ground.
Water has been a problem with
vast areas of the planet lacking the water to support agriculture.
We expect water conservation will be a far more important reason for sequestering carbon dioxide because CO2 is not the cause of global warming, but it is the determinant of what plants can produce.
The blame for global warming is in the atmosphere. It belongs to water vapor which was ignored by atmospheric physicists for 150 years because it is variable. This will eventually be seen as the greatest science blunder of all time.
Dry air climatology is nonsense because real air always has water vapor. While we may never be able to bring water to many areas of the planet we may take genetically engineered plants to areas with spare supplies and grow crops with the available supply. There is always some water in soil and an opportunity to modify plants to thrive on it.
Some pro man-caused global warming people now admit to the major role of water vapor but claim it is only present as “forced” by carbon dioxide and that CO2 must be present for water to evaporate. Nonsense, if there were no carbon dioxide in the air water would evaporate even better than it does now. To behave as the fanciful claim molecules would have to be under intelligent control. Are these people saying God does it?
We expect water conservation will be a far more important reason for sequestering carbon dioxide because CO2 is not the cause of global warming, but it is the determinant of what plants can produce.
The blame for global warming is in the atmosphere. It belongs to water vapor which was ignored by atmospheric physicists for 150 years because it is variable. This will eventually be seen as the greatest science blunder of all time.
Dry air climatology is nonsense because real air always has water vapor. While we may never be able to bring water to many areas of the planet we may take genetically engineered plants to areas with spare supplies and grow crops with the available supply. There is always some water in soil and an opportunity to modify plants to thrive on it.
Some pro man-caused global warming people now admit to the major role of water vapor but claim it is only present as “forced” by carbon dioxide and that CO2 must be present for water to evaporate. Nonsense, if there were no carbon dioxide in the air water would evaporate even better than it does now. To behave as the fanciful claim molecules would have to be under intelligent control. Are these people saying God does it?
Doing Right Things For
Wrong Reasons
Lawyers
are fond of saying that juries usually get it right for wrong reasons.
Water conservation will become the issue when the anthropogenic global warming
hypothesis is dropped and plant physiology is better understood. By then
the benefits of SCAF and the scarcity of fresh water will drive SCAF
to universal acceptance. It is on that truth that we developed this
concept and seek patent protection. SCAF will remain valid for reasons
other than those for which it will be initially instituted.
An Interesting Supportive Case
The online publication, “The
Future Pundit” issue of 2/17/2004 has a statement by Dr. William Schlesinger,
Professor of Biochemistry and Dean of the Nicholas School
of the Environment and Earth Sciences. He wrote: “One advantage the
plants may have in dry years is that with more CO2
in the atmosphere the leaves do not have to open their pores as much to let in
the CO2. This reduces water loss
from evaporation and allows plants to grow in dry environments. This
explanation has been put forward to explain plant growth into the Negev desert
in Israel.”
Following that lead we found the following by Randall Parker in “Engineering
Environmental,” a professional publication.
“Rehovot, Israel — May 8, 2003 — The Negev research station is the most arid site in a worldwide network (FluxNet) established by scientists to investigate carbon dioxide absorption by plants. ….the Yatir (desert) forest is growing at a relatively quick pace, and is even expanding further into the desert.
Why would a forest grow so well on arid land, countering all expectations (“It wouldn’t have even been planted there had scientists been consulted,”) the answer, the team suggests, might be found in the way plants address one of their eternal dilemmas. Plants need carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, which leads to the production of sugars. But to obtain it, they must open pores in their leaves and consequently lose large quantities of water to evaporation. The plant must decide which it needs more: water or carbon dioxide. Yakir suggests that the 30 percent increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the start of the industrial revolution eases the plant’s dilemma. Under such conditions, the plant doesn’t have to fully open the pores for carbon dioxide to seep in – a relatively small opening is sufficient. Consequently, less water escapes the plant’s pores. This efficient water preservation technique keeps moisture in the ground, allowing forests to grow in areas that previously were too dry.”
“Rehovot, Israel — May 8, 2003 — The Negev research station is the most arid site in a worldwide network (FluxNet) established by scientists to investigate carbon dioxide absorption by plants. ….the Yatir (desert) forest is growing at a relatively quick pace, and is even expanding further into the desert.
Why would a forest grow so well on arid land, countering all expectations (“It wouldn’t have even been planted there had scientists been consulted,”) the answer, the team suggests, might be found in the way plants address one of their eternal dilemmas. Plants need carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, which leads to the production of sugars. But to obtain it, they must open pores in their leaves and consequently lose large quantities of water to evaporation. The plant must decide which it needs more: water or carbon dioxide. Yakir suggests that the 30 percent increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the start of the industrial revolution eases the plant’s dilemma. Under such conditions, the plant doesn’t have to fully open the pores for carbon dioxide to seep in – a relatively small opening is sufficient. Consequently, less water escapes the plant’s pores. This efficient water preservation technique keeps moisture in the ground, allowing forests to grow in areas that previously were too dry.”
Concept Confirmation
This fits perfectly with what we have observed experiment- ally and found in the
literature. Where SCAF puts carbon dioxide to soil moisture the demand
for water will be substantially reduced as transpiration falls in response to
root borne carbon dioxide.
The Economics of SCAF
SCAF technology will accomplish
the goal of sequestration and create a carbon economy with carbon and CO2 having great value. Pure carbon can be used to improve any soil and will recover many acres for agriculture. Carbon dioxide will increase the harvest of food, fiber and fuel crops, save up to 96% of all water used in agriculture and recover land long lost to farming from alkali poisoning or lack of water. It will trap poisonous heavy metal ions as carbonates and supply the carbon that makes 44% of all the dry mass of the plant.
As long as water tables can supply at least 4% of what had supported crops in the past the land will be productive with future engineered plants. Soils getting elemental carbon allotropes retain natural water previously lost and CO2 supplementation reduces transpiration as well as make genetically modified low transpiring plants practical.
Corn is our largest crop and export. Corn has a typical 120 day growing season in the areas of greatest production, the middle-western corn belt. That will be shortened if we expand corn planting to some of the hotter, drier areas where corn grows faster and accelerated with SCAF technology, but we will examine the economics for an existing set of conditions in the midde-west.
Each acre of corn includes 25,000 plants on 16 to 18 inch centers. Each plant transpires 200 liters of water per season. If we assume the SCAF treated fields will produce 200 bushels per acre, or five metric tons, we can assume that we will also have 75% (3.5 metric tons) of that mass in corn stover to harvest.
"Stover" includes the stalk and leaf material of the plant and is normally left in the field. The John Deere Company has developed a machine that will harvest both corn and stover in one operation. This can be a great boon as stover is both an ideal bio-fuel raw material and cattle will eat it if it is made into silage.
Silage is fermented whole corn plants as that process produces protein, but it can be made with other materials. It would seem that usable silage could be made with stover and some corn as well as the addition of alfalfa or other material high in protein and perhaps in market surplus. The objective seems to be coming up with a mix that the cow will eat as their stomachs are able to digest cellulose. A number of these recipes need to be developed for better using farm surpluses.
With each corn plant needing 200 liters of water over the 120 growing season we will require 1,044,500 liters/acre for a normal crop and about half that for a crop treated with sub-soil CO2. The amount of water from rain plus what will migrate into that field from underground aquifers varies and can be determined in the field. If the field in question is to be served with sub-soil gasification the service may include water as none will be lost to evaporation. The equipment to accomplish in-field watering on this scale has not been developed and the engineering problems may prove formidable given the weight of water.
1,044,500 liters of water can carry twice the CO2 we need for a corn crop. We need to deliver 8.2 tons of CO2 per acre over 120 days and how we go about this will depend on the soil, the percentage of water in it to a depth of three feet. In many soils we could deliver the entire amount at one time, but we will probably find two or three injections separated by five to eight weeks will be more effective in boosting the crop.
Existing equipment of the kind now in use work through fields at one to three miles per hour and typically cover one acre every 20 minutes. If we assume the apparatus has a cost of $100,000 and a life of ten years with 10% maintenance it will have an amortized cost of about $70 per working day. With an operator at $20 per hour the running cost will be $230 per day so we have only the cost of the carbon dioxide, for which sequestration fees have been collected. Given the increase in the crop it seems we have ample room for profit for everyone involved.
We have about 118 million acres in corn which could use about 1 billion tons of CO2 which is 2/3rds of our annual production of CO2 for corn alone. We have not analyzed wheat farming for this system, but assume the figures are similar. Be this the case we have considerable room for expansion of fossil fuel utilization in this economy.
We expect immediate increases in production and water savings on the order of 50%. In the case of corn, now producing 130 bushels an acre we expect to see 200 bushels per acre, gains of up to 70 bushels per acre. At the present market price of $4.00 per bushel this is a gain of $280 per acre. The value of water saving can be estimated by converting the agriculture price $35 per acre foot to the $1150 price charged for urban users and estimating a value in perpetuity.
Farmers will be hesitant to sell off these rights, but eventually they will become a very large part of the farm economic as agriculturists control over 70% of the existing water supply. Of course filtration and chlorination plants must be employed on water for human consumption, but they are long-term financings and affordable. We can see a million new acres in full production and they will yield $280 to $500 million in new crops and many times that converted to low transpiring plants with benefits in the billions of dollars.
Suburban Applications
Beyond the farms we have very substantial
lawns and gardens. These locations can make good use of SCAF by
installing permanent delivery systems rather like drip watering, but with
tubing that is designed to serve lawn plantings. The major savings will
be in healthier lawns and gardens in addition to the water saving for lawns and
vegetable gardens. The CO2
injection phase will kill or chase soil pests just as well-defined water
delivery systems control weeds by drying the soil beyond defined growing
areas. The gas/water injection equipment can handle ammonia gas for
nitrogen delivery and water soluble compounds can be added to the water
regularly injected. With reduced water requirements, better growth and lower
maintenance we expect short payback times for this equipment.The United States produces 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually. The US Department of Energy has placed a sequestration value of $100 per ton on the gas. This is in view of the expectation of pumping the gas into old oil wells, mines and caverns treating it as garbage, but SCAF makes CO2 a valuable product for agriculture that will expand the economy by at least 150 billion dollars immediately and create 3.5 million jobs in agriculture and technology.
All things considered we estimate a 30% to 50% expansion of the world economy within the first 20 years of SCAF implementation.
Corn is our most important crop.
Developed in central Mexico
by the Aztecs from two unrelated grasses, the grain had literally been walked
up from central Mexico over
several hundred years and was in the trade of native people all the way into Canada.
Through selection and controlled fertilization, crude genetic engineering, Indians had managed to produce a plant that producing enough grain to be worth cultivating. What has become modern corn was discovered in Pennsylvania by European settlers trading with Indians. That corn remained relatively unchanged until the early 20th century when scientists experimented with hybridization. Now several varieties with different characteristics are grown, but the most common, Zea mays L, or field corn matures in 120 days.
Every corn plant needs 200 liters of water over its term and each plant produces 5.8 ounces of dried corn. It will also produce about a 4.4 ounces, dry weight, of leaf and stalk. These are harvest weights and the in-field growing weights are about 3.33 times greater.
Corn plants generally grow to a height of eight feet and grow at a rate of 1.18 inches per day until they approach eight feet where growing stops. They can be heard stretching at night if it is very quiet. This noise is rarely audible in the daytime.
Corn is planted on 18 inch centers with 19,996 plants per acre. They will need 8,784,904 pounds of water. In the Middle West normally get 7,022,500 pounds from the 30 inch annual rainfall with an additional 1,762,404 pounds needed from the underground water table. In areas where this water is not available corn will have to be irrigated. This rather substantial water demand has limited corn farming to Middle Western areas with ample rain.
Today's prototype one acre of corn produces 130 bushels at $4.00 per bushel worth $520 at the market, but the farmer gets less as he is selling to at least one intermediary.
Continue SCAF Makes A Difference
Table of Contents
Through selection and controlled fertilization, crude genetic engineering, Indians had managed to produce a plant that producing enough grain to be worth cultivating. What has become modern corn was discovered in Pennsylvania by European settlers trading with Indians. That corn remained relatively unchanged until the early 20th century when scientists experimented with hybridization. Now several varieties with different characteristics are grown, but the most common, Zea mays L, or field corn matures in 120 days.
Every corn plant needs 200 liters of water over its term and each plant produces 5.8 ounces of dried corn. It will also produce about a 4.4 ounces, dry weight, of leaf and stalk. These are harvest weights and the in-field growing weights are about 3.33 times greater.
Corn plants generally grow to a height of eight feet and grow at a rate of 1.18 inches per day until they approach eight feet where growing stops. They can be heard stretching at night if it is very quiet. This noise is rarely audible in the daytime.
Corn is planted on 18 inch centers with 19,996 plants per acre. They will need 8,784,904 pounds of water. In the Middle West normally get 7,022,500 pounds from the 30 inch annual rainfall with an additional 1,762,404 pounds needed from the underground water table. In areas where this water is not available corn will have to be irrigated. This rather substantial water demand has limited corn farming to Middle Western areas with ample rain.
Today's prototype one acre of corn produces 130 bushels at $4.00 per bushel worth $520 at the market, but the farmer gets less as he is selling to at least one intermediary.
Continue SCAF Makes A Difference
Table of Contents
No comments:
Post a Comment