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Plowing Carbon Into the Fields
OzPeter writes "A wheat farmer in Australia has eliminated adding fertilizer to his crop by the simple process of injecting the cooled diesel exhaust of his modified tractor into the ground when the wheat is being sown. In doing so he eliminates releasing carbon into the atmosphere and at the same time saves himself up to $500,000 (AUD) that would have been required to fertilize his 3,900 hectares in the traditional way. Yet his crop yields over the last two years have been at least on par with his best yields since 2001. The technique was developed by a Canadian, Gary Lewis of Bio Agtive, and is currently in trial at 100 farms around the world."
Funny this sounded familiar, I submitted the story about the Canadian farmer three years ago. That article says it was developed by a farmer named Darrel Carlisle and is generally more informative.
I am a farmer in Canada and fertilizer does not cost 1200 to 1500 a tonne. There's no way in hell it costs half a million dollars to fertilize 3900 HA of wheat. Injecting diesel exhaust fumes in a single planting pass to totally fertilize each HA of wheat sounds like junk science to me.
My brother tried for ten years to kill a clump of weeds outside his shop by dumping his used motor oil on it (and there were a LOT of motors going through that shop). Never seemed to hurt it in the slightest, although it made it look very evil.
Posting anonymously, obviously, because nowadays that's akin to confession to murder or rape.
Or you can read the article and see that CO2 helps anaerobic bacteria that also happen to be nitrogen fixers...guess the journalists know more than you, after all.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Not that blowing it into the atmosphere is much better, but doesn't diesel exhaust contain all sorts of nasty toxins?
I don't recall the exact exhaust gas composition, but in my younger days working at a research lab we participated in a series of animal studies on diesel exhaust. You could pump a lot of diesel exhaust through lab animals without any serious side effects. Some of the high dose groups had lungs that looked like they had been smoking, but none of them died from toxins in the exhaust. I don't remember there being any statistical correlation to cancers or cell differentiation, either. But that was a long time ago.
My vague memory of the conclusions were that you breath a lot of diesel exhaust without harmful side effects, although the particulates would keep your pulmonary macrophage in business.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Fertilizer is nitrogen and phosphorus. Exhaust is carbon and oxygen. Can one pair really be replaced by the other?
"The exhaust gases are believed to stimulate microbial activity and root growth, allowing the plants to more efficiently extract nutrient and moisture from the soil."
What keeps the injected CO2 from leaking back out?
"The system relies on attraction between negatively-charged ions in the gases and the soil’s positively charged alkaline component to hold the gases in the soil, as well as sealing it in."
http://abovecapricorn.blogspot.com/2009/10/soil-carbon-may-come-from-tractor.html
So few facts, so many opinions.
Wrong!
There was a critique of the chapter in Super Freakonomics on realclimate.org:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/why-levitt-and-dubner-like-geo-engineering-and-why-they-are-wrong/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/an-open-letter-to-steve-levitt/
I think it's worth reading.
Anyway, I don't believe any geo-engineering solution will help combat GW, for a simple reason: conservation of energy. Fossil fuels are so important because we can use energy at faster rate than we could obtain it from the sun (their EROI is higher), because it has been accumulating for millions years. So any solution to CO2 reduction different from plain reduction of fossil fuel usage will have to ultimately convert excess CO2 somehow, and this will cost same amount of energy (or more) as it would just use a renewable resource (which there is ultimately only one, the Sun) for energy. Basically, the problem is that the rate at which we consume energy is not sustainable; we will have to match our rate to that of what we can get from the Sun.
I found the article by "The Economist". The article debunks the claim that increasing wealth results in a decreasing population. The implications for excessive population growth are alarming.
You didn't find an article that backs your assertion. There are at least two effects to note. First, high HDI countries (which boils down to high GDP per capita countries) tend to have high immigration by more fertile populations from low HDI countries. Second, that hypothetical increased fertility rate is spread over a longer period (ie, people having children later) which results in lower population growth.
That so-called study is a fine example of lying with statistics - see debunking here http://www.stubbornmule.net/2009/09/baby-bounce/
It's been successfully tested in Canada in cooperation with the National Research council, among other places. Go to the site and watch the TV news videos if you're too lazy to actually read anything.
Let me summarise the article you misquote: when a poor country gets richer, it's ratio of children per woman drops from eight to somewhere under two. When that country gets richer still, it begins to creep up over two again.
You seem to imply that increasing wealth no longer decreases population grown, and I call bullshit. Eight down to two is a massive decrease.
Make people richer, they stop having so many kids, it's as simple as that and proven over and over again.
FYI, plants don't fix nitrogen, symbiotic prokaryotes do.
My vague memory of the conclusions were that you breath a lot of diesel exhaust without harmful side effects, although the particulates would keep your pulmonary macrophage in business.
Because diesel engines don't have a throttle there's little-to-no significant carbon monoxide in the exhaust, which is the big nasty toxin with petrol engines.
I wonder if the effect is in any way similar to what has been observed in terra preta. Terra preta (black dirt) is a unique man-made type of soil produced by mixing in lots of carbon, in the form of charcoal. The technique was used to convert nutrient poor soil in the Amazon rain forest into some of the richest land on earth. It was produced thousands of years ago, no less. Before the discovery of terra preta, it was largely assumed that rain forest soil could never be rich enough for productive agriculture, because the heavy rains cause all the important nutrients to leach out. The carbon apparently helps the sequester these nutrients, which would otherwise be lost. What's more, terra preta appears to be regenerative - i.e. it gets richer all by itself.
Hydroelectric power sort of depends on the sun to evaporate the water involved (that's where the water gets the potential energy it has, the sun does the initial work against gravity, and then later we harvest that energy).
I'm not sure about tidal, but I think the sun is at least involved in the tides.
The winds also get their energy primarily from the sun.
Geothermal is probably not dependent on the sun.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The sun is involved in the tides, at least according to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide#Range_variation:_springs_and_neaps
It certainly isn't the primary source of the energy involved.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I smoked for 30 years and quitting in the end was easy. In all that time I reckon I quit for a fortnight and I quit for 2 Months.
On the 18th of July at about 6:45 I had a coronary I was strong but unfit and thats when I smoked my last cigarette waiting for an Ambulance. I probably wouldn't have smoked it had I known what was going on.
Smoking narrows the arteries and that makes it easier for blood clots to lodge and block the arteries. If the artery is feeding the heart muscle then the starvation of oxygenated blood causes the heart muscle to die and in time be replaced by scar tissue. It never pumps so well again. If it gets badly damaged it can't pump and everything dies. The blood clots are created when fat deposited on your artery walls after years of crappy food tears maybe after doing something or nothing.
Strokes are similar , blockage of an artery taking oxygenated blood to the brain.
Cancer is a gamble and no one thinks they will lose so its not a reason to quit smoking the artery problem is.
I quit smoking by means of Niquitin patches and it was easy although I modified the program i changed the patches when I needed to change the patches it might be 12 hours or 48 hours I just let my body decide when it was low on nicotine. In a social situation where I was around other people smoking I put a fresh patch on and after a few minutes i got a reassuring itch where the patch was. other than that it was 4 weeks on high 2 weeks on medium and 2 weeks on low. That was pretty easy. I don't need a cigarette now , I want a cigarette some times but I know i would start again so I don't. I have a few spare patches so i can put one on if i really want the nicotine, I have done that once or twice.
I'm feeling good for quitting and its hopefully dropping the risks of another heart attack, even so the stats suggest 50% of survivors die in 6 - 8 years most of them in the first year. 30% died from the first heart attack. So I'm lucky already.
Everyone says I should quit smoking and nobody does because withdrawal turns us into grumpy nasty people, well the patches work I smoothly managed to quit, so having read this I hope you see that you can too.
Don't die younger than you have too try and avoid the first heart attack.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Not sure what diesel engines you've been dealing with, but I've never seen one without a throttle. Tractors most certainly do, changing gears is one methods of changing speeds of course, but the most certainly do have throttles in many if not all cases of engines aren't bottom of the barrel as cheap as it gets.
Even without a throttle they don't burn perfectly, ever. Its used to limit the air and fuel entering the combustion chamber. If done properly it simply results in less than the maximum amount entering the combustion chamber. With fuel injection engines it should not result in an improper ration of air to fuel, just less of both. The same is true to traditional carburetor engines, but due to the methods employed the ratio tends to never be optimal.
Diesel fuel contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and some alkyl derivatives. Both groups of compounds may survive the combustion process. Between that and the soot, those are your reasons for not sucking the exhaust pipe of your tractor. Not the level of CO coming out. Diesel is dirty, CO is hardly the concern. You think they put oil based filters on the exhaust to catch CO? No. You think all that black you see pooring out of the engine under high load is CO? No.
Carbon monoxide is a serious threat when its inhaled in large quantities as it inhibits the bloods ability to carry oxygen, in smaller quantities its not a problem, the body deals with carbon monoxide in our atmosphere by simply replacing the cells that have been rendered useless by carbon monoxide.
Its not a toxin so much as an oxygen transfer inhibitor. More than slight difference. To much of it and you suffocate.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
A petrol engine has a throttle that restricts the flow of air into the engine, because the air and fuel must be mixed in a precise ratio for the engine to run. A diesel engine doesn't have this - the air intake is wide open all the time. To control the engine power, you only turn up or down the amount of fuel injected. At all times there's an excess of air, unless you're massively overfuelling in which case you get smelly black smoke and poor performance.
Not sure what diesel engines you've been dealing with, but I've never seen one without a throttle.
A diesel engine receives fuel based on RPM and, you hope, load. The pedal in the car controls the maximum position of a governor which controls maximum fuel delivery. As the engine approaches this speed (as output meets load) the fuel delivery decreases until a given RPM is reached. Or in the words of a pedant, a diesel has an accelerator pedal, but no throttle. In a carbureted vehicle the throttle controls both air and fuel delivery directly. In fuel-injected gasoline vehicles, the pedal usually controls an intake restrictor butterfly valve, and a throttle position sensor which instructs the computer (in unison with the oxygen sensor.) Diesels should have as much intake air as possible.
Even without a throttle they don't burn perfectly, ever.
True.
If done properly it simply results in less than the maximum amount entering the combustion chamber. With fuel injection engines it should not result in an improper ration of air to fuel, just less of both.
In both fuel injected and carbureted engines you err on the side of richness, and during closed loop operation (e.g. cruising, idle, deceleration, or mild acceleration) the mixture continually bounces to either side of rich and lean. The catalytic converter smooths out the rich and lean spots before they become emissions, because it swings back and forth several times a second.
You think all that black you see pooring out of the engine under high load is CO? No.
No, that's partly those PAHs and partly unburned hydrocarbons, one of the primary bad guys when it comes to emissions. The NOx output of diesels is only significant in the aggregate; it's higher than that of typical gasoline-powered vehicles. Biodiesel has more NOx, but less CO. Nitric oxides are a major component of acid rain.
in smaller quantities its not a problem, the body deals with carbon monoxide in our atmosphere by simply replacing the cells that have been rendered useless by carbon monoxide.
but I was using those.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Look at all these carcinogens
All in extremely low quantities and most of which are filtered out/ broken down by modern DPF and/or SCR.
Diesel is not the dirty thing of yesteryear. Reports of hazardous exhaust is greatly exaggerated and outdated. Basically the only thing that comes out of the tailpipe is CO2 and H2O.
And yes I am a diesel emissions engineer.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1566471/
Our meta-analysis of the low-exposure data in rats does not support a lung cancer risk for DEP exposure at nonoverload conditions.
Effects on fetus development are less well understood. Development of tumors in humans routinely exposed to diesel exhaust had not, at that time, been corrected for secondary environmental conditions (like smoking and air quality). Those studies may have been updated since then.
The rodents in our experiments got a lot of diesel fumes on a daily basis and didn't show any ill effects, either in terms of overall lifetime or increased cancer rates. There are a lot of good reasons to wean ourselves from dependence on foreign oil and cut our use of fossil fuels for transportation, but the facts are the facts. Diesel exhaust is uncomfortable but relatively harmless at moderate levels of exposure.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
After reading them, I'd have to say that these "rebuttals" miss the point. First of all, most of the same criticisms could also be leveled against various carbon reduction efforts and carbon sequestration efforts. Yes, a geo-engineering solution may lock us into a decades long commitment to continuing or only slowing the flow of SO2. Climate agreements involving carbon emission reductions will also lock us into decades long commitments whose costs are at least the same order of magnitude and probably greater, if they are possible. Yes, some sort of international accord would encounter a huge amount of opposition, but with a solution that doesn't hit countries in the pocketbook and is also completely controllable, it would be an entirely different beast than emissions. Second, as noted, the carbon levels remain in the atmosphere for up to centuries. If you pay attention to the chapter, geoengineering is intended simply to buy us time until carbon reduction has become effective. Ultimately, you are correct. In the long term, we have to switch completely to solar or reach some other equilibrium with the total output of the sun. That is not going to be achievable in the near future. The SO2 solution has effects that are relatively immediate and also disperse relatively quickly, at least for the Pinatubo event. True, we don't know how it might work differently if we injected it elsewhere or in larger amounts. Fine, we can set up the delivery site at Mount Pinatubo and limit our initial effort to a similar quantity of SO2 as Mount Pinatubo as a test. Science is about repeatable experiments, after all. Finally, all this talk of them being "irresponsible" in spreading such stories seems to indicate that detractors feel like the mere proposition of cheaper geo-engineering solutions undermines the fear of the general populace. The implication is that only this fear can whip people up into enough of a frenzy to meet our desired carbon reduction goals. I find most attempts to manipulate people through fear, though often effective, to be rather despicable. It rarely results in efficiency, either. Ultimately, we have to start geo-engineering somewhere. The idea that we can solve all our problems by emitting nothing is incomplete, and we might as well start practicing. The idea that we must be afraid of ever affecting the planet in any way is shortsighted. There is no Gaia. The Earth is not friendly to us. It underwent massive shifts in climate before we arrived, and it will continue to do so, and ultimately we'll have to stop events that are not of our making in order to maintain our way of life.
Then come and tell me about a 'bunch of pussies'.
I've read about the Eastern Front quite a bit, actually, and I still say Caesar would have called Hitler's Germany Army a bunch of pussies. I'm just saying this because, well, Julius Caesar was well, a pretty tough guy.
Compare the two in France:
Hitler raised an army of three million men with which he first conquered France, before the war. Caesar did it with not more than 80,000, and he openly bragged that he killed a million gauls to do it, and all he had was swords.
And, Julius Caesar didn't lose his wars to go down in the bunker in flames. When Julius Caesar lost, he booked, he laid low, but then he came back strong. There was a great tale of Caesar being captured by pirates, and he joked to them, "when I get out, I'm going to crucify you all."
He did.
This is my sig.