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  • From: Rain Tenaqiya <raincascadia@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [permaculture] biofuels and soil carbon
  • Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:25:35 -0700 (PDT)

There seems to be a misconception that the soil doesn't lose anything when
crops are turned into biofuels.  It is important to distinguish between
nutrients and humus (pronounced "huemus," like "humun", or conventionally and
androcentrically "human").  The nutrients, minus some nitrogen, can be
returned to the soil, but most of the organic matter is turned into fuel,
leaving very little humus.  Humus is gold, and is what allows a soil to hold
onto water and nutrients.  I would like to have numbers on how much humus is
lost compared to composting, but I would guess that there is a very
significant loss.  Crop wastes need to be returned to the growing site and
cannot be sustainably used for fuel, in most cases.
 
Rain



>From waehner@gmail.com Thu Oct 22 14:57:20 2009
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>
> There seems to be a misconception that the soil doesn't lose anything when
> crops are turned into biofuels.


This is an important point. We've all read about turning "agricultural
wastes" into fuel, and we all know there is no such thing as agricultural
waste.

But some biofuel processes produce humus- methane fermentation produces
humus. In a compost pile, most of the carbohydrates are "burned" by
bacteria and fungus. Anerobic fermentation makes it possible for us to
capture some incompletely metabolised material in the form of methane and
burn it.

There is some good research in the field of biochar, which fills many of the
roles of humus. Biochar has a high cation exchange capacity, so it acts as
a nutrient bank. It also has an incredibly high internal surface area, so
it can provide habitat for microorganisms. Biochar has a longer lifespan
than humus, especially in warm climates. But biochar doesn't provide the
water regulating properties of humus, and it probably needs some humus to
function in soil. Biochar fixes carbon in the round, so the process can
pull a bit of carbon out of the atmosphere.

Permaculture needs to develop sophisticated and regenerative ways of working
with the fire element.



  • [permaculture] biofuels and soil carbon, Rain Tenaqiya, 10/22/2009

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