Opinion: What are the challenges of Terra Preta

[Michaelangelica]

So far Al seems to be unaware of TP.

Most people are

Will TP be the answer to global warming?

One "Best Energies" pyrolysis machine can produce 25-40 tonnes of charcoal a day (depending on the water content of the char and how long it is run.) This means it needs to be near a big source of organic waste. It produces its own gasses to run itself and has spare electricity either to put back into the grid or to use for some other purpose (water de-salination?).

 

Somehow there needs to be a demand for this charcoal from farmers, nurserymen and gardeners. Large nurseries should be interested as char can replace expensive perlite and vermiculite and help save water (17-20%) and fertiliser. pH may have to be played with. More research is needed on this.

 

A retail market would need to be developed for gardeners (which means packaging, safety, labeling etc).

 

Farmers will need to pay AUD $150-$250 a tonne for the char + cartage and costs in spreading it on their land. So they need to see savings in water, fertiliser use and better crop yields. Perhaps they could be encouraged more by getting carbon credits.

 

Government Environmental Agencies should be encouraging char use, to stop polluting fertiliser run-off, from farms and large nurseries.

 

Without this demand for char the economics of building a pyrolysis plant are not there. So now we have the difficult task of creating a demand for a product that has not been made yet! A chicken and egg conundrum.

 

If so, then the challenge has to be getting the word out

Tell your friends about Hypography and the TP discussion list. Also some good stuff on the Permaculture forums.

It does not take many pyrolysis machines to get to the Branson/Gore's target of a billion tonnes PA carbon sequestered. Each machine will cost about AUD5mil (c.US$4mil).(Probably less if purchased in bulk:) )

[erich]

Ammonia Scrubbing Technology, Issues of Hg and other By products of Coal combustion

 

I have been in contact with several chemical engineers, both corporate and government, that basically tell me that the TP/Ammonia scrubbing technology faces no practical hurdles. But when it comes to dealing with the fraction of volatilized mercury up stream scrubbing will be necessary. The non-volatile uranium, thorium, fall out, and that radon also present in coal combustion is of no consequence for this process.

 

Their general feeling is that direct liquidfaction and IGCC approaches to clean coal are complicated, expensive and except for pumping CO2 down oil gas wells other deep geologic strata sequestration is untested , expensive and also limited in scope.

 

After a year of researching and running TP-Tech by way more competent folks than I, in the many fields of study to which TP lends itself, I have found no technological road blocks.

 

Injection of powdered activated carbon (PAC) into the flue gas is currently the front runner technology that is nearest commercialization for mercury (Hg) removal. The PAC needs to be further enhanced with halogens, like bromine, to be really effective with subbituminous coals such as Powder River Basin coals. The Hg-loaded dust is then removed with filter bags (bag houses) or electrostatic precipitators. A problem is that fly ash is typically removed in the same unit, thus resulting in fly ash containing extra carbon (and Hg). That carbon generally makes the fly ash useless as a concrete amendment, thus destroying by-product market value.

 

In high-sulfur bituminous coal combustion the Hg in generally in ionic form, and can be removed by wet scrubbers . Use of wet scrubbers is being expanded significantly to address mandated SO2 control, thus also achieving a simultaneous co-benefit of Hg removal. The potential downside is the eventual disposition of the Hg that shows up in the byproduct gypsum obtainable from the scrubber sludge. Workarounds are being looked at for these cases above.

 

There are a bunch of other approaches in various stages of development. , one patent pending, but still only at the laboratory scale, where the Hg is captured within the material of the filter bags, thus keeping the Hg separated from the fly ash. The Hg is disposed of with the old bags at the end of their life, or recovered from the bag material at that time.

 

Danny Day's process can be fitted at the end of any of the Hg removal steps, though there would be little, if any additional removal credit for NOx or SO2.

 

 

 

 

Erich J. Knight

Shenandoah Gardens

E-mail: [email protected]

(540) 289-9750

[erich]

Here is my latest post to Rep. Bob Goodlatte (House Agriculture committee)after speaking to him at his Agriculture Conference in Staunton VA on Monday concerning issues for the up comming Farm bill. I also got to button hole Bruce Knight,USDA under secritary for marketing and regulation, Arlen Landcaster, Chief of National Resource & Conservation Service, and John Bricker, Virginia State Consevationist.

 

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Goodlatte, Mr. Bricker and Mr. Goldberg,

 

Thanks for hearing my concerns about regulations to support validation of Carbon Credits for the Sequestration of Charcoal in the soils at your Ag Conference Monday.

 

This soil technology could be the perfect Republican environmental plank. A truly conservative position to take on the stewardship of the planet , a real form of "Creation Care".

 

 

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.

 

Below is my review of these efforts in the Academic and private sectors, please forward this to all the experts you know, if you think it merits their time and support.

 

Sen. Byrd and Sen. Rockefeller of W VA and Rep. Udall had very positive responses to Terra Preta soils technology proposals presented to them.

 

Thanks for your attention

 

Erich J. Knight

Shenandoah Gardens

E-mail: shengar at aol.com

(540) 289-9750

 

 

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;

 

Tackling Climate Change in the U.S.

Potential Carbon Emissions Reductions from Biomass by 2030

by 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/d...ActionPlan.pdf

On page 31, 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 , I forgot the % that is waste, but when you add all the other cellulose waste which is now dumped to rot or digested or combusted and ultimately returned to the atmosphere as GHG, the balanced number is around 24 Billion tons. So we have plenty of bio-mass.

 

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 at REPP-CREST I've been drafted to administer. Terra Preta | Intentional use of charcoal in soil

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 G. I. T. , Dr. Antal of U. of H., Virginia Tech folks and probably many others who's back round I don't know have joined.

 

 

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

 

 

Terra Preta Soils Technology To Master the Carbon Cycle;

(you all have seen my post before , so I'll spare you)

 

Also;

 

My brother, Laird A. Knight, this week was lobbing for his issues of bicycle lanes & trails and stopped by Sen. Byrd's and Sen. Rockefeller's offices and said they were left slack-jawed after he presented them with the TP technology.

 

So all of you get busy, call ,write and email your representatives and senators, maybe we can create a critical mass of Terra Preta discussion on Capital Hill!

 

Erich J. Knight

Shenandoah Gardens

E-mail: shengar at aol.com

(540) 289-9750

[Taildragerdriver]

RBlack:

 

I have been working on a project that could answer your three questions and hope we are on track to start doing so in a scientifically supportable way.

 

I haven't had time recently to be involved in any of the threads I had been in. I have been working with Los Alamos National Lab to develop a proposal to get a grant to test Terra Preta in two situations.

 

One is an operational test on 7.5 acres of farmland where we would take forest excess fuels from the Wildland Urban Interface and make about 100 tons of charcoal and put that charcoal on this farmland and document the inputs and measure the outputs.

 

Also Texas A&M would be funded to do a greenhouse study to test similar concepts on a variety of soils and treatments.

 

The goal of this study if funded it to create a soil computer program that would describe how to modify a soil for a farmer to get the maximum benefit from adding charcoal,etc.

 

The goal is to make the use of charcoal attractive to large numbers of farmers to create a large demand so the large amounts of sequestration could go forward in this country and throughout the world. Taking advantage of all the benefits of Terra Preta is the desired result.

 

It is understood that we need to move the science forward before we can take advantage of this technology. The computer program will not be perfect after these initial studies but the foundation of information will be put in place and will continue to improve as more and more work is done by entities such as the various state Agricultural Experiment Stations. This computer program would of course use all the data in existing studies and from these new operational studies. When the program is relatively complete it would be delivered to the NRCS farm service centers throughout the US and possibly the rest of the world with the UN for example.

 

It is hoped this can also be the foundation of responding to some of the challenges stated in this thread. As with any grant application we may not get funded I will try to keep some posting on that in this thread.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver

[RBlack]

Taildragerdriver,

 

Good work on those projects. I hope you get all the funding you need. I had a wild idea last night that 100 years from now there won't be agricultural soil that does not have charcoal/biochar/carbon of one sort or the other in it! But then I have always been a dreamer!

 

Are you doing a baseline study with just charcoal? Or adding NPK or other variables? What controls do you envision on the parent material (pine, hardwood, or other), and the charring temperature? The reason I ask is that in all my reading on Terra Preta one thing that sticks out is that the variability of parent material, char temperature, and degree of char give lots of different results and often conflicting information. So I was wondering where you plan to start with and what type of soils and crops. I sometime think with all these variables that Terra Preta technology will turn out to be as much art as science. Another thought is that in dealing with soil and Terra Preta we need to look at second and third order effects of what we do. Example: What would be the crop yields of a field of corn the year after a nitrogen fixer like soybeans be and then how would that contrast with potatoes? Or the reverse order? We know some of this with regular soils but what about Terra Preta and at differing percentages of charcoal/carbon? Also the potential of Terra Preta science to manipulate the soil organic matter stability and the microbial makeup will be a huge factor in what we can do with it. Also how do we set up experiments that would isolate and examine any one of these factors or can we even do that since many of these factors are intertwined?

 

So if you have time let us know what is happening and it is great that we have people out there doing things and generating movement and discussion. Also let us know about that database and how to access the results.

 

RBlack

[Taildragerdriver]

RBlack:

 

Our detailed study plans have not been developed yet but I will describe the general concepts of each below:

 

Operational Study:

 

Our operational study is proposed to be mostly a baseline study. We would divide the 7.5 acre pasture into three treatments. One with hardwood charcoal, one with no charcoal, and one with conifer charcoal. The only treatment would be monitor pH on all and modify it if needed. We will plant alfalfa on all treatments since this is a pasture environment and we also want to see what happens with the nitrogen fixing.

 

We will get a pre-treatment soil test on the three areas. We plan to install wells to test runoff for nutrients lost during irrigation. We will describe our methods for incorporating large amounts of charcoal into soil on an operational scale. We will measure production on a clip plot scale and total acre production in bails for each treatment. We will also monitor soil moisture on each treatment to document if possible reduced need for irrigation. We also plan to get annual soil tests on the treatments.

 

We will measure and weigh and test moisture on wood going into and measure and weigh charcoal coming out of the charcoal making process. We will monitor and describe our charcoal making process but due to our need to produce an estimated 50 tons of charcoal we probably will use a primitive method to start with. If we get some good proof of the value of charcoal we feel we can build a better plant and utilize all the byproducts, and also control our production much better.

 

Greenhouse Study:

 

In the greenhouse study we will select a variety of major soil types, charcoal amounts, NPK variation, probably a range of farm plants, and different watering and microbial ideas. These various tests would be the initial calibration of the computer program to provide to farmers who might be interested in using terra preta the best estimate of what to do.

 

This will be a much more complex study plan but will develop the basis for estimates for what to do on a larger range of conditions.

 

We hope through these studies to look at some of the second order effects like irrigation (water as you know is a pretty big issue in much of the world), leaching (off farm pollution is a huge issue) and other second order issues but it will take time to look at third order effects.

 

==================

So you identify very clearly that we will establish a very basic foundation with the results of these studies and program them into this soil modeling program. In my job I do lots of modeling and the way this works is you start with the best model you can build and apply it. Then you do further studies to see if the predicted results are correct if they are not you figure out why and improve the model. That is what we plan to do and work with the State Agricultural Research Stations to improve these predictions. We will do this over and over to move from art to science but we will probably always be somewhere on the continuum. In reality farming is kind of the same thing much of an art and science mix.

 

So we sure will not be able to answer many of these questions that you mention immediately. They are all very relevant but it will take many years to answer them and some may never be answered because of the complexity of the interactions. If we can, through this effort establish proof of the value of terra preta, in operational settings and demonstrate the cost effectiveness of these treatments to farmers we feel much of the rest will follow.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver

[RBlack]

Taildragerdriver,

 

WOW!! If that's just the general concept I can't wait to see what you do in the end. No wonder you've been busy it looks to me that you will have covered everything you can and more in this study and the results should be applicable to everything we all are trying to do. How long are you shooting for to do this study? The reason I ask is that the results over a 5 year period would be very enlightening for to many reason to mention here.

 

One idea I have had is what would just charcoal do for a habitat restoration/enhancment project where we put charcoal into a natural area and see what happens 1,2 or 5 years later (change in biomass/species/animal habitat). Your just plain charcoal treatments may be a great indicator about that. Also looking at the hardwood/conifer varibles should be very interesting.

 

Also let us know if there is anything we can do to help you in this endevor. If you haven't contacted Erich Knight yet do! He has his fingers in alot of pies and one may be of benifit to you. (Sorry to volunteer you Erich but....).

 

RBlack

[Taildragerdriver]

RBlack:

 

I have not contacted Erich specifically but he is on many of the same forums I have been on. I currently can't think of any help specifically others might be except in forums like this to be able to exchange ideas. Currently we have some pretty eminent scientists working with us and that is a big help as you might guess.

 

Our current grant proposal is for 3 years but at least on the operational study we would continue to monitor all the various variables I would expect. We expect if things go well that we will add a lot of work in the future in optimizing the charcoal production facility to use byproducts and expand on the control of the products and temperatures.

 

Ideally we will be publishing results of the greenhouse studies as soon as we can. As is not uncommon in studies like this there will be progress reports. Just having this pasture modified in this way creates a lot of opportunities to monitor and publish the changes for years. I would expect long term as a more robust microbial community develops interesting things will continue to happen.

 

Your idea of putting charcoal back on a forested or other natural landscape, we have been thinking of that too. In fact it is a very interesting idea. The main problem is that it would be even harder to study. There are lots more complex interactions going on in natural landscapes than on farmland. That doesn't mean that it is not something we might want to do in the near future if we are making lots of charcoal just to see what will happen. It would be worth doing just to see what would happen.

 

I'll try to report back to this forum if we get our grant. I will continue to put in progress reports as we work if we do.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver

[davidgmills]

Truly humbled by your ambition and project Taildraggerdriver.

 

As I continue to put lump charcoal in my yard at 8 lbs a sack, thinking my goal in life is to put a ton in the ground before I die (primarily for global warming purposes) I am truly glad someone out there is cranking up large scale projects.

 

But on the other hand the world rally needs everyone of us to reverse global warming so I continue to try to get my neighbors to put charcoal on their grounds and lawns in good ole suburbia.

 

I just started my vegetable garden last Sunday. Planted about 40 seeds or so of corn. The package said germination would be twelve days. At least half of the seeds have already sprouted and it is only Friday. Six days. Half the time. Don't have a clue if that means anything but I thought I would post the observation anyway.

[Taildragerdriver]

David:

 

It might be interesting to you to know that I'm not focused on Global Warming as the reason for getting to work on Terra Preta. For most people the problem is far to big a problem for them to get their interest up because they know even with a big change it will be many years before they see any results. So I am talking about some immediate benifits of Terra Prata.

 

So I use the following ideas:

 

If Terra Preta works there are the immediate benifits to farmers.

 

The first and most improtant is the ability eliminate or substantially reduce the need for chemical fertilizer. This is a very expensive cost of production for most farmers.

 

Second is the potential to reduce the water needed for irriagtion which is another big concern for many farmers.

 

Third is the idea of reduced pollution from leaching of neutrients from farm fields. This is a big concern for farmers as well since they may have to invest money in not allowing runoff to go into rivers for example.

 

For these reasons farmers and ranchers can get behind this idea.

 

If we can sell charcoal to farmers then there is a potential for a great new industry in depressed rural areas

 

If you make charcoal you only get 40% charcoal out of the wood you put into the process. The good thing about this is that you want to produce the charcoal as close to the source of wood as you can. This means the charcoal would be produced in these little rural communities close to the forests.

 

The second idea is that there may be several great byproducts for charcoal making that we could make verious forms of energy from in cogeneration.

 

These are things that local people in rural communities can get behind.

 

If we can make charcoal we can reduce the excess fuels in our forests that contribute to forest fires.

 

One of the big concerns in the west is the forest fires that start every year and may burn up forests we recreate in and may burn our homes. Currently these fuels are only removed by burning slash after thinned the forest area. This contributes to smoke in the air which is limitied by each state so much of the slash can't be burned each year.

 

Making charcoal could be a soulution to this problem so many people support the idea.

 

=============

This is a very cursory view of three reasons to get started with Terra Preta but as you can see it solves immedate problems for people where I live. I tell them Terra Preta can also be a solution to Global Warming, they say thats fine, but it isn't the reason they are supporting what we are doing.

 

Thanks and good luck.

 

Taildragerdriver

[davidgmills]

Taildragerdriver:

 

I realize there has to be a benefit (really a huge benefit to farmers) before they will charcoal the ground. I sincerely hope the benefit to farmers is obvious and emerges very quickly.

 

For suburbia it is different. I need a different pitch so the global warming angle along with healty yards and gardens is the pitch I use.

 

But since I suck at gardening and am getting too damn old for yardwork, for me terra preta is my way of helping the earth. For me, buying a few bags of lump charcoal and putting them in my gardens is not a significant expense. And I hope it will reduce the need for fertilizers.

 

I wish they had a solution for weeds. Unfortunately, they won't just allow us to let our lawns go natural. Hell, I got a neighborhood fine last year for failing to trim my bushes!

 

I see no reazon though that farmers shouldn't terra preta for agricultural purposes and suburbanites and urbanites have to terra preta for global warming reasons.

 

Of course today, I had a discussion about global warming winners and losers. There will no doubt be global warming winners as well as losers. It will be hard politically to get those who win with global warming to get on board.

[Michaelangelica]

David:

 

 

If Terra Preta works there are the immediate benifits to farmers.

 

The first and most important is the ability eliminate or substantially reduce the need for chemical fertilizer. This is a very expensive cost of production for most farmers.

Are organic fertilisers better? does anyone know? I guess it depends on your soil.

Second is the potential to reduce the water needed for irrigation which is another big concern for many farmers.

I am told that the more "activated" the charcoal is the better it holds water.

I can't find any research to support this.

Intuitively it seems right as the carbon "pops' like popcorn?? Can anyone help?

For these reasons farmers and ranchers can get behind this idea.

yes the fact that it can save 17% ++ water.

This alone is a good enough reason to use it; especially in Oz.

 

If we can sell charcoal to farmers then there is a potential for a great new industry in depressed rural areas

 

If you make charcoal you only get 40% charcoal out of the wood you put into the process.

In pyrolysis I have seen estimates of 70-90% charcoal (BEST energies)

The second idea is that there may be several great byproducts for charcoal

I did post a British study on this Charcoal is used in pet food and all sorts of amazing things

I will find it and post the URL here later

 

 

 

If we can make charcoal we can reduce the excess fuels in our forests that contribute to forest fires.

You have to gather it, but it may be a better solution

mmm

In Oz we need the fire for phosphorus and seed germination

 

 

 

 

Taildragerdriver

[RBlack]

To Taildragerdriver,

 

On your post about making the immediate benefits of Terra Preta available and attractive to farmers I agree wholeheartedly. One thing I would add is that we need to take Terra Preta technology/science and make it available and easy to use for a farmer/gardener in their own back yard without outside resources. For small scale Terra Preta to work we have to have the materials in place and no hauling/fuel consumption or much capital outlay. That is one reason I have experimented with oil drum (or metal garbage can), kilns. Easy to build, use, not expensive, and chars up the excess material you have lying around.

 

In today’s world if we can’t find solutions to global warming that are cheap, easy, and of benefit than I don’t believe we will use them.

 

To Michaelangelica,

 

Are organic fertilisers better? does anyone know?

 

In answer to this question I talked to a soil professor from Colorado State University and he summed it up as NPK applications can be calculated to the exact crops/soils that a farmer has and the next year if they change crops they can change the percentages of NPK as NPK is a one year shot. Organic fertilizers are all around better but you can’t get that exact of a percentage and organic fertilizers stay in the soil for longer periods. NPK also offers quicker results as organic (depending on what you use), takes longer to breakdown. NPK is also is more susceptible to leaching than organic but for “wee beasties”, worms, and overall soil health organic is better. NPK does nothing for soil organic matter and offers no amendment qualities for soil structure (water retention and air spaces), or soil texture (water retention/drainage).

 

I am told that the more "activated" the charcoal is the better it holds water. I can't find any research to support this.

 

On this question I have read that the higher the charring temperature that greater the surface area and better environment for microbes and more “activated” the charcoal. This greater surface area may increase water retention. It also may be that the higher temperature opens up more pores so water can saturate the charcoal. I read in Wiki that to make charcoal activated some processes steam it to remove impurities, this would also open up the pores. I ground up some low temp charcoal and have it soaking in water for the last month. About 60 percent has saturated and sank to the bottom but the rest is floating merrily on top. Obviously gases are trapped inside the charcoal so that water retention of these pieces is lower. Also the size of the charcoal makes a difference as smaller/finer charcoal absorbs more water than charcoal pieces. I have read all of this off of internet available articles but can’t remember which ones. If you need references I can do more research.

 

RBlack

[Taildragerdriver]

This is great discussion:

 

David:

 

It is good you are working on getting the folks in suburbia interested we all can do our part. I hope if we are sucessful in getting a charcoal plant going in my town we can start to make bags of good charcoal available to suburban folks at the garden store, as one of the members of the previous terra preta forum suggested, with some good documentation on how to use it. I think it could be pretty cheep and could help your cause as well.

 

I for one am glad I have never had to suffer the consequeses of what seems to me to be the "loss of freedom" you folks who live in urban areas have to put up with. I try to be a good neighbor by keeping noxious weeds down in my pastures and keeping my fences in pretty good shape but there is no enforcement of that kind of stuff in the world I live in. I'm not sure I would be able to restrain myself if somebody came along and told me to trim my bushes.

 

As for winners and loosers. One of the great things about terra preta vs golobal warming is that there are few loosers and lots of winners it seems to me. The only real loosers I can figure out are the chemical fertilizer companies because there is likely to be less demand for their products. But it turns out that they are really oil companies in large part and the oil companies benift from the carbon credits farmers sequestering carbon would produce so even they may not be too opposed.

 

 

Michaelangelica:

 

I have made some small amounts of charcoal from wood and I find I get about 40% by weight of the weight of the original dry wood. That is also what I read in the literature. I would be interested in any reference that describes getting a higher return. For our purposes the more the better. We will be documenting our experience for large scale operations this summer as we crank up bigger production.

 

As for your point about the need for fire, we need it too in our forests and range lands we just need it with less fuels so the fires are valuable not destructive. Removing this excess fuel could be useful for you as well.

 

RBlack:

 

I agree with your point about making terra preta cheep and easy to use. For farmers and gardners alike that is one of the reasons we have the proposal of producing this computer program that will help guide the user through what amendments to put in their soil.

 

The idea would be to take a soil sample, send it to your state extension service (at least in Oregon, may be different elsewhere) and have it tested. When you get the report back you type the results into the program and it will tell you what to add to the soil. How much charcaol etc.

This would probably be up on the web and be an instant return.

 

As for people making their own char I'm kind of skeptical that many people would really want to do that. My idea is that you could collect all the yard waist seperately and the garbage collector would deliver it to an urban charcoal plant and they would sell the product at low cost to the public. Seems more likely to work to me. I think that would work mostly because there seems to be a good chance we could produce energy from the charcoal making process so the charcoal production could be subsidized by the value of the energy and the saving of landfill space.

 

I want to give some positive feedback to the folks on the forum:

 

It is a great time for us all to explore ideas of how we can all make this work. This is an exciting time to bring back a very old idea and make it work in the modern world to solve our problems today. Exciting stuff for me, my work is all about science and ideas. I beleve we should make work and life fun. I hope you all enjoy this opportunity and feel good that we are working to benifit the planet and mankind all at once. Makes me feel good, hope it does for you all too.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver

[erich]

RIGHT ON.............Trail!!

The most Gratifying advocation of my life, and all you guys to thank for it.

Even as Spring (and my bank account) is calling me back to my vocation, TP will remain my soul moonlighting occupation.

 

A Tribute to You All

 

Erich

[InfiniteNow]

It appears that one of the challenges of Terra Preta is making good friends and inspiring others while talking about it. :)

 

Each of your efforts are to be commended. :)

 

 

 

So, what are the obstacles? What are the issues requiring solutions? Let's get our collective intelligence working to identify and resolve any issues and push forward.

 

 

Cheers. :cup:

[Taildragerdriver]

InfinityNow:

 

The answer to your two questions are pretty simple. Every farmer I talk about terra preta says. "It sounds good to me but I need the science to demonstrate what you say will work." That will take two or three years and that is what we are working on now. All the rest will follow once the farmers can depend on terra preta producing the results we think it will.

 

Thanks

 

Taildragerdriver