4 ms·

Soil. It's soil. Soil, in prodigious quantities. We need to be making it. Using human waste - food and faecal from our cities; Using whatever plant fixes the

Soil. It's soil. Soil, in prodigious quantities. We need to be making it. Using human waste - food and faecal from our cities; Using whatever plant fixes the most CO2 in a useful form that we can turn into charcoal (quick trees? bamboo grass? something genetically modified?), releasing heat energy, and then fixing carbon in a useful matrix, for soil regeneration a la Terra Preta. I sort of made this post elsewhere here, I just wanted to repeat and focus on the soil angle. We have huge swathes of the globe that due to poor historical environmental conditions have poor soil, so not much can grow. Some have become desertified, perhaps some of which is our fault (eg. Mediterranean deforestation). If we add soil to these places, at least hardier plants can grow and we can expand the reach of our efforts. Strikes me that the most important thing is that plants can grow, and for that we need soil. Soil.

Mizza 5y ago
Have you done the math on that? It seems like it would take an awful lot of poop to counteract a coal fired power plant.
- detritus 5y ago
  A city such as London (where I'm at) generates about 3600 tonnes of wet mass poop a day. Thanks for making me work that out... . Given poop isn't even a main constituent ingredient in new soil, but rather forms the 'flavouring' for the development of the biological and mineral matter otherwise, I'd suggest a well-developed bio-recycling infrastructure could be quite productive. This isn't even factoring in food or farm waste, etc.
  - wanderingmind 5y ago
    But how do you move the wet waste from London to Mediterranean and Sahara. Also soil is one part of equation. Water is another. Poor soil results in poor vegetation that leads to poor rainfall and water sources. So soil also needs to be coupled with water increase. I think preservation is probably more feasible than rejuvenation. India for example is losing top soil at unprecedented rates that can have devastating consequences.
    - detritus 5y ago
      Start making it in Egypt or Tripoli? People in deserts shit too, I think.
      - ant6n 5y ago
        Well people have been shitting in the desert for centuries, but there’s no jungle yet, so something appears to be missing.
        detritus 5y ago
        And people have spent millennia over-extracting plants, leading to erosion and desertification and subsequent changes of local weather patterns (precipitation, humidity, etc). If they'd known to replenish and make broader use of their defecations and organic waste, they might well have kept their 'jungle'. Certainly, it appears to have worked for ancient Amazonian tribes who are thought to be responsible for much of the quality land in the Amazon basin, much of which would otherwise be quite shallow and sandy with low nutrients.
pinkrobotics 5y ago
Soil could be something that is too easily overlooked. If you had prodigious quantities of good soil, you could grow trees and food at sea, where we have lots of space to grow, especially at the equator. The problem then becomes a floating platform, and controlling it all, but those seem less difficult.
tito 5y ago
Sounds great, anything I can do to help you get to work on soil? Consider checking out AirMiners, may have some resources to help you in your quests.
- detritus 5y ago
  When I posted the above last night, I sat there wondering whether I could Just Transition and somehow get a job in this field (scuse the pun) and had an idle fantasisation about the possibilities, but sadly my skillsets are uselessly-irrelevant in this domain, and I'm a bit too old and poor to make the swing. Reality's a bitch, sometimes. Often.
  - tito 5y ago
    Always good to have awareness. To me there's likely a lot you could contribute anyway. Maybe even just emailing companies and telling them you like what they're doing. There are fewer than 2,000 people working on carbon removal worldwide. "Inspire" is still needed. Since you're talking about planting chestnuts above, I thought this video of carbon removal entrepreneurs talking about biochar solutions might be of interest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu3g0z7dl38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu3g0z7dl38
Kungfuturtle 5y ago
I highly recommend checking out https://twitter.com/BuildSoil https://twitter.com/BuildSoil if you're interested in learning more about this approach.
- pizza 5y ago
  Great account, and if there were one takeaway, chestnut trees are more interesting than I imagined
- detritus 5y ago
  Thank you for this. What's amusing to me here is that each year I collect a load of chestnuts and try and plant them about. I do it for a variety of inane personal reasons - I hadn't appreciated that there are a load of useful reasons to do so too! ( https://wiki.buildsoil.net/index.php/Why_Chestnuts%3F https://wiki.buildsoil.net/index.php/Why_Chestnuts%3F ) . Just don't leave bags of chestnuts outside - apparently foxes love them and will utterly lay waste to them. Who knew? - ed: Oh, actually, it turns out I don't - Horse-chestnuts aren't the same species as sweet or Spanish chestnuts.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesculus_hippocastanum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesculus_hippocastanum

Mizza 5y ago

Have you done the math on that? It seems like it would take an awful lot of poop to counteract a coal fired power plant.

detritus 5y ago
A city such as London (where I'm at) generates about 3600 tonnes of wet mass poop a day. Thanks for making me work that out... . Given poop isn't even a main constituent ingredient in new soil, but rather forms the 'flavouring' for the development of the biological and mineral matter otherwise, I'd suggest a well-developed bio-recycling infrastructure could be quite productive. This isn't even factoring in food or farm waste, etc.
- wanderingmind 5y ago
  But how do you move the wet waste from London to Mediterranean and Sahara. Also soil is one part of equation. Water is another. Poor soil results in poor vegetation that leads to poor rainfall and water sources. So soil also needs to be coupled with water increase. I think preservation is probably more feasible than rejuvenation. India for example is losing top soil at unprecedented rates that can have devastating consequences.
  - detritus 5y ago
    Start making it in Egypt or Tripoli? People in deserts shit too, I think.
    - ant6n 5y ago
      Well people have been shitting in the desert for centuries, but there’s no jungle yet, so something appears to be missing.
      - detritus 5y ago
        And people have spent millennia over-extracting plants, leading to erosion and desertification and subsequent changes of local weather patterns (precipitation, humidity, etc). If they'd known to replenish and make broader use of their defecations and organic waste, they might well have kept their 'jungle'. Certainly, it appears to have worked for ancient Amazonian tribes who are thought to be responsible for much of the quality land in the Amazon basin, much of which would otherwise be quite shallow and sandy with low nutrients.

pinkrobotics 5y ago

Soil could be something that is too easily overlooked. If you had prodigious quantities of good soil, you could grow trees and food at sea, where we have lots of space to grow, especially at the equator. The problem then becomes a floating platform, and controlling it all, but those seem less difficult.

tito 5y ago

Sounds great, anything I can do to help you get to work on soil? Consider checking out AirMiners, may have some resources to help you in your quests.

detritus 5y ago
When I posted the above last night, I sat there wondering whether I could Just Transition and somehow get a job in this field (scuse the pun) and had an idle fantasisation about the possibilities, but sadly my skillsets are uselessly-irrelevant in this domain, and I'm a bit too old and poor to make the swing. Reality's a bitch, sometimes. Often.
- tito 5y ago
  Always good to have awareness. To me there's likely a lot you could contribute anyway. Maybe even just emailing companies and telling them you like what they're doing. There are fewer than 2,000 people working on carbon removal worldwide. "Inspire" is still needed. Since you're talking about planting chestnuts above, I thought this video of carbon removal entrepreneurs talking about biochar solutions might be of interest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu3g0z7dl38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu3g0z7dl38

Kungfuturtle 5y ago

I highly recommend checking out https://twitter.com/BuildSoil https://twitter.com/BuildSoil if you're interested in learning more about this approach.

pizza 5y ago
Great account, and if there were one takeaway, chestnut trees are more interesting than I imagined
detritus 5y ago
Thank you for this. What's amusing to me here is that each year I collect a load of chestnuts and try and plant them about. I do it for a variety of inane personal reasons - I hadn't appreciated that there are a load of useful reasons to do so too! ( https://wiki.buildsoil.net/index.php/Why_Chestnuts%3F https://wiki.buildsoil.net/index.php/Why_Chestnuts%3F ) . Just don't leave bags of chestnuts outside - apparently foxes love them and will utterly lay waste to them. Who knew? - ed: Oh, actually, it turns out I don't - Horse-chestnuts aren't the same species as sweet or Spanish chestnuts.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesculus_hippocastanum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesculus_hippocastanum