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Philip Small of transect points is back from holiday and posting about Terra Preta and glomalin again, most recently highlighting Wim Sombroek, who has been called The Godfather of Terra Preta. Sombroek had a life-long fascination with it beginning with his Ph.D. thesis in 1963, Amazon Soils, and intensifying in later years.
Sombroek was discussed in the Nature article Black is the new green, which was the focus of a post here last August, Black is Back.
Philip's post highlighted Sombroek's challenge:
Before his passing, he assembled specific soil scientists, challenging them to discover the process for making and sustaining a modern equivalent of the bio-char enhanced terra preta, what he termed terra preta nova.It may be that new methods for DNA analysis in which samples containing numerous species can be blasted apart, sequenced as a mixture, and then reassembled by clever software systems, will help.A great opportunity in answering Sombroek's challenge lies is surmounting the opacity of mutualistic rhizospheric species to traditional analytical approaches: only 1% of rhizospheric species are cultureable ala petri dish. We don't have a robust body of culture-independent studies against which to compare Terra Preta, so we are doubly challenged to reverse-engineer the phenomenon.
It seems important that these DNA sequencing techniques were applied most effectively by Craig Venter's private, for-profit company, which greatly accelerated human genome mapping and is now being applied to sampling the world's oceans in a project that some see as being similar to, but far more important than, Darwin's historic voyages of inquiry.
One of the members of Sombroek's band of "loam rangers" is Danny Day. He founded Eprida, a for-profit social-purpose enterprise, which is marketing devices that can be used on-farm to convert waste biomass into char, biofuel and fertilizer.
A paper linked from Philip's post focuses on one of the problems that might be mitigated by for-profit social-purpose enterprises.
. . . soil science education is experiencing a significant decline in the US and Canada. . . [M]easures could still be taken by soil science educators and soil scientists to reverse the downward trend in enrollments. Among these are . . . making sure that the public at large is aware of the intrinsic, challenging complexity of soils and of the fact that it mandates a unique pluridisciplinary approach.Private enterprises are good at pluridisciplinary approaches, and there is an emerging trend for for-profit social-purpose enterprises, notably Google's recent efforts. Several impediments to progress melt away with this approach. Funding is not constrained by a peer system more intent on preserving itself than advancing knowledge, and the requirement to produce products useful in the real world helps break down barriers to cooperation among disciplines. The combination of incentives - profit as well as social purpose - is powerful motivation.
Contrast this with the somber final graf of the Nature article.
Policy is not always, or even often, dictated by pure rationality. Perhaps terra preta’s compelling history and rich, earthy smell will go to the heads of that diffuse band of policy-makers who hand out the cash. The enthusiasts need to be more down to earth; but the policy people might benefit from getting their hands dirty.The mistake is linking research and development funding to policy. It's a colossal waste of time for researchers - turning them into paper shufflers grovelling before politicians, begging for crumbs while flattering fools. That centralized, bureaucratic approach is long past its sell-by date, a relic of the age of kings that has no reason to continue. There may still be some benefit to social support of research enterprises since it is a boon to society, but bureaucrats should not be in a position to pick winners, and politics should not determine directions. Tax breaks for R&D make more sense. If enterprises are willing to risk their funds on research then they deserve a break. That some efforts will fail is to be expected. This isn't wasted social resources, good money spent on bad efforts, it is better seen as part of the overall cost of more effective research across the board.
Gary:
My read of Jane Jacobs, in "Systems of Survival" is that she would agree with you that "The combination of incentives - profit as well as social purpose - is powerful..." and would add that science, like commerce, is historically demonstrated to be at its best when it taps into these veins in equal measure.
The irony amuses me no end when my otherwise intelligent peers in academia and agency positions opine that profit driven scientific endeavors are somehow of lower status. A threat. The bigger threat to science is certainly theirs to deal with. It takes integrity to elevate the advance of science above institutional interests when conflicted by their their hopes for pensions, medical plans and tenure.
Efforts could expand rapidly in a private sector scenario similar to what you have laid out specifically because it can be market driven. It has tremendous international potential and a good selection of a variety of target clients, some with very good cash flow (as in not just farmers). It scales nicely. In this setting, surely tax breaks for private R&D is going to produce far more terra preta nova than the limited, high overhead and highly diffused grant funding available to promote research into carbon sequestration and climate change.
Posted by: Philip Small at January 4, 2007 09:31 PMI got a call yesterday from Neil Young of BestEnergies, a for-profit company, http://www.bestenergies.com/companies/bestpyrolysis.html
, he said they are working on a big poultry operation in Australia, will send me some performance data using chicken litter feedstock in their 3/4 ton/hr unit, and some of the biochar product to evaluate for myself.
P.S. How do you get the Nature article link to work?
I have posted both the html and ths Pdf links , they work when I post them , but I try them the next day and all I get is the Narure paywall??
Erich
Erich:
If you are looking for the Nature article "Black is the new green", try this link instead:
http://www.bestenergies.com/downloads/naturemag_200604.pdf
Phil
Hi Erich,
Philip's link suggestion is the one I used above too since Nature has hidden the article. I'm not sure about the propriety of that.
Best Energies is one of the outfits I've been watching though I like Eprida's approach a bit better since it emphasizes a balanced output of char, fuel and fertilizer. Their claim is that they seek to optimize the whole process rather than optimizing production of any single output.
What worries me a bit is that the fertilizer they produce is ammonium bicarbonate, which can spontaneously degrade back into co2, water and ammonia. The volatility increases with temperature. It isn't used in developed countries but it is big in China, which is sad since the farmers lose 2/3s of it.
It may be that the ammonium bicarbonate won't evaporate when locked into char. I'm not entirely clear on that. And I'm not clear about what intermediate nitrogen compounds are produced on the way to nitrate. If there is a regression back to ammonia, a gas, then that's not as good. Some will float away even when incorporated into soil, and it's toxic to seeds, which limits its utility.
Ammonia is used as fertilizer a lot so it isn't always bad stuff. It's knifed into soil. Urea is used too and it goes through an ammonia phase on the way to nitrate, and so must be watered in or incorporated. Still, there are losses. All you can do is try to keep them low.
I'd love to see ammonium nitrate produced since it is stable and can be used as a top dressing. This matters for no-till, permanent pastures and even tree crops. Stability is also part of the concern about leaching and eutrophication. It doesn't matter to the water bodies if the nitrogen leaches away from fields or is deposited by rain rich in nitrogen from field emissions. And in either case it isn't doing the crops or farmers any good.
Posted by: back40 at January 5, 2007 12:02 PMIs Eprida still operating?
Who's is coming to the Terrigal (oz) char Confrence?
Terra Preta Soils - The Naked Scientists Science Discussion Forum
Check out the International Agrichar Initiative 2007 Conference. ... Join the International Agrichar Initiative for a conference on Agrichar Science, ...
ArriveNet Editorials : Editorials - Technology - View Post
The upcoming International Agrichar Initiative (IAI) conference to be held at Terrigal, NSW, Australia in 2007. ( www.iaiconference.org ) ...
Well, their web site is still there. If Eprida quit it happened after August 2006. We could try asking danny.day AT eprida.com.
Posted by: back40 at January 6, 2007 07:59 AMMan has been controlling the carbon cycle , and there for the weather, since the invention of agriculture, all be it was as unintentional, as our current airliner contrails are in affecting global dimming. This unintentional warm stability in climate , has over 10,000 years, allowed us to develop to the point that now we know what we did and that now we are over doing it.
The prehistoric and historic records gives a logical thrust for soil carbon sequestration.
I wonder what the soil biome carbon concentration was REALLY like before the cutting and charcoaling of the virgin east coast forest, my guess is that now we see a severely diminished community, and that only very recent Ag practices like no-till have started to help rebuild it. It makes implementing Terra Preta soil technology like an act of penitence, returning misplaced carbon.
http://www.computare.org/Support%20documents/Fora%20Input/CCC2006/Energy%20Paper%2006_05.htm
". . . only very recent Ag practices like no-till have started to help rebuild it. It makes implementing Terra Preta soil technology like an act of penitence, returning misplaced carbon."
A few nits.
There's nothing new about ag practices that seek to increase soil carbon. Consider that Wim Sombroek's fascination with t.p. was due in part to its similarity to the plaggen soils he grew up with. These too were human manufactured soils with greatly enhanced organic matter (carbon). That's far from the only example of ancient tech for soil enhancement. One of my previously used stories is of 16th century Anabaptists (Amish etc.) adding minerals to their soils that improved the cation exchange capacity (just as char does) and so improved the availability of soil nutrients to plants.
What can be said is that we have new technologies, such as no-till, to help with this ancient objective, and ever increasing understanding of the benefits of doing so. It can also be said that there are many who don't give a fig about soil, and that they are beginning to see things differently.
I've been doing it for a long time but don't see it as penitence. It's just good business, a way to increase productivity. It can perhaps be seen as a capital investment - like an automated production line in a factory. Even if there were no environmental pressures to enrich soil there would still be these business reasons. A soil management system that improves soil gives increasing returns. The more and longer you do it the higher the rate of improvement and the more benefits you reap. For land I manage I require at least a 3 year commitment and prefer 10 years. The longer I run things the more I make.
But it can be said that the combination of this profit motive and social purpose is an even more powerful incentive. In my view this is an important point, one that resonates with a wider range of people, especially those who instinctively recoil from anything that smells like penitence. I think it is a better argument, a truer argument.
"I wonder what the soil biome carbon concentration was REALLY like before the cutting and charcoaling of the virgin east coast forest . . ."
Maybe Philip knows?
I did a quick read of the computare page. I did the same for a Lehmann pdf found at the International Agrichar Initiative site mentioned by Michael Bailes above. I may use them in a future post, and recommend them to all in the meantime.
Posted by: back40 at January 8, 2007 03:14 PM