Michaelangelica Posted May 16, 2007 Report Share Posted May 16, 2007 Scientific American article on TP Special Report: Inspired by Ancient Amazonians, a Plan to Convert Trash into Environmental Treasure: Scientific American In FocusMay 15, 2007Special Report: Inspired by Ancient Amazonians, a Plan to Convert Trash into Environmental TreasureNew bill in U.S. Senate will advocate adoption of "agrichar" method that could lessen our dependence on fossil fuel and help avert global warmingBy Anne Casselman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pangolin Posted May 16, 2007 Report Share Posted May 16, 2007 Australia persists in their rush to national suicide. In the midst of the first climate-related national scale disaster to hit a industrial nation they persist in their plans to export more coal. Now they fire the only government researcher working on organic methods that would sequester carbon. It's a good thing no Australian farmers and ranchers have access to rifles. Those politicians would start feeling like targets otherwise. Southtown 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erich Posted May 16, 2007 Report Share Posted May 16, 2007 Maybe Scientific American's TP article will generate more traction than last years Nature article. Special Report: Inspired by Ancient Amazonians, a Plan to Convert Trash into Environmental Treasure: Scientific American Erich Edit: OOPS..........I just saw that Michael beat me to it, and I missed it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted May 16, 2007 Report Share Posted May 16, 2007 Australia persists in their rush to national suicide. In the midst of the first climate-related national scale disaster to hit a industrial nation they persist in their plans to export more coal. Now they fire the only government researcher working on organic methods that would sequester carbon. It's a good thing no Australian farmers and ranchers have access to rifles. Those politicians would start feeling like targets otherwise.In NSW Coal tankers are lined up 90 kilometers along the coast waiting to get into Newcastle port to be loaded. It is quite an unprecedented sight.The State government wants a new coal fired power stationThe Federal government just gave ChevronMobil 60mil. to put the CO2 they bring up with the gas from the Gorgon gas Field (the biggest in the world) back down the holeThere is one CSIRO report in the original TP thread saying that Oz soils are poor because they contain charcoal. Need I say more?Some time (year or two ) ago I asked CSIRO what research they were doing in this area they said nothing.But things aren't quite that bad. There were at least 4 -5 poster presentations about Australian char research at the IAI conference, (including CSIRO). BEST 's technology is now American owned, hopefully they will have better brains to use it. Attached a few of the IAI poster presentations. Taken with an antique digital camera by an antique. Hopefully better versions will be on the IAI site soon. I have pics of them all but I'm not sure of the copyright situation. One of these presentations with the "roaring flame" way of making charcoal was a worry.! PS Australian Farmers do have guns just not Automatic Military Assault Rifles. They need them to kill thirsty cows and occasionally themselves. The sad thing is if the PM Howard (AKA Bonsai) introduced carbon credits they would be rolling in money. His popularity certainly is waning of late, a lot due to poor environment management. People are very concerned about GW Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted May 18, 2007 Report Share Posted May 18, 2007 Pyrolysis gets a mention!!In the finals!Amazing!m UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA World Environment Day Awards 2007 FINALISTS ANNOUNCED The United Nations Association of Australia today announces the finalists in this year’s UNAA World Environment Day Awards (see attached list). . ..... . blah. .Award winners will be announced at the Awards Presentation Dinner to be held at the Grand Hyatt, Melbourne on Friday 1 June, 2007. This gala event will be hosted by Rob Gell, Environmentalist and President of Greening Australia, Victoria. For further details please contact:Patricia Collett, UNAA Executive Director Ph: (03) 9670 7878 or 0418 544 315 Email: [email protected] Proudly sponsored by ________________________________ World Environment Day Awards 2007 FINALISTS ANNOUNCED Continued Sustainability Victoria Meeting the Greenhouse Challenge Award• Best Energies & NSW DPI – “Pyrolysis for Renewable Energy & Agrichar” • Carbon Pool – “Minding the Carbon Store” • CO2 Australia – “Carbon Sequestration Program” • Origin Energy – “Carbon Reduction Scheme” g Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted May 18, 2007 Report Share Posted May 18, 2007 somehow missed this in Scientific AmericanThe Companies and Organizations Poised to Turn Garbage into Fuel, Fertilizer and a Means of Carbon Sequestration: Scientific American Scientific American:May 15, 2007The Companies and Organizations Poised to Turn Garbage into Fuel, Fertilizer and a Means of Carbon Sequestration By Anne Casselman BACK TO: Special Report: Inspired by Ancient Amazonians, a Plan to Convert Trash into Environmental Treasure Terra preta was first documented in 1879 and has been studied scientifically since 1966, but its intersection with the energy sector is much more recent. The American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in January 2006 dedicated a session to terra preta. Later, in July 2006 at the World Congress of Soil Science, an interdisciplinary group of agrichar enthusiasts got so fired up that they banded together to form the International Agrichar Initiative. The group is held its first conference in April 2007 in Australia. "We need to get the engineers together with environmental scientists, with the economists and the policy analysts," says Johannes Lehmann, one of its organizers. "Get them together into one pot and stir heavily," he prescribes. "Then we can come up with a highly valuable alternative to waste management, to energy production and to land stewardship." The meeting was sponsored in part by some of the companies that are pursuing pyrolysis as a business model. Already Dynamotive Energy Systems, a Canadian energy solutions provider, has a 100-ton-per-day plant up and running in West Lorne, Ontario. Dynamotive is also currently building a 200-ton-per-day facility 45 minutes west of Toronto. Their fast pyrolysis method produces 200 kilograms of char to every ton of bio-oil. Best Energies, a Madison, Wis.-based biofuel company has a 12-ton-per-day pyrolysis unit working in Australia as a quarter-scale demo of the technology. "Think of maybe two semi containers end to end and that's the size we're talking about," says Cory Wendt, Best Energies' vice president of business development. His company began selling their 48- and 96-ton biomass-per-day pyrolysis units to the public on January 1, 2007. "In some countries carbon credits are a big driver and we offset a minimum of 9,000 carbon credits on an annual basis for the 48-ton-per-day units," Wendt says. They already have half a dozen clients in the pipeline and a binder full of other possible leads. Eprida, which operates on a hybrid profit/not-for-profit basis in Athens, Ga., is working on a 12-ton-per-day unit, scaled to fit the needs of the farmer. "Our primary goal is to increase the quality of life for subsistence farmers, and in doing so we have the capability of reversing CO2 release and converting that whole cycle downwards," explains company president Danny Day. Day notes that financial incentives must be in place to reward farmers for sequestering carbon in order for the idea to work. It is a common concern for academics and businessmen alike. "Use of agrichar does not fall under existing subsidies with respect to renewable energy, because agrichar is not an energy use," Dynamotive's Desmond Radlein notes. "An easy mechanism [for creating incentives for development of agrichar] would be through controlled subsidies where we actually say, 'What is this worth to us?'" Lehmann says. "That's where the policy comes in to be able to internalize some of these hitherto external benefits." Without those changes in place, all the back-of-the-envelope calculations, no matter how glowing, simply will not count. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted May 19, 2007 Report Share Posted May 19, 2007 Quite abit of action on the web this week especially in blogsAncient Amazonian technology could save the worldMongabay.com - USATerra preta, the ancient charcoal-based soil used by ancient Amazonians to create permanently fertile agricultural lands in the rainforest, ...See all stories on this topic B)Terra Preta - May 18Staff, EB. Scientific American: Inspired by ancient Amazonians, a plan to convert trash into environmental treasure New website for technical information and discussions of Terra Preta.EnergyBulletin.net Environment... - EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse B)A Carbon Hat Trick?By Carl Lenox(Carl Lenox)Terra Preta. I don't know where I've been, but I had never heard of it until last week. But I'm starting to get very interested in Terra Preta. "Dark Soil", in Porteugese. A sort of miraculous earth found in the jungles of the Amazon, ...Heliotropic - Heliotropic B) Scientists improve bio-oil refining from wood chips and aim for ...By Biopact team(Biopact team)Such "terra preta" or "dark earth" plots are surprisingly fertile compared to non-treated soils (earlier post). The technique is currently receiving a lot of attention from the renewable energy community and from climate scientists ...biopact - Bioenergy pact between Europe and Africa B)still more today 22/05/07IAIRadlein is not alone in his belief in this technology-last week in Terrigal, New South Wales, Australia, the newly formed International Agrichar Initiative held its first ever conference, which included 135 attendees from every corner ... Peak Energy - Peak Energy This is an interesting read; scroll down the page a bit-m This blog remains somewhat unconvinced since soil ecology is more complex than a graphic of a carbon cycle and wonders how soil chemists and farm agents assess agri-char Doesn't really elaborate on this, pity, we need a good fight.B) Very pretty graphicWould it make a 'nice' T shirt for members of the TP religion?m____________________ B)____________ Biochar turns a negative positiveToronto Star - Toronto,Ontario,CanadaDozens of scientists who gathered in Australia three weeks ago for the first annual International Agrichar Initiative conference say that making "char" and .Clean Break :: Biochar -- a serious carbon-negative option?._______________ _________________ Biochar -- a serious carbon-negative option? By TylerLast month scientists gathered in Australia for the first International Agrichar Initiative conference to discuss ways of advancing this approach. Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers, was a keynote speaker at the conference and ... Clean Break - Clean Break :: Main Page -- michaelShould these go in the blogs thread? I sort of left that for blogs specifically on TP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted May 22, 2007 Report Share Posted May 22, 2007 Yet another blog BUT. . .My god, Read this!:evil: :doh: Adopting Agrichar By JacquelineThe International Agrichar Initiative website tells us the use of Agrichar in soils is like that of the Terra Preta soils of the Amazon Basin, which sequester high quantities of carbon and have improved soil fertility and sustainability ... Do It Green Scientific American reports that Al Gore pitched the Virgin Earth Contest - $25 million to whoever could come up with a way to sequester (store) 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. Desmond Radlein (of Dynamotive Energy Systems in British Columbia) may have won. This with a picture of bloody BBQ fuel!I tried to log in to make a comment but they are too America-Centric ("please enter a valid postcode") and I was too annoyed to continue.Does anyone in the US want to sort them out,comment and put links to this Forum? Adopting Agrichar : Do It Green : A home for exploring how to make our homes and neighborhoods more environmentally friendly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeztar Posted May 22, 2007 Report Share Posted May 22, 2007 Looks like Erich did a good job of it. Southtown and Michaelangelica 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted May 22, 2007 Report Share Posted May 22, 2007 Looks like Erich did a good job of it.Thanks freeztarLOL He certainly did didn't he! It will take them a Month of Sundays to read all those references! I like your signature, clever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michaelangelica Posted May 26, 2007 Report Share Posted May 26, 2007 Who is going to tell them that this is not 'NEW' and we have been flogging the idea for ages? erich?Bioenergy pact between Europe and Africa Back to black: hydrothermal carbonisation of biomass to clean up CO2 emissions from the past Gradually, a new, 'low-tech' geosequestration option is attracting the attention of more and more scientists. It is based on converting biomass into an inert form of bio-coal or charcoal, that can be stored in soils. Earlier we referred to carbon-negative energy systems that rely on gasification and biochar sequestration: biomass is gasified which results in a carbon monoxide and hydrogen rich gas that can be used for energy or transformed into ultra-clean synthetic biofuels via the Fischer-Tropsch process, whereas a fraction becomes bio-char that can be stored in soils (using a technique known as 'terra preta'). Similar techniques can be build around pyrolysis processes (earlier post). In such systems, soil fertility would be gradually enhanced, 'historic' CO2 would be sequestered and clean biofuels could be used to power our societies. Only biomass can be used for the creation of such carbon-negative energy systems that clean up our emissions from the past. Other renewables are carbon-neutral at best, meaning they can only reduce future CO2 emissions - something many scientists think is not enough to avert dangerous climate change. Maria-Magdalena Titirici, Arne Thomas and Markus Antonietti of the Department of Colloid Chemistry at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, now describe a new, highly efficient though 'low-tech' way to use biomass as a tool to clean up past emissions. Their research appears in an open access article in the New Journal of Chemistry, in which they suggest creating "turbo-rainforests" based on fast-growing energy crops that are grown, turned into bio-coal via a process known as hydrothermal carbonization (HTC), and then stored into 'carbon landfills', while deriving energy from the process. The technique can be practised on an ultra-large scale, and can thus be described as a geo-engineering option - one that is actually technically and economically feasible. Importantly, in contrast to other biomass carbonisation techniques that require dry biomass, the hydrothermal carbonisation process is a highly efficient 'wet' process that avoids complicated drying schemes and costly isolation procedures. The resulting carbonaceous materials also open a new field of chemistry, full of novel possibilities and challenges that may lead to the development of new (nano)materials: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Small Posted May 30, 2007 Report Share Posted May 30, 2007 Dynamotive in Iowa Biochar Test to Boost Corn Yields, Water Quality and Sequester Carbon“Not only has Dynamotive’s biochar the potential to raise high-yield rates of corn another 20%, but we believe there is a real possibility the char trial could also result in evidence that could point the way to dramatic improvements in water quality, which could have far-reaching beneficial consequences,” said Dr. Lon Crosby, of Heartland BioEnergy. Dr. Desmond Radlein, Dynamotive’s chief scientist behind the company’s proprietary fast-pyrolysis technology, added: “Because the biochar does not readily break down, it could sequester, apparently for thousands of years, nearly all the carbon it contains, rather than releasing it into the atmosphere as the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Crucially, we expect it to boost agricultural productivity significantly through its ability to retain nutrients and moisture and host beneficial soil micro-organisms.” President of Dynamotive USA, Andrew Kingston, said: “By enhancing productivity of the land and crop yields, sequestering carbon by putting it back into the soil, and producing alongside ethanol and biodiesel our BioOil® that displaces hydrocarbon fuel use in industrial applications, we aim to show, with our partners, a virtuous circle of land, crop, fuel and environment management. The Amazonian Indians created the most fertile soils in the world, and today we may be able to benefit from adopting their land management methods.” Dr. Crosby said the field trials will involve three strips of corn crop land 800 feet long and 30 feet wide. One strip will have no char applied, but the second one will have 2.5 tons of char applied per acre, and the third one will have 5 tons. Further tests will follow. For several decades, scientists have recognized that the most productive soils in Europe have a char base, classifying these lands as “black carbon” based. The role of char was poorly understood and believed to be an indirect effect, resulting from the routine burning of crop residues from naturally productive soils over centuries. Recent research from South America has shown that the application of char to low productivity soils can turn them into highly productive soils. Dr. Crosby continued: “Subsequent research has shown that the char, per se, is playing an active role in changing bulk density, modifying soil structure, regulating water storage ability and loosely binding soil nutrients so they are retained and released for plant growth. Outside of the black carbon soils of Europe and the terra preta soils of South America, biochar is a minor soil constituent. However, when scientists have looked, they have found it, suggesting that char was, at one point, an important soil constituent in many soils. It has been found at low levels in native prairie soils in the U.S. and Canada. This suggests that char application can significantly enhance soil productivity.” Also mentioned here. CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) - A Webster City company plans to test a wood waste co-product -- known as biochar -- to improve soil fertility. Heartland BioEnergy is working with Dynamotive, a Canada-based company that uses wood waste like wood chips and sawdust to make fuel oil. The co-product biochar stores carbon that's made during production. Heartland officials say biochar has potential to raise high-yield corn production rates by another 20% and improve water quality. The company will experiment with 14 tons of biochar from a refinery in Ontario to see if corn yield jumps. Dynamotive's biofuel is used to power generators and other industrial processes. Southtown 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Small Posted June 1, 2007 Report Share Posted June 1, 2007 Carbon Negative Biofuels also Increase Crop Productionby zogger Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:00:30 PDT Chemistry # This comes pretty close to fulfilling that old saying, "having your cake and eating it, too". Agrichar, or biochar, is the left over stabilized charcoal-like product from the pyrolysis of biofeedstock matter in the production of alternative fuels. This agrichar has been shown to vastly increase soil fertility, meaning a lot more crops starting with the first season, and to remain stable and remain in the soil for years to decades or beyond, effectively trapping more carbon that what was used to produce it and the fuels. Better than mulch or compost actually, as those break down quickly. It is carbon negative in other words, even better than the pushed goal of "carbon neutral". # ..."Trials of agrichar - a product hailed as a saviour of Australia’s carbon-depleted soils and the environment - have doubled and, in one case, tripled crop growth when applied at the rate of 10 tonnes per hectare."..more there ed: I was doing something very similar to this in the mid 70s, with a woodstove integrated with a woodstove. The lower chamber burned normally, while the upper chamber was a lot more airtight and burned the released methane much more efficiently, and that is where I got most of the heat. The lower heated the upper in other words. And I did turn the left over charcoal like stuff into the garden soil(the lower made normal looking ashes, the upper looked like charcoal), and did get some amazing crops there. I had no name for the process or the "agrichar", just thought I could heat my little abode better and save on back breaking firewood harvesting with handsaw and ax....oh well, glad to see this! This is some *neat tech*. Good biofuel plus improved soil fertility with a "waste" product at the same time while sucking more carbon out of the air is a fantastic good innovation. Some of the claims in the underlying source article seem a tad too encouraging to be realistic - It would be nice to have open access to the data itself, so one could develop their own informed conclusion. I thought the ed: note was particularly interesting in that it mentioned a charcoal producing wood burning stove, and personal experience with the boost in productivity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeztar Posted June 1, 2007 Report Share Posted June 1, 2007 The huge potential of agricultural soils to reduce greenhouse gases and increase production at the same time has been reinforced by new research findings at NSW Department of Primary Industries’ (DPI) Wollongbar Agricultural Institute in Australia.ScienceDaily: Soils Offer New Hope As Carbon Sink Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InfiniteNow Posted June 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2007 Carbon Negative Biofuels also Increase Crop ProductionIt would be nice to have open access You might begin your search here to get closer to that goal. I found these after some creative googling once I'd read the link you offerred: http://www.northern.cma.nsw.gov.au/pdf/landcareforum_vanzwieten.ppt#256,1,Lukas Van Zwieten 300 kg/hr Feed (cow manure/sawdust 30:70 mix) http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/publ/Frontiers%20C&Q%20Lehmann%20accepted.pdfConcept of low-temperature pyrolysis bio-energy with bio-char sequestration. Typically about50% of the pyrolyzed biomass is converted into bio-char and can be returned to soil. Happy sequestering. :artgallery: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeztar Posted June 4, 2007 Report Share Posted June 4, 2007 And here's a good example of TP NOT in the news...This is from the weekly Environmental Technical Assistance Program (ETAP) newsletter.The report said that although biofuels can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, this potential benefit depends heavily on land use changes, choice of feedstock, agricultural practices, refining techniques, and end-use practices. For example, the report said that if prairie grassland were converted to maize or soy, treated with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and refined using coal and natural gas, the resulting biofuel could have greater impact on the Earth's climate than fossil fuels.The report also said that bioenergy crops can further contribute to global climate change if they replace primary forests, because deforestation releases large amounts of carbon from the soil that can "negate any benefits from biofuels for decades." Cutting down forests to plant energy crops also can leach nutrients from the soil and decrease biodiversity, the report said.As a result, the report advised farmers to rely less on grain crops to produce biofuels because these crops require high fossil energy inputs (such as conventional fertilizer) and large amounts of farmland. They also have relatively low energy yields per hectare. Instead, according to the report, farmers should use perennial grasses and other dedicated energy crops that are appropriate to the regions where they are planted and do not require clearing large amounts of environmentally sensitive land.The report, Sustainable Energy: A Framework for Decision Makers, is available at ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/010/a1094e/a1094e00.pdf. Ahem...pyrolysis anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Small Posted June 10, 2007 Report Share Posted June 10, 2007 Nice to come across this thoughtful thumbs-up in Gristmill's Feeding the World Sustainably from 24 Apr 2007: ...recent work on charcoal as soil amendments may allow us to go further -- sequestering significant amounts of carbon and building soil to a far greater extent. However, there are significant limitations we need to watch out for here. Just as conventional chemical fertilizers add nutrients without building soil structure, charcoal agriculture build soil structure without adding nutrients. So you want to limit the percent and type of agricultural waste you convert to charcoal for this purpose -- especially avoiding nitrogen rich materials. Additionally, charcoal making is usually very air polluting. There are charcoal making methods this is not true of, but they are expensive, especially on the small scale you want to use for conversion of agricultural wastes. None of this is insurmountable. Rodale is working on incorporating charcoal agriculture into its no-till farms. It just should not be seen as a quick fix that can avoid the need for emissions reduction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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