Carbon negative fuel/compost?

An ancient composting technique shows promise as a way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Called terra preta, it is a human made soil/fertilizer, but not a chemical fertilizer. It is a way of burning/gasifying/decomposing biomass that breaks down the carbon chains to create super rich soils.

It could create a rare triple-win situation. Rather than burn or landfill crop waste, it could be specially composted. The resulting chemical process emits burnable gases for modest amounts of fuel. The majority of the original carbon in the biomass ends up in the super rich soil that has been shown to be 50% more effective than chemical fertilizers. Since carbon was extracted from the air for the plant matter, and most of it ended up back in the compost, it could potentially be more than carbon neutral.

Naturally, this could be a great jack-on-all-trades solution for poorer parts of the world, with potential to decrease soil erosion, water pollution, and provide fuel. The basic setup is not particularly complicated or expensive.

Definitely check out a full length article by the great people at World Changing.


Posted on Saturday, October 20th, 2007 at 3:20 pm | Tagged in Biofuel, Energy, Global Warming, Renewables, Sustainability, Waste | posted by Marc

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