Let's look at something. Our future is intimately connected to Earth's carbon cycles and human activity with fossil fuels is changing these cycles drastically. And of course, it's changing our climate also.
I've been looking at an interesting datum. There are very fertile, dark soils in Brazil. This is not a natural thing but is the result of the farming practices of early indians. Instead of the easy slash and burn techniques to clear forest land, they learned to cut everything down, let it dry, then cover it with soil and light it. The greatly reduce oxygen under the soil makes much of the vegetation into charcoal or char. This is, in effect, elemental carbon. When added to the soil it stays there forever as there are no biological or soil chemical activities that can attack elemental carbon.
Why does this make the soil much more fertile if plants can make no direct use of carbon? It seems that finely divided carbon makes the soil into an ideal place for the growth of the soil microflora, and this microflora is really what makes soil fertile for crops. So, if finely divided carbon is put in the soil it greatly improves the soil's microflora population and thus improves fertility and it stays there forever.
One of civilization's curses is waste plastic. It is mainly made of petroleum and quite a bit of it can't be recycled. In any case the recycling of plastic is questionable as it takes too much energy to clean, manipulate and transport. But if all this waste was to be placed in self fueled charcoal retorts so that much of it is reduced to elemental carbon then added to agricultural soils, we would be tying up carbon forever and improving our soils. Of course, this does not work well in soils that have chemical fertilizers added since these chemicals attack the soil microflora that the carbon is helping.
If elemental carbon added to properly managed soils, and it improves fertility sufficiently, this could become a part of good practice organic fertilizing systems and could earn its keep economically.
I must point out that elemental carbon IS a fuel which, if burned, produces heat energy and releases CO2. So what I am proposing here can be easily derailed by human greed.
I've been looking at an interesting datum. There are very fertile, dark soils in Brazil. This is not a natural thing but is the result of the farming practices of early indians. Instead of the easy slash and burn techniques to clear forest land, they learned to cut everything down, let it dry, then cover it with soil and light it. The greatly reduce oxygen under the soil makes much of the vegetation into charcoal or char. This is, in effect, elemental carbon. When added to the soil it stays there forever as there are no biological or soil chemical activities that can attack elemental carbon.
Why does this make the soil much more fertile if plants can make no direct use of carbon? It seems that finely divided carbon makes the soil into an ideal place for the growth of the soil microflora, and this microflora is really what makes soil fertile for crops. So, if finely divided carbon is put in the soil it greatly improves the soil's microflora population and thus improves fertility and it stays there forever.
One of civilization's curses is waste plastic. It is mainly made of petroleum and quite a bit of it can't be recycled. In any case the recycling of plastic is questionable as it takes too much energy to clean, manipulate and transport. But if all this waste was to be placed in self fueled charcoal retorts so that much of it is reduced to elemental carbon then added to agricultural soils, we would be tying up carbon forever and improving our soils. Of course, this does not work well in soils that have chemical fertilizers added since these chemicals attack the soil microflora that the carbon is helping.
If elemental carbon added to properly managed soils, and it improves fertility sufficiently, this could become a part of good practice organic fertilizing systems and could earn its keep economically.
I must point out that elemental carbon IS a fuel which, if burned, produces heat energy and releases CO2. So what I am proposing here can be easily derailed by human greed.
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Costa Rica
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Re: Carboniferous future?
Mon, October 2, 2006 - 7:27 PMThere was, of course, a mistype in the subject.
