Terra Preta a SILVER BULLET for Global Warming?

Hi all,

can people please comment on my page here.
http://eclipsenow.blogspot.com/2007/06/replenish-soil.html

Just pan straight down to Point 4 and start reading.
I've been following this subject for a year now, and a recent conference just an hour north of where I live in Sydney, Australia held the world's first IAI conference.

I've asked some questions on my blog for follow up... and done some VERY rough calculations... but if this process is even half as efficient as they claim, this really could be a MAJOR step towards sustainable agriculture — and maybe even the energy in liquid fuels that drives agriculture.

I've been quite cynical about biomass schemes before, and take the threat of "Food or fuel" very seriously. This runs on waste. Please check some of the quotes and my more basic land equations at the link above. This stuff could be amazing.

I've read that the PM asked you all to pray for rain and that if you don't get rain in the next six weeks, the crops will be lost.

...since I was in college in the early 90s. But didn't know about the fertilization benefits of the charcoal byproduct until recently. I always assumed it would be more valuable as plain old charcoal.

And the use of crops with food/construction coproduct for biofuels is such a no-brainer one wonders what killed all the brain cells of the switchgrass-for-ethanol crowd.

You use husks from rice and wheat or whatever, and it generates both the next year's fantastic charcoal fertilizer and fuel to run agriculture.

The fuss is about the world's top scientists rediscovering this ancient trick of the Amazonians, and saying, "yeah, it works!"

Global Warming writer, multi-disciplinary scientist, and Australian of the year — Tim Flannery — has backed this one all the way.

You're not all hearing me... this really could enable 100% sustainable agriculture after peak oil AND solve global warming!

...while thermal depol might supply a little energy, what are the products? Oil and exactly how much fertilizer?

The thing these Terra Preta guys have cracked is sustainable energy AND fertilizer for the farm.

The true magic lies in the charcoal's ability to start a whole soil ecosystem, starting with the enormous amounts of atmospheric CO2 the charcoal and then FUNGI GROWING ON THE CHARCOAL will suck down into the soil as exotic biomass material, which forms the basis for the whole soil ecosystem, infuses Nitrogen into the soil, prevents as much soil erosion (dry dust blowing away), saves water, prevents Nitrogen runoff into lakes creating toxic algal blooms, etc.

Remember, they claim that if an area the size of France was farmed using this method it would mitigate ALL our Co2 emissions!

So I like all renewable energy sources, and thermal depol certainly has it's place.

Why can't we have both, and stay especially excited about the ability of Terra Preta to trap that carbon where it should be doing some work for us.. in the soil instead of "sequestered" underground?

Yes to use diesil powered tractors to cultivate crops so that you can make fuel that is 2-4 times dearer than usual, that uses coal in its production anyway of course. When this is burnt what does this new fuel produce i wonder?

I first heard about this on DU, and was extremely skeptical, mainly because it was claimed that charcoal acts as fertilizer. It certainly does not, and your posts on the subject would be more effective if you use the more appropriate term "soil conditioner" instead of "fertilizer."
All that aside, I did check it out and was (and am) very impressed by the immense potential benefits of such a simple action as adding charcoal to soil. Yes, it does put carbon into long-term storage (I bet the half-life is in the thousands of years), and yes, it does improve soil fertility (though not as a fertilizer). As I said, I'm very impressed with the science behind this-- so impressed that I've been turning a pile of sticks and limbs that's been accumulating in my yard for 4 years into charcoal and adding it to my garden soil. I have done 4 55-gal drum loads so far (about 100-120 lbs of charcoal) and plan to do much more. The process is super-easy: http://www.eaglequest.com/~bbq/charcoal/index.html


As an illustrative exercise, this is also quite powerful. The mind naturally asks the question: "so how much charcoal do I have to add to the soil to balance the CO2 by-product of my energy use? The answer is quite sobering for most people. For my 2-person household, it's 2.5 tons per year just for our non-transportational energy use.