Mastering the Carbon Cycle: Waste to Usable Soil

Man has been controlling the direction of the planet's evolution whether intentional or not since the beginning of his creation. The carbon cycle which is tied to the weather is affecting global warming. This warm stability in climate has over the past 10,000 years allowed us to develop to where we are now in our development. Now we are suffering the consequences of our actions and must learn alternative ways if we wish to continue living and thriving on this planet.

Historic records give us a logical direction and reason for soil carbon sequestration. Before we started chopping down all of the world's virgin forests there was a natural carbon sink to filter out the carbon we produce in our daily lives. There was a time we laughed at the hippies for not wanting to cut down the rain forests. Now we know they were right.

New agricultural and foresting techniques are being introduced to help rebuild what we have destroyed. One such technique is known as Terra Preta Soil Technology. This program is designed to return the misplaced carbon to the soil.

At a microscopic level, Terra Preta creates a terrestrial carbon reef. These structures, although nano-scale in size, provide a safe haven to the microbes and fungus that facilitate fertile soil creation.  While creating the reef and building a haven this technology also provides a way to sequester carbon for hundreds if not thousands of years. The combination would also increase the growth rate and natural sequestration effort of growing plants.

By harnessing the work of a vast number of microbes and fungi, we change the whole equation of EROEI for food and Bio fuels. This is a sustainable agricultural strategy to keep us from using cheap fossil fuels for fertilizer. This super community of tiny beasts can work with us and populate their proper Soil horizon to naturally promote plant growth.

This type of technology was an invention of pre-Columbian American culture. It was destroyed by western disease but may be the savior of industrial western society. Pre-Columbian Indians produced these soils up to 6 feet deep over 20% of the Amazon basin with their limited resources. With today's agricultural industrial capabilities it should not be a problem to institute this program.

Terra Preta Soils Technology Can Produce Carbon Negative Bio fuels and Increased Soil Fertility Too.

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

CO2 remediation:

I understand that atmospheric CO2 stands at 379 PPM and to stabilize the climate we need to reduce it to 350 PPM by removing of 230 Billion tons.

The estimates I've located on the amount of our total loss of forest and soil carbon (combined pre-industrial and industrial) has been about 200-240 billion tons. Soils are estimated to account for about 1/3 of that number while vegetation accounts for the other 2/3. Since man controls 24 billion tons of carbon in his agricultural practices, it seems we have plenty of area to work within to start sequestering our fossil fuel CO2 emissions as charcoal.

Carbon dioxide, coal, ash, soot, methane, charcoal, smog, carbohydrates, greenhouse gases, trash, recyclables, carbon monoxide, wood, petroleum, hydrocarbons, ethanol, manure  all have one thing in common… carbon. This technology is a way to create an organic ‘carbon sink'. There are both pros and cons to this to this type of technology but it is a safe alternative to other industrial solutions.

Terra Preta's full beauty appears in a closed loop. Traditional sequestration rates follow diminishing marginal returns such as aquifers filling up and forests maturing. New practices based on Terra Preta Soil Technology sees an increase in returns. Terra Preta soils will double or even triple crop yields.

» left by Erich J. Knight from VA 2 years 74 days ago.

 

All political persuasions agree, building soil carbon is GOOD.

 

To Hard bitten Farmers, wary of carbon regulations that only increase their costs, Building soil carbon is a savory bone, to do well while doing good.

 

Biochar provides the tool powerful enough to cover Farming's carbon foot print while lowering cost simultaneously.

 

Agriculture allowed our cultural accent and Agriculture will now prevent our descent.

 

Wise Land management; Organic farming and afforestation can build back our soil carbon,

 

Biochar allows the soil food web to build much more recalcitrant organic carbon, ( living biomass & Glomalins) in addition to the carbon in the biochar.

 

Biochar, the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth, TP), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages… SIMULTANEOUSLY!

 

Every 1 ton of Biomass yields 1/3 ton Charcoal for soil Sequestration (= to 1 Ton CO2e) + Bio-Gas & Bio-oil fuels = to 1MWh exported electricity, so is a totally virtuous, carbon negative energy cycle.

 

Biochar viewed as soil Infrastructure; The old saw;

 "Feed the Soil Not the Plants" becomes;

 "Feed, Cloth and House the Soil, utilities included !".

 Free Carbon Condominiums with carboxyl group fats in the pantry and hydroxyl alcohol in the mini bar.

 Build it and the Wee-Beasties will come.

 Microbes like to sit down when they eat.

 By setting this table we expand husbandry to whole new orders & Kingdoms of life.

 

This is what I try to get across to Farmers, as to how I feel about the act of returning carbon to the soil. An act of penitence and thankfulness for the civilization we have created. Farmers are the Soil Sink Bankers, once carbon has a price, they will be laughing all the way to it.

 

Unlike CCS which only reduces emissions, biochar systems draw down CO2 every energy cycle, closing a circle back to support the soil food web. The photosynthetic "capture" collectors are up and running, the "storage" sink is in operation just under our feet. Pyrolysis conversion plants are the only infrastructure we need to build out.

 

Another significant aspect of low cost Biomass cook stoves that produce char is removal of BC aerosols and no respiratory disease emissions. At Scale, replacing "Three Stone" stoves the health benefits would equal eradication of Malaria biocharfund

 

The Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF).recently funded The Biochar Fund $300K for these systems citing these priorities;

 1) Hunger amongst the world's poorest people, the subsistence farmers of Sub-Saharan Africa,

 (2) Deforestation resulting from a reliance on slash-and-burn farming,

 (3) Energy poverty and a lack of access to clean, renewable energy, and

 (4) Climate change.

 

The Biochar Fund :

 Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon

 

What is coming down the road are other mechanisms like the carbon foot print / sustainability Index labeling pricing that will soon be lead by Walmart, (as goes Walmart so goes the world)

 

To me, in the long run, the final arbiter / accountancy / measure of sustainability will be

 

soil carbon content. Once this royal road is constructed, traffic cops ( Carbon Board ) in place, the truth of Biochar systems will be self-evident.

 

As I read the agronomic history of civilization, only the Kayopo Amazon Indians and the Egyptians

 

(Nile floods, which they now have forsaken) have maintained fertility for the long haul, millennium scales

 

We are also in De-nile about our own soil carbon loss over time due to technical mitigations like NPK and the green revolution.

 

The true "Gold" standard is soil carbon, measurable soon by earth sensing satellites, available for all to see their good (or bad) works.

 

The clarity and lack of complexity in this simple perspective has focused my efforts to this goal.

 

The Ag Carbon standard is in the second phase of review by the AMS- ARC branch at USDA.

 I am also doing field trials in Virgina with the Biochar research group at Rodale Institute , in conjunction with their people doing regular soil carbon research involved in this Ag Carbon Standards process..

 

Biochar systems for Biofuels and soil carbon sequestration are so basically conservative in nature it is a shame that republicans have not seized it as a central environmental policy plank as the conservatives in Australia have; "Carbon sequestration without Taxes"

 

All political persuasions agree, building soil carbon is GOOD.

 To Hard bitten Farmers, wary of carbon regulations that only increase their costs, Building soil carbon is a savory bone, to do well while doing good.

 

Biochar provides the tool powerful enough to cover Farming's carbon foot print while lowering cost simultaneously.

 Agriculture allowed our cultural accent and Agriculture will now prevent our descent.

 

Wise Land management; Organic farming and afforestation can build back our soil carbon,

 

Biochar allows the soil food web to build much more recalcitrant organic carbon, ( living biomass & Glomalins) in addition to the carbon in the biochar.

 

Biochar, the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth, TP), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages… SIMULTANEOUSLY!

 

Unlike CCS which only reduces emissions, biochar systems draw down CO2 every energy cycle, closing a circle back to support the soil food web. The photosynthetic "capture" collectors are up and running, the "storage" sink is in operation just under our feet. Pyrolysis conversion plants are the only infrastructure we need to build out.

 

The Terra Preta Prayer

 

Our Carbon who art in heaven,

 Hallowed be thy name

 By kingdom come, thy will be done, IN the Earth to make it Heaven.

 It will give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our atmospheric trespasses

 As we forgive those who trespass against the Kyoto protocols

 And lead us not into fossil fuel temptation, but deliver us from it's evil

 low as we walk through the valley of the shadow of Global Warming,

 I will feel no evil, your Bio-fuels and fertile microbes will comfort me,

 For thine is the fungal kingdom,

 and the microbe power,

 and the Sequestration Glory,

 For ever and ever (well at least 2000 years)

 

AMEN

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» left by Erich J. Knight from VA 2 years 74 days ago.

I'm told by the Jet Propulsion Lab mission specialists responsible for the suite of earth sensing satellites, that they will be reading soil carbon using multiple proxy measurements in 5 years. (reading soil moisture to 3 foot dept next year with SMAP, Reading GHG emissions and biomass from the tree tops down next year when the OCO is rebooted, to 1 Ha resolution )

 

Then any farmer can click "Google Carbon maps" to see the soil carbon accounted to his good work, a level playing field to be a soil sink banker.

 

The Moon Pie in the sky funding should be served to JPL

 

Agriculture allowed our cultural accent and Agriculture will now prevent our descent.

 

Since we have filled the air , filling the seas to full, Soil is the Only Beneficial place left.

 

Soil Carbon Commandments:

 

1) Thou shalt not have any other Molecule before Me

 

2) Thou shall not make wrongful use of the name of Biochar, It will not acquit anyone who mis-charactorizes it's name

 

3) Observe the Fallow days and keep them, as Sustainability commands thou

 

4) Honor your Micro Flora & Fauna , as the Soil Carbon commands you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that High Soil Carbon has given you.

 

5) Thou shall not murder the Soil Food Web

 

6) Neither shall thou adulterate the Soils with Toxicity

 

7) Neither shall thou steal Biomass from the Soil Food Web

 

8) Neither shall thou bear false witness against your neighbors Biochar, or about Thy own

 

9) Neither shall thou covet your neighbor's Fertility

 

10) Neither shall thou desire your neighbor's house, or field, or Pyrolysis Reactor, or farm implements, or anything that belongs to your neighbor, as thou may Create thy Own

 

Soil Carbon Dream

 

I have a dream that one day we live in a nation where progress will not be judged by the production yields of our fields, but by the color of their soils and by the Carbon content of their character.

 

I have a dream today.

 

I have a dream that one day, a suite of earth sensing satellites will level the playing field, giving every farmer a full account of carbon he sequesters. That Soil Carbon is given as the final arbiter, the common currency, accountant and Judge of Stewardship on our lands.

 

I have a dream today.

 

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made forest, the rough soils will be made fertile, and the crooked Carbon Marketeers will be made straight, and the glory of Soil Sequestration shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see a Mutually assured Sustainability.

 

This is our hope.

 

My apologies to Dr. King, but I think he would understand my passion

 

Erich

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