Saturday, December 17, 2011

The Disclosure

The Disclosure


     Regardless what you think of the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis there is very good reason for capturing carbon dioxide and putting it in the ground.  

     We have developed processes giving CO2 value making sequestration economically viable.  Our systems generate a liberating carbon economy by increasing harvests, reducing water used in agriculture, cutting smog and using nuclear waste.

         We can increase food, fiber and wood production by 50% now and more later ultimately saving most of the water  used in agriculture.  With 70% of all fresh water now going to agriculture this means we could triple our capacity for human life on existing sources and more than treble our economy by turning CO2 waste into marketable products. 
Settled Science?
      We conclude plant physiology has never been properly understood or in the correct theoretical context.  We have improved this understanding and created systems we call Sequestered Carbon Amendment and Fertilization, SCAF™ which creates a carbon economy for the world rather than treat it as garbage.
We’re Not Green
       In a classic anthropomorphic projection science has seen plant stomata as analogs for sweat glands.  We use sweat glands to cool our bodies.  Stomata transpire water to capture carbon dioxide.  Getting carbon needed for plant photosynthesis to make sugars, starches, cellulose and lignin is what stomata are all about.
 
A Clue
       Cacti have very few, very small stomata in spite of living in hot climates.  Heat does not affect plants the way it does animals.  This is a critical fact long overlooked by plant physiologists.
A New Concept
        We see carbon dioxide as the essential plant nutrient or fertilizer. This is an idea ignored by science in spite of the great success of humus including soils, the only kind producing CO2 naturally.  This oversight has allowed the inefficiency of plants to continue into the time of man. 
        Plants suffer from a very spare source of their major need, carbon.  We have an opportunity if not obligation to repair this error and be true stewards of Earth.  We address this problem in a new way for the first time in history.
SCAF
        Sequestered Carbon Amendment and Fertilization, SCAF, employs elemental carbon and carbon dioxide in several processes:  We use elemental carbon as a soil amendment for soil recovery and improvement, better water and mineral management in addition to using carbon dioxide as plant food or fertilizer.  While one idea is very old, the other is very new.  SCAF is a handshake over time of modern science and antiquity.


The Atmosphere
Our atmosphere includes three principle gases.  It varies from:  77% to 79%, nitrogen, 18% to 20%, oxygen, 1% to 3% water vapor plus 1% trace gases.  Of the trace gases carbon dioxide is the most significant with 0.038% which is statistically insignificant, but occupies a special place because it is responsible for all our food, fiber and fuel.  This makes carbon important economically and politically as it can be taxed.  

        Where today's green plants are virtually starving and strangled by the lack of CO2, it is amazing science has so long overlooked a great opportunity.  For every molecule of CO2 the plant captures it has had to expend 2640 molecules of water vapor in a process with an efficiency of  0.0378%.  If this were to happen to animal life it would have long been extinct before it ever got to the worm stage much less anything more complicated.

           Atmospheric carbon dioxide has never before been classified a soil fertilizer, but carbon dioxide is much more important to green plants than nitrogen, the oxides of which are the most common fertilizer components, and it can be delivered to plants through the soil with great production increases and water savings.  The water to carry it is already in the soil and CO2 is much more soluble than to nitrogen and oxygen. 

            Until the early 20th century carbon dioxide was only 0.028% of the air and it was becoming dangerously low for plant physiology.  Now it is 0.038%, an increase of 36% much of which is due to man's activity, verified by science.  There is yet another source in the environment that is increasing atmospheric CO2 at an even greater rate than man, but it has yet to be identified. 

             The most likely source is the vast ocean complex that covers over 70% of Earth's surface as there are many thousands of volcanoes that could force the gas out of cold abyssal water.  An enormous amount of carbon dioxide is known to be dissolved in deep abyssal zones which are cold, at four Celsius degrees, where water is most dense.  The tracing difficulty arises from the fact that not only are oceans everywhere, but every carbon dioxide molecule is like every other unless it has been in the atmosphere for a while where some carbon atoms become C14  atoms when struck by cosmic rays.  Any sample containing C14  is thus thought to have been in the biome and atmosphere.  Carbon from the abyssal zones would thus pass for carbon from fossil fuel.

           Where we can trace carbon that has been in the atmosphere we cannot identify that which has come from underground with certainty, but assume that because it is not radioactive it has come from under the ground.  Just as likely sources are the deep oceans as they are known to carry a lot of dissolved carbon dioxide, but the difficulty in making that determination and the taxing opportunity arising from blaming man mean this avenue of research will not be funded. 

           Science became a tool of government in the 19th century.  It is largely sponsored by government and the victim of politics wherein the truth is what is said by powerful people.  This has led science to make some huge blunders that it often ignores in passing.    

            Commercial greenhouses have supplemented their air with carbon dioxide for over 100 years. They have had excellent results and no hazards to the people working in them.  If you read the popular press you could get the idea CO2 is poisonous, but it is not.  Nonetheless, it is not an oxygen substitute and will not support animal life.   Is the current CO2 increase good or bad? 

            The above chart shows the increase in agricultural production correlated with the increase in aerial CO2.  The full range of gain is from 280 ppm to 380 ppm, 100 ppm, but this chart documents only 310 ppm to 360 ppm, 1/2 of the gain and it reveals a 128% increase in output.  Some gain has to be attributed to improved plants, but most of the increase, which could be on the order of 356% when fully shown, is clearly due to increased CO2 in the air.  This sort of manipulation is a consequence of letting politics have too much to say to science. 

           Corn harvests are up by factors of five to 10 since the 1930’s, but hybridization and genetic engineering have been done extensively with corn so it is impossible to determine the net effect of increased carbon dioxide alone.  Early work with grasses, sedges and grain plants, all C4 plants,  were thought not responsive to increases in aerial CO2 concentrations, but more recent studies reveal they behave like the C3, round-leafed plants and use increased CO2 very well.  Now in the new light on C4 plants it is certain that SCAF work with corn and wheat will get good results. This casts doubt on all old research into the physiology of C3 and C4 plants.  This work is due to be revisited with new tools and techniques.

          Some agricultural authorities attribute today’s increased grain and citrus harvests to greater amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the added benefit of reduced water demand as plants may shut stomata when CO2 needs are satisfied..  This infuriates environmentalists wanting to demonize the gas.  However, CO2 gas has been used in high-quality greenhouse food and flower production for 100 years to increase growth and quality, increasing production up to 150%.

           Carbon dioxide has been in increasingly short supply for green plants over 1.5 billion years.  Young Earth had a 12% CO2 atmosphere that brought simple plants to life long before animals could live in the oxygen starved atmosphere of geologic antiquity.  It contained only 8% oxygen, not enough to support animal physiology.  Carbon dioxide is not toxic, but it will not support us.  We can tolerate up to 1.5% of it in air, 15,000 parts per million so panic over a few hundred parts per million is inappropriate. 

           Green plants flourished for billions of years converting CO2 to oxygen and plant products.  They were so successful CO2 is only a trace gas in air today.  It has been on a path for extinction as a molecular species for many centuries.  Industrial activity has raised the CO2 level to 380 parts per million with good effects but alarmed people who want to be alarmed or government scientists in search of something new to tax.

            There are 380 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in today’s air, 0.038%.  Thus, green plants must transpire huge quantities of water to keep stomata open and their interiors moist to exchange water for the carbon dioxide they need.  Our studies have shown that CO2 delivered to the roots causes stomata to close and transpiration to fall dramatically.  In our tests up to 50%.
CO2 enters stomata by chance as water vapor exits.  CO2 molecules are only one of every 2640 molecules in air, but it is favored to enter the plant as it is 54.2 times as soluble in water as oxygen and 73.5 times as soluble as nitrogen. The relationship between plants and CO2 in nature is ridiculous given its’ importance to green plants.  We change that profoundly with SCAF and bring man closer to his destiny of stewardship over the planet. 
Stomata Function


       Stomata are pore-like organs on green plants, normally found only on leaves.  Their function is to capture CO2 from the atmosphere by exchang-ing water for carbon dioxide.  The exchange is not required chemically, but more a consequence of having water open to air to facilitate the capture.

       The molecules are exchanged easily as both have similar size, shape and polarity.  Carbon dioxide is much more soluble in water than nitrogen or oxygen.  Nitrogen and oxygen have shapes different than that of CO2 or water and no polarity. 

        Molecular polarity is a consequence of the unequal distribution of charges within the molecules. CO2 is illustrated as a non-polar molecule in many textbooks, but one of the oxygens has two "S" electron bonds which allow it to slide around the carbon and create an unequal distribution of electrons. Apparently this is happening enough to facilitate the penetrability of CO2 molecules into green plant membranes which present water surfaces microscopically. 

        When stomata are operating to acquire CO2 the guard cells, seen in the above figure at "A" are small, opening the chamber to admit air. They only need to swell to close the chamber and stop the process. They do this in response to the concentration of CO2 in the capillaries as transpiration drops significantly when CO2 is supplied to the roots in our tests.    

          A capillary tube of cells separates the interior chamber of the stomata from the interior of the stomata.  These tubes are pure cellulose and look like a fishnet stocking.  The plant sap inside is essentially water.  The same "surface tension" forces forming water drops make membranes that keep water in the tube while allowing gas to pass through, but water also evaporates from these surfaces.
        The surrounding cells are more ligneous, wood-like solid and not permeable to gas. We show ligneous cells here as undefined green areas.
       Water comes from the roots to the capillary tubes, "C," in plants all the way from the roots to the leaves.  Water vapor enters the stomata chamber "B" from the capillaries.  CO2 is 73.5 times more soluble in water than nitrogen and 54.2 times more soluble than oxygen thus selection is achieved naturally.

       The process is inefficient because so little CO2 is present in modern air.  When green plants first developed, young Earth's atmosphere contained 12% CO2instead of the 0.038% of today.  Thus, the system on which all life depends is incredibly inefficient to a point approaching collapse.  The greatest need of green plants is for more carbon dioxide.
      In a fixed bond representation water vapor and carbon dioxide appear to be different and CO2 non-polar, but a more sophisticated representation needs to be seen.


 Carbon atoms are often illustrated as tiny tetrahedra with single electron bonds equally spaced in three dimensions.  A better model comes to us from quantum mechanics where we see two "s" shells for electrons and two "p" electrons.  "s" shells are spherical and non-directional where "p" electrons are in directionally oriented "dumbbell" or "figure 8" shells on a Cartesian axis.


     

 The two carbon-oxygen bonds are "p-p" bonds in one case and "s-p" in the other. Where three are two electrons in the "s" shells, themselves bonded by opposite spin produced magnetism, the "p" shells fill with one electron each until all three are occupied.  Then, the next electrons join the single electrons as they are added.  



  

    Quantum mechanics indicates electrons occupy two kinds of orbitals, spherical, nondirectional or "dumbbell," "figure 8" shaped and directional. Carbon has one electron each in two of the three available directional "p" orbits. 

        Oxygen has one filled directional "p" orbital, here in yellow, and two half-filled, single electron occupied, here in green, "p" orbitals.  Carbon first combines with oxygen by pairing the two "p" electrons from each.  It is thought that electrons naturally pair as their spin generates strong magnetic fields binding them in pairs.  The effect can be seen with small magnets which when put together have a much reduced magnetic field when they are  combined, but a considerable force holding them together.

        While the "2s" electrons of carbon are already paired they can be bound with unpaired "p" electrons from a second oxygen as it appears electrons prefer space more than a partner.  There is a well defined rule structure in "s" and "p" electron bonding which is beyond the scope of this piece, but we give a link to more information below.

        Where "s" electrons are non-directional the second oxygen slides around the central carbon molecular core giving the molecule an unequal distribution of charges and a polar surface like that of water molecules, but only when the second oxygen is in the upper or lower position giving it the "Musketeers hat" appearance that resonates with IR.  The effect is rather like ringing one of two identical bells close together.  The unrung bell rings in sympathy with the first as it absorbs the kinetic energy of the sound waves converting it to kinetic energy ringing the bell as if it had been struck. When molecules accept such energy they translate it into motion which we read as an elevated temperature.

         It is thought unequal distribution of electrons when the second oxygen is in the upper or lower position enables CO2's water solubility facilitates transmission through permeable membranes of stomata inner lining.

        In another conceptualization you can see the shape and unequal balance of charges that enables both water vapor and CO2 to absorb IR heat energy where oxygen and nitrogen are diatomic and symmetrical without the IR resonance needed to accept the energy.  That the hydrogens in the case of water and oxygens in the case of CO2 can move and vibrate facilitates IR absorption.
        For a very comprehensive presentation of quantum mechanical "s" and "p" bonds please see: http://www.chm.davidson.edu/ChemistryApplets/

                             AtomicOrbitals/hybrid.html 
       
        Water and carbon dioxide molecules are very close to the same size in spite of CO2 being 2.44 times as heavy as H2O.  Such is the nature of atoms where their parts are very small, only 1/10,000 their apparent size and the attractive forces within increase with mass, shrinking heavier atoms such that all molecules are close to the same size.  

        Where CO2 is only one of every 2640 air molecules in air the chances of directly exchanging a water molecule for a carbon dioxide are very slim so plants use huge amounts of water to maintain a water surface CO2 can enter. SCAF puts CO2 into the soil water which is directly absorbed by roots in a solution plants can process immediately.  This is a huge improvement in the function of green plants with a concomitant saving in water.  We have data from experiments showing that plants receiving CO2 from the soil transpire much less water and grow much smaller leaves.
             For the 300 years, since invention of the microscope conventional  wisdom has been that stomata cooled plants by transpiration analogous to our pores.  But, plants are more tolerant of heat than animals.  Cacti and bromeliads live in hot climates, have few stomata and transpire little water. The function of plant transpiration is not as it has been thought and taught.

            In a study by Jurik, et al, published in 1984, using Bigtooth Aspen leaves in two atmospheres, normal and CO2 enhanced by a factor of six, we see that photosynthesis is only moderately affected in a normal atmosphere up to 33 Celsius degrees, 91.4 Fahrenheit degrees, and does not cease until 38 Celsius degrees, 98.4 Fahrenheit degrees, prevails.  At this point the enhanced atmosphere leaves were still producing up to 450% more product, but fell off rapidly on a trajectory such that they would not approach zero until the temperature were about 50 Celsius degrees, 122 Fahrenheit degrees.  Plants well supplied with CO2 from the soil should perform even better.
        Supplying CO2 by earth injection allows us to approximate this high level of CO2 concentration in the plant with the consequent improvements in output and vigor.  Again, this is very much in line with our appreciation of the fact that a green plant is not a person and stomata are not pores for perspiration.
        In our view the function of plant transpiration is for the exchange for CO2.  Where there is so little CO2 is in air now the process is extremely inefficient.  As a consequence transpiration pulls increasing amounts of minerals and nitrogenous substances from soil which can poison the plant. Better control of this process can return relatively alkaline soils to farming. 

            The main stomata function is to capture CO2 from the atmosphere for photosynthesis in sunlit leaves and put glucose unit molecules into the circulatory system of the plants so they could be used as fuel or building blocks for starch, cellulose fiber or wood.

        It is a miracle agriculture functions well enough to support animal life.  We will change that with SCAF by directly feeding the CO2 green plants need to make everything from root and stem to flower and fruit. With SCAF man will become the true steward of the planet in the fulfillment of his destiny.

Continue to Terra Preta Soils 

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6 comments:

  1. Adrian, You're making me remember so much stuff, that I was benignly interested in, when I was supposed to be learning it in school. Motorcycles, Sports, and Girls took up my first three agenda items, and goofing off took up the rest. My H.S. History Teacher also had me very interested in World and U.S. History. This was because he engaged us to think, as most of the others I had just droned on.

    Anyway - I surely wish I had someone like you as my Science Teacher. The robots they have teaching nowadays (and back then) have little imagination and desire. They don’t have the ability to work outside the 'NEA' guidelines to get students interested. And in no way do they even explain to students the how or why they are learning something, much less how it can be used for the students improved understanding of life. That is, except for the socialist ideas they spout.

    Anyway, I'll probably get yacking to you via computer as you've really sparked my interest in quite a few things.

    Thanks, Wayne
    sgmwlc@hotmail.com

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  2. Thank you so much, but I know what you mean. My preparation for teaching was unusual and very effective. I got out for other opportunities, but in part as I could see what was happening with the unions taking over and the new breed of politically correct administrators. Education has contributed much to our present condition.

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  3. Hi Adrian and everybody. I'm coming back again and again to your wonderful and posts ( previously on http://scaf.i8.com/). I'm a Polish dentist by profession, but a permaculturist and plant collector as a hobbist.
    I made also many inventions and discoveries regarding for example grening the deserts, cheap seawater desalination in sunny countries, hugelkultur, antidrowning devices, the use of CO2 in agriculture.

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  4. Cedric: Welcome to the group. Glad you found us and think you will enjoy the new, interactive format here. As you may know, we have published this as a soft-cover book at Lulu.com and Amazon's CreateSpace to promote the ideas.

    You can contact me directly at adrianvance@dslextreme.com

    Thank you, Adrian

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  5. Dear Adrian,

    thank you for your work here. When I looked at the graph you showed here (Global Combined Crop Yield vs. Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration) I was shocked. To reduce the Carbon Dioxide Concentration to pre industrial levels means to halve the crop yield. Certainly the increase of the crop yield is in part due to a number of other improvements. The "green" aim to increase the fuel prices strongly would certainly decrease the crop yield drastically. The consequences might be the death of billions, especially in the 3rd World. Are these deaths intended? Some time ago I read a comment in the internet stating that there are 6 billion men and 30 000 eagles of a certain species. The comment ended with the simple question: Any questions?

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  6. Those numbers are a little tentative as the early data may not be utterly accurate, but I think where it is on a believable trend line that it is valid.

    Consider that if Lovelock's "Gaia" concept is valid than man is part of the system and it is our destiny to burn as much stuff as possible to put carbon back in the atmosphere. Hansen and Gore got it exactly backwards!

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