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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."
So few facts, so many opinions.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
I think the argument to this mechanism is that he is providing an extra carbon source for the nitrogen fixers natively present in the soil. These bacteria convert N2 into ammonia, which can then be absorbed by the plants. Essentially drives the nitrogen cycle more quickly than would occur otherwise. Alternatives in place are to do alternate plantings with plants that have rhizobiums such as legumes.
As to the people saying this is not carbon neutral, I think you should read up on the Haber-bosch process - how ammonia is made for fertilizer. Unlike microbes which can do this at room temperature and pressure, it takes something like 400 C at several times Earth's pressure. This is a very expensive process, and cutting down ammonia production will save a lot of energy.
Considering this stuff normally goes into the air and can be brought back down by rainfall... it probably is already in your bread.
That's nothing! NOTHING! Have you even seen what's in pig, chicken, cow, and sheep manure? And they actually use that stuff to grow food. I mean it's the feces of animals, and they're dumping it on our food to make it grow. But somehow the food is okay and safe to eat. Maybe there's something about plants that allows them to thrive on things that are poisonous to us, but allows them to produce fruits and vegetables that are also edible to us.
I have nothing compelling to say
It's nice that you're so sure actual scientists know less than you, and that there's no such thing as nitrogen fixing bacteria, and that they sure aren't fucking anaerobic and like CO2. Christ.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Immigration is already legal. It's those that try and skip the system in place that give it a bad name. I know many legal immigrants and they hate illegal immigrants more than native Americans because they (the illegals) just made it harder for them (the legals) to follow the rules.
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I too am calling bullshit on this entire idea. There is simply not enough exhaust to do anything like what was claimed.
No matter how you work the chemical reactions, the amount of diesel required to plow a field combined with the air of combustion will never equal the amount of CO2 and nitrogen found in the proper amount of fertilizer. By sheer weight of the components alone you can deduce this is nonsense.
Plants do consume CO2. Merely plowing under his crop, or the chaff thereof would sequester come CO2, perhaps as long as the next growing season.
Sooner or later you have to add something back in, or plant some other crop that fixes nitrogen or you deplete the soil. His experiment hasn't run long enough to even account for changes in weather, let alone long term damage to the fields.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
You should go hang out with illegal immigrants sometime, you would learn something.
Here's how it works: all the family pools their money together to make the downpayment. The price varies depending on where they come from. Mexico will run around $2000 to $5000 but a trip from China will cost $20,000. Of course a Chinese peasant can't pay all that at once, so they come to America, and work, and pay it off while they are here. Of course it takes time, but they pay it off, otherwise something might happen to their family back at home.
So yes, poor people are the ones who get snuck into the US. Middle class/rich people usually have no desire to come here, at least not the ones I've talked to.
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