I’ve spent a lot of time following what people around the world are doing to rehabilitate soils, conquer the desert, build on destruction. You put some of this stuff together and you’ve got a place you’d want to live. One of the most interesting things I came across was called terra preta or black earth. Now black earth is found in lots of places so you’re probably thinking I’ve bought a dirt concession and will try to sell you a half inch of top soil or something. That’s certainly an idea but cheating people is not sustainable.
When the Spanish and Portuguese were swarming all over Central and South America looking for El Dorado there was an expedition that went up the Amazon. That particular Conquistador came back with tales of a kingdom in the middle ofthe Amazon Jungle.
Until recently everyone scoffed at the notion. Look they said Amazon soils are very thin, that’s why chopping down the trees is a bad idea because the trees are the only thing that keeps the fertility from getting washed away. No way could there ever have been a kingdom there, the soil could never support it.
Then people started talking about finding deep, incredibly fertile black soil in the midst of the Amazon. The secret to it’s formation was charred wood, which meant that wonder upon wonder, these soils were man made.
Charred wood, not burned wood, is stable in soils. It doesn’t degrade quickly, but what it does do is become a fungus matrix. It also becomes a water filter. So water flows down into the soil, hits the char layer and flows through, but in doing so it leaves all the nitrogen, potassium and other essential nutrients trapped in that matrix. The fungi secretes all sorts of enzymes and juices which unlock all the nutrients from the matrix and make it available to plants. Now apparently the problem with this is not that after a while the soil loses fertility and has to be abandoned, it’s that the soil is so incredibly rich that weeds are growing faster than they can be ripped out. Something about this had already been known. Farmers could never figure why sugar cane fields just kept getting more fertile. It makes no sense that the cane should be taking stuff out of the soil but that the field just increased in fertility. Now, they know the answer, it’s because it’s burned, they’re getting the same matrix under the ground because the roots don’t fully burn- they char.
Another thing about this is that terra preta acts like yeast in bread. Amazonians mine this stuff, and they know that if you leave a thin layer at the bottom of the hole you can come back in ten years and the hole has been filled in, like bread rising out of a baking tin. Ponder that and recall that most places in the world are losing topsoil at rates hundreds of times higher than the rate of replacement.
It used to be if you cut down plants and burned them, people would say that you are causing global warming, but if the char is placed in the ground and vegetation grows lie crazy, taking CO2 out of the atmosphere is that still the case?
Jared Diamond who writes about civilization in books such as guns, germs and steel and collapse writes that Australia with its old worn out soil is supporting an unsustainably large population. However if people can make rich soils that alters the whole equation. Deserts can be conquered, badlands made good, salt pans can bloom.
It’s good news for a change. The solutions to all our problems are out there. It just needs responsibility and dedication. Never again should you say it’s bad but there’s nothing I can do about it. Most of this stuff is about learning not about money. Everything starts with thought.
Creditos said,
August 20, 2007 at 9:34 am
Here is a small sample of the side of the debate we almost never hear:
Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, “There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth’s temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years.” Patterson asked the committee, “On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century’s modest warming?”
Carlos Menéndez
http://www.creditomagazine.es
Erich J. Knight said,
August 23, 2007 at 2:57 am
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 25×25 (see 25x’25 – Home) released it’s (first-ever, 55-page )”Action Plan” ; see http://www.25×25.org/storage/25×25/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.”
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 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.
Also Here is the Latest BIG Terra Preta Soil news;
ConocoPhillips Establishes $22.5 Million Pyrolysis Program at Iowa State 04/10/07
http://www.conocophillips.com/newsroom/news_releases/2007+News+Releases/041007.htm
tokyobabylon said,
August 23, 2007 at 4:26 am
For those who don’t spend their time following this stuff. The IPCC is the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change. Because it’s intergovernmental, you and I don’t really have a say, but unlike the WTO or the G8 these people generally don’t need an army of riot police and tear gas wherever they go.
It’s basically a panel of experts working under the auspices of two UN groups: the United Nations Environmental Programme and the World Meteorological Organization. They look at science papers and come up with recommendations that have some scholarly authority.
A lot of what you see here, while credit worthy remains the top-down approach to terra preta and a lot of it will get patented thereby denying the world’s poor access to it because of TRIPS, basically intellectual property laws. When you have countries allowing lifeforms to be patented this is some really unfair practices we’re talking about, since TRIPS is all about enforcement.
Developing it in this way will incorporate terra preta into the standard beggar thy neighbour corporate strategy. The Amazonians were doing this stuff at the communiy level hundreds of years ago without stock options, major capital investment or WTO sanctions.
Taken down to the level of appropriate technology (basically low tech solutions to the problems of the poor) this has a great deal of potential to save the lives of people living on marginal land. Take a look at pictures of hillsides in Pakistan and Afghanistan, much of which wouldn’t look out of place in a movie about Mars, and you’ll know what I mean by marginal.
Incorporated into a local community supported industrial ecology the production of terra preta makes sound economic and business sense, whether that’s modelled on Kalundborg in Denmark (which is basically a industrial park with advanced waste management and recycling techniques) or on ZERI principles which operate at the level of the smallholding farmer.
Follow the links though and ponder how you could incorporate this stuff into your system ideas to better your community.
Erich J. Knight said,
August 24, 2007 at 4:39 am
All the Bio-Char Companies and equipment manufactures, using closed-loop systems, I’ve found:
Carbon Diversion
http://www.carbondiversion.com/
Dr. Antal’s Plasma Carbonization process was just liecenced by Clorox / KingsFord Charcoal, See: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007707280348
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/bestpyrolysis.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/
“U.S. Sustainable Energy’s Rivera Process yields an ash product, a liquid
product, and a gas product. Its number one product is the ash product, a carbon
rich organic-based fertilizer. One bushel of bean creates 20.1 pounds of
this organic fertilizer.”
_http://sustainablepower.com/fuel_background.html_
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)
Erich J. Knight
Shenandoah Gardens
E-mail: shengar at aol.com
(540) 289-9750