[Doly]

This is all very interesting, but there was a very knowledgeable poster that used to say that all the biological methods of carbon sequestration go too slowly to get rid of the enormous amounts of carbon we are putting in the atmosphere.

[nero]

Doly I agree, replicating the processes indians and primitive peoples use would be too slow but we could learn from them and do things on an industrial scale.

If we were to harness an industrial process to create charcoal. we might start making a serious amount of charcoal. If there was such a demand for charcoal that it made sense to turn lignite coals into an artifical charcoal we might have a whole new industry where coal gasification plants has two revenue outputs: syn gas and charcoal for terra preta. This might make economic sense for some coals that have a low heating value. It would also likely improve the mass and energy balance requirements for coal gasification, (no need for all that extra oxygen for the partial oxidation of the carbon carbon bonds)

As a carbon sequestration technique that wouldn't be any good since we would just be moving some carbon from deep under ground to soil level. For serious carbon sequestration we would have to be charcoaling some fast growing biomass. That brings us back to the issue of all biomass energy technologies. Having to concentrate a dispersed energy resource to effectively transform it into the high value product we want.

[erich]

I have not seen any thing about coal being a feedstock for bio-char.
The remaining lignin structure of Low temperature woody charcoal (not grass or high cellulose) has an
interior layer of bio-oil condensates that microbes consume and is
equal to glucose in its effect on microbial growth (Christoph Steiner,
EACU 2004).
High temp char loses this layer and does not promote soil
fertility very well. Tests by Finnish researcher Janna Pitkien, on
highly porous materials like zeolite, activated carbon and charcoal
show that microbial growth is substantially improved with charcoal




On the Scale of CO2 remediation:


From Duane Pendergast; Carbon Cycle section

"Finally, and perhaps of most importance to us, we come to the carbon cycle on land. Details on the fate of the 120 billion tonnes of carbon absorbed annually from the atmosphere by plants (GPP – Gross Primary Production) are of interest. Half of this (autotrophic respiration - 60 billion tonnes carbon) is almost immediately used by the plants themselves as food, returning carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. That leaves 60 billion tonnes (NPP – Net Primary Production) to be incorporated in their leaves, stems, roots, fruits and seeds. Some 55 billion tonnes carbon content is co-opted by animals – of many sorts - and ultimately returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (heterotrophic respiration). Some 4 billion tonnes is consumed by combustion. That leaves about 1 billion tonnes to be incorporated into soil or dissolved in water and washed down rivers to the ocean.

Humans directly control and manage a major part of earth’s vegetation and animal life through agriculture. We also influence the carbon cycle through our use of forests. This review of the carbon cycle thus raises some questions. Are IPCC figures and data subtly downplaying the role of human influence on the carbon cycle? Is human use of fossil fuels overemphasized as the source of the problem? Are humans involved in other major activities which influence the carbon cycle and composition of the atmosphere? Is it possible that some aspects of the carbon cycle, other than fossil fuel use, could be modified to play an important role in greenhouse gas management?"

http://www.computare.org/Support%20docu ... 006_05.htm



It is my understanding, and please correct me if I've got these figures wrong, That atmospheric CO2 stands at 379 PPM, to stabilize the climate we need to reduce it to 350 PPM by the removal of 230 Billion tons.

Since man controls 24 billion tons in his agriculture then it seems we have plenty to work with in sequestering our fossil fuel co2 emissions with Biomass as charcoal.

As Dr. Lehmann at Cornell points out, "Closed-Loop Pyrolysis systems such as Day's are the only way to make a fuel that is actually carbon negative". and 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.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehm ... r_home.htm

[erich]

Updates on this ubiquitous carbon sink.

Here's the current news and links on Terra Preta (TP)soils and closed-loop pyrolysis of Biomass, this integrated virtuous cycle could sequester 100s of Billions of tons of carbon to the soils.



Terra Preta Soils Technology To Master the Carbon Cycle

This technology represents the most comprehensive, low cost, and productive approach to long term stewardship and sustainability.Terra Preta Soils a process for Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration, 1/3 Lower CH4 & N2O soil emissions, and 3X Fertility Too.
Thanks,
Erich
UN Climate Change Conference: Biochar present at the Bali Conference

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/steinerbalinov2107



SCIAM Article May 15 07;

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articl ... B9FB144E40



After many years of reviewing solutions to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) I believe this technology can manage Carbon for the greatest collective benefit at the lowest economic price, on vast scales. It just needs to be seen by ethical globally minded companies.

Could you please consider looking for a champion for this orphaned Terra Preta Carbon Soil Technology.

The main hurtle now is to change the current perspective held by the IPCC that the soil carbon cycle is a wash, to one in which soil can be used as a massive and ubiquitous Carbon sink via Charcoal. Below are the first concrete steps in that direction;

S.1884 – The Salazar Harvesting Energy Act of 2007

A Summary of Biochar Provisions in S.1884:

Carbon-Negative Biomass Energy and Soil Quality Initiative

for the 2007 Farm Bill

http://www.biochar-international.org/ne ... ation.html

(...PLEASE!!..........Contact your Senators & Repps in Support of S.1884........NOW!!...)

Tackling Climate Change in the U.S.

Potential Carbon Emissions Reductions from Biomass by 2030by Ralph P. Overend, Ph.D. and Anelia Milbrandt
National Renewable Energy Laboratory

http://www.ases.org/climatechange/toc/07_biomass.pdf

The organization 25x25 (see 25x'25 - Home) released it's (first-ever, 55-page )"Action Plan" ; see; http://www.25x25.org/storage/25x25/docu ... -19-07.pdf
On page 29 , as one of four foci for recommended RD&D, the plan lists: "The development of biochar, animal agriculture residues and other non-fossil fuel based fertilizers, toward the end of integrating energy production with enhanced soil quality and carbon sequestration."
and on p 32, recommended as part of an expanded database aspect of infrastructure: "Information on the application of carbon as fertilizer and existing carbon credit trading systems."

I feel 25x25 is now the premier US advocacy organization for all forms of renewable energy, but way out in front on biomass topics.



There are 24 billion tons of carbon controlled by man in his agriculture and waste stream, all that farm & cellulose waste which is now dumped to rot or digested or combusted and ultimately returned to the atmosphere as GHG should be returned to the Soil.

Even with all the big corporations coming to the GHG negotiation table, like Exxon, Alcoa, .etc, we still need to keep watch as they try to influence how carbon management is legislated in the USA. Carbon must have a fair price, that fair price and the changes in the view of how the soil carbon cycle now can be used as a massive sink verses it now being viewed as a wash, will be of particular value to farmers and a global cool breath of fresh air for us all.

If you have any other questions please feel free to call me or visit the TP web site I've been drafted to co-administer. http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node

It has been immensely gratifying to see all the major players join the mail list , Cornell folks, T. Beer of Kings Ford Charcoal (Clorox), Novozyne the M-Roots guys(fungus), chemical engineers, Dr. Danny Day of EPRIDA , Dr. Antal of U. of H., Virginia Tech folks and probably many others who's back round I don't know have joined.



Also Here is the Latest BIG Terra Preta Soil news;

The Honolulu Advertiser: “The nation's leading manufacturer of charcoal has licensed a University of Hawai'i process for turning green waste into barbecue briquets.”

See: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/ ... 7707280348



ConocoPhillips Establishes $22.5 Million Pyrolysis Program at Iowa State 04/10/07

Glomalin, the recently discovered soil protien, may be the secret to to TP soils productivity;

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2003/030205.htm




Here is my current Terra Preta posting which condenses the most important stories and links;

Terra Preta Soils Technology To Master the Carbon Cycle

Man has been controlling the carbon cycle , and there for the weather, since the invention of agriculture, all be it was as unintentional, as our current airliner contrails are in affecting global dimming. This unintentional warm stability in climate has over 10,000 years, allowed us to develop to the point that now we know what we did,............ and that now......... we are over doing it.

The prehistoric and historic records gives a logical thrust for soil carbon sequestration.
I wonder what the soil biome carbon concentration was REALLY like before the cutting and burning of the world's forest, my guess is that now we see a severely diminished community, and that only very recent Ag practices like no-till and reforestation have started to help rebuild it. It makes implementing Terra Preta soil technology like an act of penitence, a returning of the misplaced carbon to where it belongs.

On the Scale of CO2 remediation:

It is my understanding that atmospheric CO2 stands at 379 PPM, to stabilize the climate we need to reduce it to 350 PPM by the removal of 230 Billion tons of carbon.

The best estimates I've found are that the total loss of forest and soil carbon (combined
pre-industrial and industrial) has been about 200-240 billion tons. Of
that, the soils are estimated to account for about 1/3, and the vegetation
the other 2/3.

Since man controls 24 billion tons in his agriculture then it seems we have plenty to work with in sequestering our fossil fuel CO2 emissions as stable charcoal in the soil.

As Dr. Lehmann at Cornell points out, "Closed-Loop Pyrolysis systems such as Dr. Danny Day's are the only way to make a fuel that is actually carbon negative". and 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! "

Terra Preta Soils Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration, 1/3 Lower CH4 & N2O soil emissions, and 3X FertilityToo


This some what orphaned new soil technology speaks to so many different interests and disciplines that it has not been embraced fully by any. I'm sure you will see both the potential of this system and the convergence needed for it's implementation.

The integrated energy strategy offered by Charcoal based Terra Preta Soil technology may
provide the only path to sustain our agricultural and fossil fueled power
structure without climate degradation, other than nuclear power.

The economics look good, and truly great if we had CO2 cap & trade or a Carbon tax in place.


.Nature article, Aug 06: Putting the carbon back Black is the new green:
http://bestenergies.com/downloads/naturemag_200604.pdf

Here's the Cornell page for an over view:
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehm ... r_home.htm

University of Beyreuth TP Program, Germany http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q ... y/term/118

This Earth Science Forum thread on these soils contains further links, and has been viewed by 19,000 self-selected folks. ( I post everything I find on Amazon Dark Soils, ADS here):
http://forums.hypography.com/earth-scie ... preta.html



There is an ecology going on in these soils that is not completely understood, and if replicated and applied at scale would have multiple benefits for farmers and environmentalist.

Terra Preta creates a terrestrial carbon reef at a microscopic level. These nanoscale structures provide safe haven to the microbes and fungus that facilitate fertile soil creation, while sequestering carbon for many hundred if not thousands of years. The combination of these two forms of sequestration would also increase the growth rate and natural sequestration effort of growing plants.


The reason TP has elicited such interest on the Agricultural/horticultural side of it's benefits is this one static:

One gram of charcoal cooked to 650 C Has a surface area of 400 m2 (for soil microbes & fungus to live on), now for conversion fun:

One ton of charcoal has a surface area of 400,000 Acres!! which is equal to 625 square miles!! Rockingham Co. VA. , where I live, is only 851 Sq. miles

Now at a middle of the road application rate of 2 lbs/sq ft (which equals 1000 sqft/ton) or 43 tons/acre yields 26,000 Sq miles of surface area per Acre. VA is 39,594 Sq miles.

What this suggest to me is a potential of sequestering virgin forest amounts of carbon just in the soil alone, without counting the forest on top.

To take just one fairly representative example, in the classic Rothampstead experiments in England where arable land was allowed to revert to deciduous temperate woodland, soil organic carbon increased 300-400% from around 20 t/ha to 60-80 t/ha (or about 20-40 tons per acre) in less than a century (Jenkinson & Rayner 1977). The rapidity with which organic carbon can build up in soils is also indicated by examples of buried steppe soils formed during short-lived interstadial phases in Russia and Ukraine. Even though such warm, relatively moist phases usually lasted only a few hundred years, and started out from the skeletal loess desert/semi-desert soils of glacial conditions (with which they are inter-leaved), these buried steppe soils have all the rich organic content of a present-day chernozem soil that has had many thousands of years to build up its carbon (E. Zelikson, Russian Academy of Sciences, pers. comm., May 1994). http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/carbon1.html




All the Bio-Char Companies and equipment manufactures I've found:

Carbon Diversion
http://www.carbondiversion.com/


Eprida: Sustainable Solutions for Global Concerns
http://www.eprida.com/home/index.php4

BEST Pyrolysis, Inc. | Slow Pyrolysis - Biomass - Clean Energy - Renewable Ene
http://www.bestenergies.com/companies/b ... lysis.html


Dynamotive Energy Systems | The Evolution of Energy
http://www.dynamotive.com/

Ensyn - Environmentally Friendly Energy and Chemicals
http://www.ensyn.com/who/ensyn.htm

Agri-Therm, developing bio oils from agricultural waste
http://www.agri-therm.com/

Advanced BioRefinery Inc.
http://www.advbiorefineryinc.ca/

Technology Review: Turning Slash into Cash
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17298/


3R Environmental Technologies Ltd. (Edward Someus)
WEB: http://www.terrenum.net/

The company has Swedish origin and developing/designing medium and large scale carbonization units. The company is the licensor and technology provider to NviroClean Tech Ltd British American organization WEB: http://www.nvirocleantech.com and VERTUS Ltd.
http://www.vertustechnologies.com

The International Agrichar Initiative (IAI) conference held at Terrigal, NSW, Australia in 2007. ( http://iaiconference.org/home.html ) ( The papers from this conference are now being posted at their home page)
.

If pre-Columbian Kayopo Indians could produce these soils up to 6 feet deep over 15% of the Amazon basin using "Slash & CHAR" verses "Slash & Burn", it seems that our energy and agricultural industries could also product them at scale.

Harnessing the work of this vast number of microbes and fungi changes the whole equation of energy return over energy input (EROEI) for food and Bio fuels. I see this as the only sustainable agricultural strategy if we no longer have cheap fossil fuels for fertilizer.

We need this super community of wee beasties to work in concert with us by populating them into their proper Soil horizon Carbon Condos.




Erich J. Knight
Shenandoah Gardens
1047 Dave Berry Rd.
McGaheysville, VA. 22840
(540) 289-9750
[email protected]

[funzone36]

Biochar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar

It's produced from biomass pyrolysis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrolysis

Basically, it's heating up the organic materials in the absence of oxygen until it becomes biochar. Biochar is supposed to be a carbon storage solution but in order to store enough carbon, tons and tons of biochar has to be produced. Do we have the necessary energy to produce enough biochar? I believe yes, we have enough energy because of coal supplies. Because biochar stores CO2, that means using coal to produce biochar has no net CO2 emission. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[steam_cannon]

Biochar: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar

It's produced from biomass pyrolysis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrolysis

Basically, it's heating up the organic materials in the absence of
oxygen until it becomes biochar. Biochar is supposed to be a carbon
storage solution but in order to store enough carbon, tons and tons
of biochar has to be produced. Do we have the necessary energy to
produce enough biochar? I believe yes, we have enough energy
because of coal supplies. Because biochar stores CO2, that
means using coal to produce biochar has no net CO2
emission. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You don't use coal to produce biochar! WTF!

You use plant stalks or wood! I included a link below about making
charcoal, in making charcoal you use the gases driven off by heating
as fuel for the conversion. So very little fuel is needed and definitely not coal.



Energy Accounting





Read these as it seems you don't know much about how charcoal is made:
(Hint, it's not made from coal!)

Making charcoal
http://tinyurl.com/rlpi

Making charcloth
http://tinyurl.com/2brevx



More info about Agrichar/Biochar

Scientists to call for negative emissions fuels & energy
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic34447.html

An answer to rocketing fertilizer prices
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic38114.html

Terra Preta - Biochar
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/ta ... /39/0/feed

[eclipse]

Hi Steam cannon... with a name like that, can I assume you're into Steampunk?

Nice images.

The one point I think Funzone propelled me into thinking about is maximising the synfuel or syngas returns on the biochar process.

So... my understanding of Biochar for dummies (I'm not very technical... have a humanities background) is that:-

1. We take agricultural waste or wood chips or whatever biomass you have handy.

2. We "COOK" it up to make either synfuel (diesel?) or syngas.

3. We then have wonderful biochar left over which conditions the soil and stores that carbon in the soil, permanently for thousands of years.

4. EVEN MORE CARBON joins the soil as the soil comes back to life with soil micro-biology thriving on this miraculous stuff. (I read once that this might be up to 5 TIMES the weight of the biochar itself... but have not been able to source that claim in years.)

5. The MASSIVELY improved soil then requires far less NPK. Less Nitrogen from Haber-Bosch because the microbes in the soil suck N out of the air, less PK because there's less wash-off and it's "glued into" the soil more effectively.
(To be fair to Funzone, he found a nice summary quote on that from Discover magazine.) It also saves energy on pumping water because biochar makes the soil less water efficient, and results in multiple positive nutrient and energy feedbacks.

6. Because it costs far less energy to now grow our food, the whole agricultural system is improved and geared for a post-peak world.

Check out how much Australian of the Year and global warming author Tim Flannery loves biochar! See this episode of ABC's Catalyst show for more. This quote in particular is very encouraging.

Narration: Adding up to 10 tonnes of agrichar per hectare reduces the amount of carbon dioxide given off while tripling the weight of the crop or its biomass.

As well as that they measure another gas that’s important for global warming, nitrous oxide.

Dr Lukas van Zwieten: Certainly nitrous oxide is a very serious greenhouse gas, it’s 310 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

One of the things that really was quite surprising – we didn’t expect it – was that the emissions of nitrous oxide from soil were significantly reduced.

So here's my take on making it more efficient, which Funzone accidentally helped me consider with his funny coal comment above.

Narration: The kiln is heated to 550 degrees by burning the syngas.

Adriana Downie: It’s actually our own energy we’re producing in the plant that we’re firing it on.

Narration: The win-win is that half of the carbon in the biomass makes the syngas fuel, while the other half stays in the char.

The amount of agrichar trickling out the end of this pilot plant won’t change the world, but making it on an industrial scale certainly could.

Adriana Downie: What we put in provides enough energy to run the process, as well as then export energy for other people to use for their processes.

What if we ran the cooker on solar power? Concentrated solar power gets up to thousands of degrees, this baby only needs 550. What if a future "powerdown" village of some sort fed their agriwaste into a local Biochar "cooker" like this, and instead of burning a lot of the syngas/fuel running the process the next day, we geared the Pyrolysis plant for Synfuel and then used ALL the Biochar synfuel for running agriculture. Wouldn't this then give that village a lot more liquid fuel to at least run their agriculture?

[Gandalf_the_White]

If you look really hard in the literature you will suddenly change your focus and see the stereographic image of a middle finger pointing back at you. That's because they are not going to tell you what the EROEI life-cycle numbers are on any of this stuff. Essentially either they are stupid or they think we are stupid.

A possible sustainable life-cycle would be wind to hydrogen, but how many really well done studies have you seen on it that proceeded into a prototype phase.

The issue here friends is one of control. 'They' are in control and we are not. Lesson number one you can't have any pudding unless you eat your meat, humble pie comes before dessert.

When you guys finally figure out how it works maybe we can talk about some non-violent ways of starting to turn things around.

[eclipse]

You forgot to say </rant>

[Gandalf_the_White]

You forgot to say </rant>

<rant></rant>

<truth>we spend most of our time here ranting and/or hiding from our moral obligation to tell somebody about what is coming</truth>

[eclipse]

Speak for yourself, I briefed Maxine McKew on peak oil last year, just 3 days before Dr Roger Bezdek's "Smart Conference" 2007 speech. So she knew a little enough to introduce Dr Roger Bezdek. Then she defeated John Howard at the Federal Election.

There's only 1 or 2 threads I'm consistently ranting in on Sydney Peak Oil... the group I helped found so we could BRIEF POLITICIANS and connect campaigners... but due to burnout, I've resigned as "leader" there. It's now just another peaknik chat group... they don't meet any more. The leaders did some great stuff for a group of newbie volunteers, including getting permission from the EOS team to cut their DVD into 30 minutes and distribute it to every politician in the NSW Parliament (Thanks again EOS TEAM! )

But we've all got various personal commitments, are not selling any books or making any money out of this... and Australia has had a number of government peak oil reports. Mission accomplished as far as government awareness... but hardly begun as far as the general public. We'll, too bad. They'll just have to endure a tougher Great Depression for every year they put off making the requisite changes.

So... you might have time to rant and do NOTHING... I've already done SOMETHING and am pretty much "retired" from it as other personal challenges have come up. Good luck with the ranting!

[steam_cannon]

What if we ran the cooker on solar power? Concentrated solar power
gets up to thousands of degrees, this baby only needs 550. What if a
future "powerdown" village of some sort fed their agriwaste into a
local Biochar "cooker" like this, and instead of burning a lot of the
syngas/fuel running the process the next day, we geared the Pyrolysis
plant for Synfuel and then used ALL the Biochar synfuel for running
agriculture. Wouldn't this then give that village a lot more liquid fuel to
at least run their agriculture?

Unless you convert the synthesis gas to methanol (pain in the ass),
then you have a gas fuel, not a liquid fuel. There will be some wood
alcohol condensate, but mostly you will produce wood gas. Wood
gas contains lots of hydrogen which is a pain to store, hydrogen
loves to leak out and escape. Though gas bags and float tanks
work for the short term. Generators and farm equipment can run on
filtered wood gas, but usually it is generated at the time it is
needed and not stored. Wood gas is also useful for heating and cooking.

But most gasifiers that fuel farm equipment run best on charcoal, so
producing "biochar and wood gas" at the same time would present
a number of challenges.

Regarding solar, in my experience it's not that hard to make
reflectors capable of getting things into the 1000 degree range. But
making a chamber where this magic happens, capturing the gas
and coming up with a good use for it, that's where things get complex.

A little about woodgas and some links

Woodgas

Wood gas is very fairly easy to produce as demonstrated with this paint can.


http://www.windmeadow.com/node/46


http://woodgas.com/
http://woodgas.com/history.htm

Woodgas Camping Stove
http://woodgas-stove.com/blog/?p=8

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

Bagged Methane
Methane can be produced in a home digester and bagged for use or
pumped into a tank and used much like propane.

http://www.ruralcostarica.com/biogas.html
http://www.diaphragmhandpump.com/bio_ga ... _pump.html

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



Cooking in the city
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic37230.html

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

People are working on systems producing both "biochar and energy"

Traditional charcoal making in Lempira, Honduras, has changed little
over the years. A modern pyrolysis plant has the potential to
produce energy as well as biochar more cleanly.

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/ ... ochar.html

Though I may have made things sound difficult, as you can
see from these pictures none of these things are impossibly hard
and many of these ideas could certainly be combined. So a solar to
wood gas system is not that bad of an idea.

[steam_cannon]

Hi Steam cannon... with a name like that, can I assume you're into Steampunk?

A reasonable assumption and based on your smile, here are a few
links you might enjoy...

A SteamPunk’s Guide to the Apocalypse
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic33635.html

Archimedes Steam Cannon
http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www/experiment ... annon.html

The worlds simplest steam powered boat
http://scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/ther ... .html#boat

[Gandalf_the_White]

That would work, and possibly on medium scales even. As a personal system you probably could get something that works.

giant lens to wood pile to charcoal to liquid condensate to moped or something like that.

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.

All fun and games aside. How could we discourage anyone from putting together a sustainable life cycle? The difficulty always arises in the scaling. Nothing will ever replace the ease of use and high energy density of oil, and if you read Matt Simmon's book Twilight in the Desert you see that even oil is not really that easy, but they did it.

I'm waiting for the sequel to come out in about 2030 'Toilet in the Desert: How the world went to hell in a hand basket while Americans partied like it was 1492.'

[Gandalf_the_White]

Speak for yourself, I briefed Maxine McKew on peak oil last year, just 3 days before Dr Roger Bezdek's "Smart Conference" 2007 speech. So she knew a little enough to introduce Dr Roger Bezdek. Then she defeated John Howard at the Federal Election.

There's only 1 or 2 threads I'm consistently ranting in on Sydney Peak Oil... the group I helped found so we could BRIEF POLITICIANS and connect campaigners... but due to burnout, I've resigned as "leader" there. It's now just another peaknik chat group... they don't meet any more. The leaders did some great stuff for a group of newbie volunteers, including getting permission from the EOS team to cut their DVD into 30 minutes and distribute it to every politician in the NSW Parliament (Thanks again EOS TEAM! )

But we've all got various personal commitments, are not selling any books or making any money out of this... and Australia has had a number of government peak oil reports. Mission accomplished as far as government awareness... but hardly begun as far as the general public. We'll, too bad. They'll just have to endure a tougher Great Depression for every year they put off making the requisite changes.

So... you might have time to rant and do NOTHING... I've already done SOMETHING and am pretty much "retired" from it as other personal challenges have come up. Good luck with the ranting!

No need to be sensitive. I am also doing my part. I was responding in the same way you did, I thought you were joking. I'm glad you have put in your requisite Peak Oil Corps service and are now moving on to more important issues. [Now please try to take that in the spirit it was intended]

[eclipse]

OK, we're good then.

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')

[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?)