Terra Preta: "Black Earth"

[Gerben]

Putting charcoal into the ground as a fertilizer doesn't make sense as long as we are still digging up fossil coal. You can get a lot more out of the biomass if you go for a full conversion into syngas. The idea to add sunlight is interesting. The main loss factor is the energy needed to heat up the biomass. If you reuse heat from the process or add external heat to it, you can significantly raise efficiency. Current industrial processes are about 50% efficient. Some experimental designs can reach 70%.

[eclipse]

I think it makes a whole lot of sense putting Co2 back into the soil in the form of activated charcoal, where it just may prepare our soils for post-oil farming, save us from the worst of the "Dieoff nightmares", reduce the amount of fertiliser necessary, AND sequester the Co2 permanently in the soil.

Unless we can get the USA and China to CLOSE 2 coal power plants each week (instead of opening 2 a week as is the trend), then I pray that Biochar systems will take off — and fast.

Claims for biochar's capacity to capture carbon sound almost audacious. Johannes Lehmann, soil scientist and author of Amazonian Dark Earths: Origin, Properties, Management, believes that a strategy combining biochar with biofuels could ultimately offset 9.5 billion tons of carbon per year-an amount equal to the total current fossil fuel emissions!

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004815.html

[steam_cannon]

I have always been fascinated by the story of Archimedes using giant
mirrors to light the roman ships on fire as they laid siege to Syracuse.

Too bad it didn't happen, conflicts with physics, history
and it's beyond impractical. Makes a great myth though.

Mythbusters Recap: Archimedes Death Ray
http://televizzle.org/2006/05/23/archim ... th_ray.php

In the end, there are seven reasons why this myth is Busted:

* The Compass
In San Francisco the noonday sun generated 450 degrees of
heat from 300 bronze mirrors at 140 feet (the distance of an arrow
shot). If Archimedes had tried this, the sun would have been
weaker, producing even less of a result.

* The Weather
Clouds can render the weapon useless. Are you going to carry
more than 300 mirrors into battle on the off chance that it will rain that day?

* Roman Boats Were Moving
It's a great choice if your opponent will come close enough to
you that you can focus the beam and then not come any closer. But
like the weather, those aren't very good odds.

* "Inflammable" Sails
The sails being mostly light-colored reflects the heat, plus their
movement in the wind means they don't even smoke, much less
catch fire, so they aren't a good choice.

* History
The history books don't mention fire for 800 years, and no
mirrors or "death rays" are mentioned for nearly 1200 years.

* Scale
You need some 300 mirrors to produce smoke. How many are
required to create fire again?

* Alternative Weapons
Even a novice archer can fire an arrow 300 feet or so. Set one
of those on fire and alleviate the need for all those mirrors (and the
people to aim them, the time to set them and the need to tell the
other boat to stand still while you do so).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think I saw that Archimedes thing on an "Atlantis" movie (from the
Golden years of science fiction), but correct me if I'm wrong... this
one happened to "store" sunlight as well? It worked when the sky
was blotted out by the volcanic eruption that eventually killed
Atlantis. Now if we could only figure out how they pulled off THAT
TRICK, we'd be right!javascript:emoticon(':P')

Atlantis was just a bunch of sea traders with a town built by a
volcano that went boom. You know that, right? Movies are fun.
But no magic mirrors, though there was a volcano...

(BOOM! Second biggest eruption in human history!!)

"Atlantis" Eruption Twice as Big as Previously Believed, Study Suggests
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... lcano.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ano_2.html

A volcanic eruption that may have inspired the myth of Atlantis was
up to twice as large as previously believed, according to an
international team of scientists. The eruption occurred 3,600 years
ago on the Santorini archipelago, whose largest island is Thera.
Santorini is located in the Aegean Sea about 125 miles (200
kilometers) southeast of modern-day Greece (map of Greece)...



...The seafaring Minoan culture was based on Crete, which is only a
few dozen miles from Thera. At the time of the eruption, they
dominated that part of the ancient Mediterranean.
When Thera erupted, the Minoans would have been clobbered by
tsunamis, overwater pyroclastic flows, and fires from oil lamps
knocked over by the eruption's shockwave.

Famine, plague, and a destruction of the Minoans' shipping
economy would also have followed, de Boer says. The eruption may
also have had an enormous impact on Mediterranean mythology. "I
have no doubt that every myth is based on some event, and so is
the myth of Atlantis," the University of Rhode Island's Sigurdsson
said. "An event of this magnitude must have left its imprint."

Sigurdsson also sees traces of Santorini in a Greek poem called the
Theogony, composed by Hesiod about 800 years after the eruption.
The poem describes an epic battle between giants and the Greek
gods and includes imagery of a great battle far out at sea.
Hesiod must have picked up the story as folklore handed down from
survivors close enough to see the event but not close enough to
know what happened, Siggurdsson says.

"He uses all the terminology one would use in describing an
eruption," he said. "The people who lived close enough to see that
it was a volcano were all killed. [The rest] could only describe it in
supernatural terms."

[eclipse]

No no no! My gladiator Atlantis ray-gun movie was real, it was real! I just know it was, I can feel it in my waters!

( I want to jump back in time and see that big boom from a safe distance. Does that make me evil?)

[steam_cannon]

I think it makes a whole lot of sense putting Co2 back into the soil
in the form of activated charcoal, where it just may prepare our soils
for post-oil farming, save us from the worst of the "Dieoff
nightmares", reduce the amount of fertiliser necessary, AND
sequester the Co2 permanently in the soil.

Or not change a damned thing. Biochar is a technology used by lost civilizations
and desperate people. It's great for the garden though.

Origin of terra preta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

For a long time, the origins of the Amazonian dark earths were not
immediately clear and several theories were considered. One idea
was that they resulted from ashfall from volcanoes in the Andes,
since they occur more frequently on the brows of higher terraces.
Another theory considered formation as a result of sedimentation in
Tertiary lakes or in recent ponds.

However, because of their elevated charcoal content and the
common presence of pottery remains, it is now widely accepted that
these soils are a product of indigenous soil management involving a
labor intensive technique termed slash-and-char. The technique is
differentiated from slash and burn by a lower temperature burn and
in being a tool for soil improvement. Amending soil with low
temperature charcoal produced from a mix of wood and leafy
biomass (termed biochar) has been observed to increase the
activity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. It is theorized that terra
preta self-propagates via this mechanism; a virtuous cycle
established as the fungus spreads from the charcoal, fixing
additional carbon and stabilizing the soil with glomalin, and
increasing nutrient availability for nearby plants. The widespread
peregrine earthworm Pontoscolex corethrurus (Oligochaeta:
Glossoscolecidae), which thrives after burning of the rainforest, due
to its tolerance of a low content of the soil in organic matter, has
been shown to ingest pieces of charcoal and to mix them in a finely
ground form with the mineral soil, pointing to its possible role in the
formation of terra preta.

About 10% of the original terra comum appears to have converted
to terra preta. Whether all Amazonian dark earth was intentionally
created for soil improvement or whether the lightest variants are a
by-product of habitation is not clear at present time. This is in part
due to the varied features of the dark earths throughout the
Amazon Basin. Thus suggesting the existence of an extensive
ancient native civilization dating back 500 to 2500 years bp.

Nice article

Terra Preta: Black is the New Green
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004815.html

"believes that a strategy combining biochar with biofuels could
ultimately offset 9.5 billion tons of carbon per year-an amount equal
to the total current fossil fuel emissions!"

...While a global rollout of terra preta is still a ways away, it heralds
yet another transformation of waste into resources.

Including biofuels in an offset estimate is like including oil in an
estimate to offset oil. Aside from that, I do agree that biochar is one
our best bets at putting the Genie back in the bottle. I also agree
with the author that implementing biochar schemes on most farms
is a long way away, as in "if we started this project 50 years ago..."
Also if you scroll up and look at that efficiency chart, it would take "a lot"
of crop wastes to get near this authors estimates. The bucket of
biochar I made this week won't offset the driving I did this week or
anybody else's...

Unless we can get the USA and China to CLOSE 2 coal power plants
each week (instead of opening 2 a week as is the trend), then I
pray that Biochar systems will take off — and fast.

The Chinese aren't into gods or praying, but like us the enjoy coal,
driving and they want more. Praying is what people do when they
can't do anything or are too lazy to do anything. Ya know pray if it
makes you feel better, but keep this in mind...

Can biochar save this world?


"We were born, we want our fair share! We want a life, we want
sex, we want to make more people! More! More! More!"



Biochar is a great technology, a tech to keep an eye on and
something to get into if you like to do things. But don't go home
after reading this and think everything will be ok. This is a helpful
technology, but don't think you should go and burn tires because
someone can offset it with biochar. We aren't there yet and with
so many people on this planet, a lot of things will have to change
before we get there.

[steam_cannon]

No no no! My gladiator Atlantis ray-gun movie was real, it was
real! I just know it was, I can feel it in my waters!

( I want to jump back in time and see that big boom from a safe
distance. Does that make me evil?)

Just a second, let me get out my sarcasm detector...

[eclipse]

Steam cannon... I reckon we have the technology and new systems approaches to solve these threats. The job of biochar is to fertilise the soil and lock away carbon. It's very good at that. A wind turbine produces electricity. It's very good at that. A tram can use that electricity, it's very good at that. Velib bike sharing agreements can integrate into public transport systems for those last few km's... another success.
Recycling our sewerage (after all heavy metal dumping is prohibited) is also quite effective at saving phosphorus. Richard Register says we can design cities that only require 10% of today's energy use, and yet STILL be largely "first world" cities with very attractive lifestyle bonuses. And a UN study says that for every 3 years of education a woman receives she'll have 1 less baby.

There are solutions to each problem. I just have a problem when someone demands that one solution for one problem be all solutions for all problems. We KNOW how to do this... it just requires massive, massive social, cultural, and legal changes. And they are already starting... if I can help push things in the right direction, then all the better.

[spiritof1976]

We seem to be hearing increasingly more about biochar as a means of sequestering carbon and thereby reversing global warming.

More info here, for those who haven't heard of it: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science ... 97513.html

As a method of saving us from runaway climate change, it seems a lot more feasible than giant mirrors in space, so fingers crossed.

[Ludi]

Can you talk about your own experiments with biochar? Thanks.

[spiritof1976]

That would be a bit tricky, since I haven't done any, though if anyone here has, I'd be interested to hear about the results.

[Tanada]

That would be a bit tricky, since I haven't done any, though if anyone here has, I'd be interested to hear about the results.

Working on a very small scale I am trying it but so far no results. I only learned about it a couple months ago so fall was done by then and so on and so forth. The theory seems sound, it worked for the Amazonian Indian culture before European disease wiped out their civilization and I have great hopes, not as a global warming countermeasure but as the 'black' agriculture revolution some predict. So far in the few field tests I have read about the biochar does a top notch job of retaining nutrients in the soil where the plants can access it.

[mos6507]

In theory it sounds like it should help but if you just look at the scale of the task of carbon sequestration, I don't think it can help that much.

[spiritof1976]

In theory it sounds like it should help but if you just look at the scale of the task of carbon sequestration, I don't think it can help that much.

As opposed to the scale of global agriculture?

Granted, one or two plants dotted around here and there aren't going to make a difference, but a concerted global effort to get farmers across the world to adopt biochar use?

I've heard figures bandied about that if 2.5% of the world agricultural waste were turned into biochar, it could bring down atmospheric carbon to pre-industrial revolution levels by 2050. If that's accurate, it's damn impressive.

[Quinny]

Might be better than burning, but it seems kind of energy intensive to me.

[Ludi]

That would be a bit tricky, since I haven't done any, though if anyone here has, I'd be interested to hear about the results.

Well there ya go. If it isn't being implemented, it sure as hell can't reverse global warming.

[Tanada]

That would be a bit tricky, since I haven't done any, though if anyone here has, I'd be interested to hear about the results.

Well there ya go. If it isn't being implemented, it sure as hell can't reverse global warming.

Ludi, just because nobody here has tried it extensively yet does not mean nobody anywhere has been Here is a link to a guy who uses it a lot mixed with his compost--THREAD

I would think with your interest in Permaculture you would be the best of us to try it on one of your divisions and report back how well it works. Pretty please?

[Ludi]

Ludi, just because nobody here has tried it extensively yet does not mean nobody anywhere has been

I know, it's just, so many folks come on here with "this will save us!" technologies and then it turns out even these people who are interested in them aren't implementing them.

I would think with your interest in Permaculture you would be the best of us to try it on one of your divisions and report back how well it works. Pretty please?

I'll put it on my very long "to do" list.

[spiritof1976]

Ludi, just because nobody here has tried it extensively yet does not mean nobody anywhere has been

I know, it's just, so many folks come on here with "this will save us!" technologies and then it turns out even these people who are interested in them aren't implementing them.

Well, in my case I'd find it rather difficult to implement, what with living in an upstairs apartment. I think the landlord might object to my attempting to make charcoal in the bathroom.

And I'm not saying, "this will save us". What I'm saying is, "other people have claimed this will save us. Does anyone have any experiences/data?"

[Ludi]

Well, in my case I'd find it rather difficult to implement, what with living in an upstairs apartment. I think the landlord might object to my attempting to make charcoal in the bathroom.

You could see about implementing it at a community garden.

[rattleshirt]

My folks, another local small farmer and I are starting to use it on our farms...I'll report when I have some sort of result.