Re: [Gasification] [biochar] Pine char gasification

Thu, 26 Dec 2013 21:26:09 -0800 


Tom


Quoting Tom Miles <[email protected]>:


Kevin,
There were 50 of us from the International Biochar Initiative following the IBI conference in Rio in 2010.
# The IBI has a slant against the possibility of Terra Preta being constituted from carbonaceous materials other than those formed by pyrolysis. 

  There is a brief report
on the IBI website. Our visit was organized and hosted by EMBRAPA, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation. We were accompanied by EMPRABA researchers who have studied terra preta at these and other sites for many years. Researchers, like Newton Falcao, have shared their research internationally in English and Portuguese. They have taught and hosted researchers from the many institutions in the US, Germany and elsewhere, that we associate with terra preta. Paul Anderson and I interpreted their explanations from Portuguese to the group. Paul had visited the sites before. EMBRAPA had prepared pits for us at three different types of TP sites so we were able to climb down and inspect the soil in the pits and look, feel and smell the soil that had been removed. We saw the crops that were traditionally grown on the soils and the researchers extracted soil samples for us around the modern crops so that we could see the depth of the char at different distances from the river. When I compare those experiences with the extensive data, mapping and documentation that is available it builds the kind of picture that Schmidt describes. It is clear that people live along the river today much where they lived before. Commerce along the river is said to be substantially reduced. It is a long hike from interior waters to the river.
# I have not yet had the opportunity to read the very lengthy Schmidt paper. Does it exclude the possibility that the nutritious mucks and muds from the bottom of oxbow lakes, or other such aquaculture sites were NOT used in the preparation of all soils known as "Terra Preta?
If you take the time to observe the work that has been done, and continues to be done, on Terra Preta you'll find a wide, extensive and very scientific body of work in many languages. Collaborative international studies continue in many areas of the endless river and its tributaries. Schmidt's work is an example of how new scientific tools are continually brought to bear on the topic.
# I have been following the advances in "terra preta knowledge" for a number of years now. In that short period of time, there have been many advances, and "Terra Preta" has gone from a state where those who were supposedly knowledgeable in the field advocated the simple addition of "the charcoal panacea " to soils to convert them to "Terra Preta." At least, the knowledge has advanced to the point where the added charcoal should be pre-charged with nutrients that the soil requires. "Terra Preta" is far from a "slam-dunk science", but rather, it is still a "work in progress."
If muck in oxbow lakes exists in the Amazons they haven’t been calling it terra preta. They undoubtedly have other names for it.
# Of course, the muck on the bottom of oxbow lakes is NOT "Terra Preta"!! The Amazonian Terrapretians were too smart to advocate growing land crops under water!! I would also suggest that they were smart enough to recognize that these mucks and "black goops" had nutrient qualities, and moisture retention qualities, that would benefit their crops if they spread it on their fields. One possible name they may have had for the "black goop" from oxbow lakes and aquaculture site,s that they may have spread on their croplands, may have been "Fish Manure." 

Kevin


Tom


-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin C [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2013 7:12 PM
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification; Tom Miles
Cc: 'Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification'; 'Jeff Davis'
Subject: Re: [Gasification] [biochar] Pine char gasification

Dear Tom

Quoting Tom Miles <[email protected]>:


Kevin,

Creative. We didn’t see anything like what you are imagining at the
sites that we visited. We hiked well back from the river to an area
of seasonal flooding. We saw the usual dry and fine mud that would
be muck if wet but it wasn’t very weathered and water flows back to
the river leaving dry creeks.


# As you know, oxbow lakes are a feature of a mature river system.
See, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbow_lake. They would
be at river level, and would not dry out.


The terra preta sites that we visited were all within about 300 feet
from the river bank. The bank was 45 feet high at those sites.


# Now you are in the right ball park. The Amazonians would naturally
tend to build above the normal flood plain, to avoid having to rebuild
every year. They would be close to the Oxbow Lake Sites, that would be
an excellent source of fish, and "black goop" for fertilizing their
gardens. Fish bones are an excellent source of calcium and phos.

  The TP

sites were built on very heavy clay ferrosol benches that were
relatively narrow. The distribution of the TP in those well
documented sites was very much as described by Schmidt in his
summary and other documents. We went into pits dug into three
variations of tp.


# I haven't yet read the excellent Schmidt Reference yet.


No doubt there are oxbows on the thousands of miles up the many
branches and tributaries of the Amazon.


# You don't have to go thousands of miles up the many branches of the
Amazon to find oxbow, and other lakes suitable for the circumstances I
suggest. Manacapura is about 75 km upstream of Manaus, a noted Terra
Preta region. Go to   3°23'27.50"S,  61° 7'47.95"W, near Caapiranga,
and see all kinds of oxbow lake structure. This looks like a great
site for such 'black goop" to be formed.


If you journey off in pursuit

of the black goop to satisfy your speculation no doubt your
wanderings will be much like those described in "The Lost City of
Z". Good luck.


# This is interesting indeed! You have gone on a guided tour of Terra
Preta Sites, and you are obviously unaware of oxbow lakes, and the
potential for such "black goop" to act as a fertilizer and source of
black carbon. I would thus assume that others on your trip had not
considered such a possibility either. Possibly, Terra Preta would be
understood better if it was looked at by new eyes, rather than by
those with a pyrolysis fixation.

Kevin


Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: Gasification
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Kevin C
Sent: Thursday, December 26, 2013 4:39 PM
To: Discussion of biomass pyrolysis and gasification; Jeff Davis
Subject: Re: [Gasification] [biochar] Pine char gasification

Dear Jeff

Quoting Jeff Davis <[email protected]>:


Hi Kevin,


On 12/26/2013 06:37 AM, Kevin C wrote:

# KC: The possibility of using the nutritious ``black goop`` from the
bottom of the Òxbow Lakes that are very common along the Amazon River
has been suggested as a source of fertilizing nutrients for Terra
Preta on this list in the past, and the concept was received with
extreme disinterest. I would suggest that the ``black goop``was made
by the `LTAHTC Process``, ie, the ``Low Temperature Anaerobic
HydroThermal Carbon Process``


I could not find this term "LTAHTC", is this new?


# This is a "Chisholm Original" that I just created. Basically, it
is the kind of process that occurs when vegetative matter such as
leaves, grasses and vegetative matter sink to the bottom of a pond
and decompose, in an anaerobic process, liberating methane, and
leaving behind a smelly "black goop."

It kind of sounds

like the "black goop" that I made from switch grass named Fuelage.
Maybe I need to add the chopped grass into a pond and later scoop it
out?


# Yes, indeed!! That is exactly it. Consider an oxbow lake, on the
Amazon River. It would be an excellent place for a Community to
raise Tilapia, that feed on algae. All the Amazonians would have to
do is throw in manure, to cause algae blooms, and they would get a
large growth of Tilapia fish, which they could easily harvest. The
fish waste would be high in phosphate and nitrate content, and that
would perpetuate algae blooms, that are great for growing Tilapia,
in "Green Water Aquaculture." If they did not harvest enough fish,
and if the weather got too hot, reducing the water oxygen content,
the remaining fish would suffocate. However, the "black goop" on the
bottom of the Oxbow Lake, would be highly nutritious as a
"fertilizer". It could easily be "dredged" by buckets from a canoe,
and be taken ashore, for spreading on their nearby fields. That
would explain the presence of lots of fish bones.


Or maybe your thinking of this:
<http://www.ava-co2.com/web/pages/en/technology/hydrothermal-carboniza
tion.php>


# As I understand it, this process is somewhat different from the
"LTAHTC" process, in that it seems to go further down the process
road, stripping more H and O off the original biomass, to produce a
product higher in Carbon, and lower in H, and O, than would be the
"black goop" produced in a swamp situation.

# It would be very interesting indeed to see comparative growth
tests using the LTAHTC, AVA-CO2, and "Conventional Biochar" products.

Best wishes,

Kevin




Jeff

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