Terra Preta Soils
Erich
could play in establishing a sustainable agricultural technology in our
climates.
I feel we should push for this Terra Preta Soils CO2 sequestration
strategy as not only a global warming remedy for the first world, but
to solve fertilization and transport issues for the third world. This
information needs to be shared with all the state programs.
The economics look good, and truly great if we had CO2 cap & trade in
place:
These are processes where you can have your Bio-fuel and fertility
too.
'Terra Preta' soils I feel has great possibilities to revolutionize
sustainable agriculture into a major CO2 sequestration strategy.
I thought, I first read about these soils in " Botany of Desire " or
"Guns,Germs,&Steel" but I could not find reference to them. I finely
found the reference in "1491", but I did not realize their potential .
August 06 Nature article:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7103/full/442624a.html
Here's the Cornell page for an over view:
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehm...r_home.htm
This Earth Science Forum thread on these soils contains further links (
I post everything I find on Amazon Dark Soils, ADS here):
http://forums.hypography.com/earth-science/3451-terra-preta.html
The Georgia Inst. of Technology page:
http://www.energy.gatech.edu/presentations/dday.pdf
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.
Also, Terra Preta was on the Agenda at this years world Soil Science
Conference !
http://crops.confex.com/crops/wc2006/te...P16274.HTM
If pre Columbian Indians could produce these soils up to 6 feet deep
over 20% of the Amazon basin 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 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.
I feel Terra Preta soil technology is the greatest of Ironies since
Tobacco.
That is: an invention of pre-Columbian American culture, destroyed by
western disease, may well be the savior of industrial western society.
As inversely Tobacco, over time has gotten back at same society by
killing more than the entire pre-Columbian population.
Erich
Erich J. Knight
Orator
> I thought you may be interested in Terra Preta Soils and the roll they
> could play in establishing a sustainable agricultural technology in our
> climates.
>
> I feel we should push for this Terra Preta Soils CO2 sequestration
> strategy as not only a global warming remedy for the first world, but
> to solve fertilization and transport issues for the third world. This
> information needs to be shared with all the state programs.
The "Terra Preta Soils CO2 sequestration" is bogus. Yes it (Indian Black
Earth) contains a lot of carbon, this is known. How did it get there?
Easy, they burned wood and added the coal to the soil!
Note the word "carbon" is not "carbon dioxide"! Not everything is linked
to global warming!
c_b...@yahoo.com
> Earth) contains a lot of carbon, this is known. How did it get there?
> Easy, they burned wood and added the coal to the soil!
>
> Note the word "carbon" is not "carbon dioxide"! Not everything is linked
> to global warming!
But how did the carbon get in the wood that gets burned to add the
carbon to the soil?
You need to consider that the carbon in the wood is derived from
atmospheric CO2. When the wood decomposes, this same carbon will be
converted into CO2 or methane which will return to the atmosphere.
Biomass essentially "borrows" this CO2 from the atmosphere, and if we
can keep it from returning to the atmosphere, then we are making some
progress to addressing the global warming problem.
Orator
What do you think happened when the people burned the wood? It created
CO2! Carbon (C) is _not_ the same as Carbon dioxide (CO2). Please do not
confuse the two.
Oralator Seppo.Renfors@Sucks.Big.Black.Ones
> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Mauris nonummy.
> Etiam id dolor. Ut ac ipsum. Nullam et mauris eget quam vehicula congue.
> Nam venenatis tincidunt eros. Donec lobortis elit. Cras sollicitudin,
> lectus vel sollicitudin blandit, elit enim aliquam tellus, quis dapibus
> nisl dui et felis.
>
> Nulla luctus tempor lectus. Duis velit. Mauris nec
> neque. Cras nibh lorem, feugiat vel, volutpat eu, consequat eget, odio.
> Integer quis justo. Cras vel purus eget lorem lacinia vulputate. Etiam
> egestas, sapien ac consectetuer gravida, pede odio facilisis ipsum,
> volutpat pretium dolor leo faucibus nisl.
>
> Morbi nibh diam, pellentesque
> quis, lobortis eu, molestie ac, nibh. Suspendisse sed justo id libero
> auctor malesuada. Aliquam erat volutpat. Morbi suscipit quam blandit quam.
> Nullam lacinia eros sit amet turpis. Aenean at urna.
>
> Nam nulla leo, feugiat vitae, mattis et, ultricies quis, metus. Duis non
> sapien luctus mauris lobortis ultricies. Ut adipiscing felis in dolor
> sollicitudin rutrum. Mauris ut nibh et tortor posuere fringilla. Fusce
> placerat viverra nunc. Vivamus consectetuer laoreet elit. Proin velit.
>
> Donec molestie, erat eget cursus tincidunt, sapien orci pretium urna, et
> imperdiet dolor erat id nunc. Aliquam justo. Suspendisse aliquam commodo
> lacus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et
> malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.
>
> Praesent eget felis hendrerit velit
> convallis varius. Mauris eget odio eget erat vulputate condimentum.
> Praesent metus eros, sodales non, sodales sed, consequat eu, odio. Morbi
> aliquet ultrices quam. Donec enim est, porta at, accumsan ut, rhoncus eu,
> lectus.
Erich
Orator wrote:
> What do you think happened when the people burned the wood? It created
> CO2! Carbon (C) is _not_ the same as Carbon dioxide (CO2). Please do not
> confuse the two.
You did not read my whole post.
If you capture the volatiles in the pyrolasis process, or use the CO2
from fossil fuel power plants , then the whole system is carbon
negative.