In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Thu, 02 Feb 2006 16:01:28 -0500: Hi, [snip] >Extracting more biomass out of North American land is lunacy. We >should be putting it back, letting forests regrow and leaving more >fields fallow.
The soil is really "mined" primarily through loss of trace elements. However these are primarily trace metals, which remain behind anyway when biomass is converted to fuel. All that is really needed is for these trace elements to be returned whence they came, once biofuel has been produced. If plants could talk that's what they would be screaming at us. Furthermore, since they are only required in trace quantities, it would be very cheap to do, yet the results would be absolutely astounding, resulting in bumper crops year after year. The trace elements should be added at virtually no extra cost to existing fertilizers, and applied concurrently. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/ Competition provides the motivation, Cooperation provides the means.
