- did you ever see a charcoal burner's mound smoking? Yes. Nick In the mid 1960s they were all over eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. And also for days smoldering cow dung and horse "biscuits" after burning off my fields as well as the smoke from the burn-off of hundreds of acres of straws that give a quick nutrient boost to the croplands, and the sugarcane burn-off in the south.
OTOH, a fine-weave fire-heat-resistant fabric can eliminate visible smoke, but the aerobic bacterial oxidation of brush-hogged fields is much more subtle as it releases the CO2 into the atmosphere. Some time ago I posted to this List that agricultural wastes and other biomass, collected and stored can offset some of the fossil fuel CO2 burden. Heat decomposes available nitrogen nutrients, but I gather that the Bio-Char aids in keeping natural soil nitrogen nutrients available. Fred ----- Original Message ----- From: Nick Palmer To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Vortex-L Sent: 2/15/2007 5:35:00 AM Subject: Re: [Vo]: Re: The $25 Million Branson Climate Prize I'm not so sure that "in situ" slash and char of scrub on a large scale would be totally beneficial environmentally! - did you ever see a charcoal burner's mound smoking? That's why the "in vessel" pyrolysers, which have acid gas scrubbing and NOx removal, are favourite. Algae seemed better because it grows so d***ed quick and can be used to absorb CO2 both directly from fossil fuel power plants and, in ponds, from the atmosphere. With this implementation, the use of oil rich algae would not be necessary - just a high residual "dry weight" - it wouldn't matter if it was cellulose, carbohydrate or oil... The resulting charcoal "sand" or "dust" could be ploughed into marginal land reducing nitrogenous fertiliser input etc. I don't know what effect it would have on already fertile land... Nick Palmer
