get from gasification, putting some fraction of that CO2 into the air; the agri-char (terra preta) that you’re left with contains the rest of the embodied CO2 which the crops sucked up while growing. There’s more carbon here than there was in the fuel gas.
You spread the Terra preta on the fields as fertiliser to grow more crops, and repeat the cycle — and with each repeat, you pull more carbon back into the soil than you burn, resulting in a carbon negative fuel as well as crops fertilized with fewer petrochemicals. It’s a double win.

Full Story: WorldChanging

A group of Burners have created a project using these principles called the “Mechabolic”:

Gasification, terra preta, and mechabolics: carbon negative fuels? | Technoccult high weirdness, the occult, sex, drugs, liberty, mad science, cults, fringe culture

EcoGeek: You mention 'agrichar' in your Billion Dollars wishlist. That's not something I was very familiar with (though I think I got the gist of it after a little quick Google search). Can you tell us a little more about it (and why it's important or useful), or suggest a good website or link for more information for readers who would like to learn more about this?

Karl Schroeder: Agrichar is a modern version of "Terra Preta" which was used centuries ago in the Amazon basin to allow the nutrient-poor soils there to produce lavish crops. It's basically a burn-and-bury process that sequesters carbon, replaces commercial fertilizers, revives dying soils, and all in all is a perfect technique for long-term sustainable soil health. Simple enough that the Mayans could perfect it, with the potential to be used all over the world. It's a pretty new process so there's not too many sources of information out there about it, unfortunately. But it's precisely the sort of transformative technology we need.

The Green Skeptic™: Clean Tech: EcoGeek Karl Schroeder on Investments in Environment & Technology