permaculture

[David <david@h4c.org>]

Scott,

On 3/26/2010 2:56 PM, Scott Pittman wrote:
> How about chicken tractors?  Biofuels diminish the soil fertility as all 
> fertility is exported to make fuel, same with building materials.  At least 
> with chickens you leave behind the manure to help replenish what is lost 
> through grazing.
>    

Or ducks/geese, for that matter. However, I question your blanket 
statement that biofuels necessarily diminish soil fertility. Certainly 
it can often has, but it is by no means required to do so. Case in point 
somewhat to the south of Chris (in Corvallis), there is an organic 
farmer with 5,000 acres under cultivation who is using ag wastes to 
produce biogas, and returning the effluent to the land. He is covering 
all his electrical needs, and working on covering his fuel needs. 
Further, several studies have shown that, depending on the energy crop 
and the method of harvest, soil carbon can actually build, over the 
longer term. The breakover from exploitation to conservation tends to be 
between annual vs. perennial crops, but regardless, it is a matter of 
how the system is designed.

The same is true for growing building materials. Is there, in your view, 
no such thing as a sustainable forest from which wood is harvested?



d.
--
David William House
"The Complete Biogas Handbook" |www.completebiogas.com|
/Vahid Biogas/, an alternative energy consultancy |www.vahidbiogas.com

|
"Make no search for water.       But find thirst,
And water from the very ground will burst."
(Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77)

http://bahai.us/