Injection of Exhaust Into Subsoil

Well said.

Agriculture should be able to claim a heavy offset towards their farm machinery production of CO2 simply by growing plants which use up the CO2.

Not sure if they gonna be judged in the day time though. Some night dreamers might claim there is something wrong with plants at night, but then you dont pull your plough when it is dark.

What could be said about the use of plant oil to drive the tractor? How bad is this for the soil (not that I think it is a clever idea its more stretching the mind).

Have a wonderful morning!

What would be the result of injecting the exhaust of farm machinery into the subsoil layer?Would it kill soil pests before it percolated out?Would

The first thing that does come to mind is the amount of Co2 being sequestered is so small, it would not be practical. And even if it was a larger amount, it still would be practical.

Can't answer the rest, but CO oxidizes and becomes CO_2.

Due to the inefficiency of most "modern" farm machinery, I believe that one would make the soil unusable in short order. HC's and plant life don't mix.

As long as the engines are running at peak effiency there wouldn't be an issue...gasoline engines, that is:

Diesel...on the other hand...nasty stuff

I don't know why you would even try to scrub that for injection directly into the chain of the food a human would consume.

There are also beneficial organisms in the soil that should not be destroyed. Earth worms are the first to come to mind.

I think people smarter than me in chemistry should think a little deeper on this. The quantity of exhaust componets is going to be small for a specific the soil. The machine is going to pass by quickly and not leave a large quantity of anything in the soil. The water will most likely condense out quickly and most of the gasses would also pass out of the soil. The heavier comonents and hydrocarbons would stick around in the soil. If there were bacteria present that can consume hydrocarbons it might actually ferterlize the soil some. I read about how diesel contaminated a small stream and many plants on the bank died, but the plants that came back were stronger and more vibrant than what had been there before. I don't know if the new plants were the same species or not. As the hydrocarbons break down, they could provide food for crops.

The aeration would loosen the soil allowing easier root penetration. Perhaps combining exhaust with a forced draft of fresh air would provide some benefit.

Drew K

We thought the same thing about the atmosphere...

...but look how we've mucked that up.

Why would we want to directly contaminate the earth itself?

They would revoke you organic certification.

Probably not much.

Anhydrous ammonia (AA) applicators come to mind as a very suitable tool for this, but I can see three points (ps- I'm assuming you mean CO2 when you say CO):

1. Typical equipment design is not suited to the backpressure that would likely be created- it could require some means to compress the gasses, which would require more fuel for the same amount of work
2. Seems it's only viable for the times when you're actually penetrating the soil (plowing, AA injection etc.), what portion of usage is that typically?
3. Ammonia has a solubility in water that is orders of magnitude more than CO2 under standard conditions. On top of that the exhaust gases are likely to be hot, which further reduces the solubility.

So my armchair engineering leads me to believe that most (expecting 90% or more) of the CO2 will simply diffuse through the soil or out of the plow cut and back into the atmosphere, with the dissolved remainder contributing to soil acidification (don't know if that's good or bad). Now if you were to combine the exhaust with an AA applicator- or even use Ammonia solution- you could sequester far more CO2 in the form of ammonium carbonate/ bicarbonate. It might also help fixate the ammonia to provide a slower release to the plants!

No,I actually meant CO(Carbon Monoxide).CO2 would be converted into calcium carbonate if the soil is alkaline, and the CO would probably not be affected, but for soils that have harmful Nemaode infestations, it would be a better alternative to have the CO kill them and then eventually percolate out of the soil than to use the current chemical pesticides that stay in the soil for long periods.Not saying this method is good for every situation, but in some cases it might be.Not painting with a broad brush here.

Beneficial soil bacteria quickly recover once the poison is removed, and there would be plenty of bacteria outside of the treated zone to repopulate,so in the long run, it might be even more beneficial than first anticipated. Or not.

No harm kicking around a few different ideas.That's what I like about CR4:The ability to brainstorm without repercussions for seemingly wild ideas,in the hope that some good may come of even the worst of them.

"'Tis an ill wind that blows no good"

So the real reason you ask those questions is the use of the CO. Maybe should have spared us the trouble with the CO2 as this seems to be a mood point unless you count the calcium carbonate on the better side of the soil. But what about the oil in the exhaust gases? From what was stated further down it seems a little bit a filter system might enable you to select what ever "good" you want out of it.

So the remaining idea is to kill "worms" with the CO. Surely the problem is that it kills a lot of other live as well. So the not so simple answer is - maybe good for on type of soil but not for the other one dependend on the live that is in there and if it is needed.

You already answered part of your question. Better now post in the BioMed section if someboddy knows how to kill Nemaode or if they like CO.

Also technically how much is needed for the filter and how much CO is really in the exhaust gas that you can filter out and make use off.

Potentially a interesting idea. Hope somebody can help with these questions.

Good luck!

SUBSOIL?!?

First, get up to speed on modern tilling: shallower, and rarer.

You do not disturb the subsoil, unless you have a really

compelling, bad enough reason.

Now, go away with halfbaked or less ideas.

Cool the exhaust gas and store. Release the gas to leafy plants inside a green house and get carbon dioxide converted to oxygen.

I seem to remember seeing this on television a while back. From what I can remember the exhaust gasses were diverted to something on the back of the tractor which ensured no back pressure to the engine, thus ensuring the engine ran as it should. There may have been some sort of water/liquid trap. The gasses were then forced by a fan through what looked like a seed drill system to just below the surface. As far as I can remember the tests did show that the plants that were grown using this system were a lot stronger/better than the ones that were not.

You seem to remember wrong. There are millions, yes millions of beneficial organisms, mites, bacteria, etc. in an ounce of good soil. They are all required to grow plants. Exhaust is toxic. They are needed to provide nutrients to the plants.

I was correct. Just google injecting exhaust into soil and there are sites showing what I was talking about. It seems the exhaust is cooled and injected with the seed when it is being sown. The gasses are high in nitrogen as well as other gasses that the seed needs to germinate.

Dangit!Day late, dollar shy with the idea.Someone else is already making $ using an injection system.Not exactly what I pictured, it captures the nitrogen from the diesel and injects it with seed to improve germination.Anyway, it is good to see that someone else is studying this concept.Never know what else may come of it.

Thanks to all who gave constructive criticism.

Yeah but...looking at what has happened with fracking, which is thousands of feet below the surface. Just wait until some over reacting tree hugger gets wind of the idea you are pumping exhaust into the soil, where the drinking water comes from. OMG!!! You'll have Ono Lennon and son there with a host of others protesting the destruction of the local aquifer. TV Channel (you enter the number) will run an expose on this every day for three months.

Yes some people are doing it. That doesn't mean they know what they are doing. If you had read some of the research that has been done that they list, you would would know that it was inconclusive or detrimental. However, there has not been enough research done nor long range testing done to prove anything. However, any soil scientist will tell you that it is extremely unlikely that it will be beneficial and most likely be extremely detrimental in the long run. Just as many other farming practices that we practiced for decades have been found to be disadvantageous. The life in the soil is not there because exhaust is beneficial to them any more than it is to you

Anybody here actually farmed........ and your Gramppa's farm doesn't count...........

Or seeing a picture of a farm doen't either.

Do you?Have you? How many sections of land?Where? When?

Left the farm when I was 25, stopped farming when I turned 42.

400+ acres plus 150 acres rented (Family Farm) Sold my parcel back to my brother (2) years ago.

Wisconsin Peninsula, Door County.

Where the soil can be so thin you can see the Niagara Escarpment.

Yes, for more years than I care to admit to.

On a small scale, I've used exhaust to get rid of woodchucks under my barn.

I am sure they grew back bigger and stronger than ever before...right?

No...! Dead dead dead!

Works on moles also.

I had a problem with gophers and hooked a 3" flex hose to my 7.3L diesel exhaust and the other end into the gopher burrow, let it run for about 4 hours...result was about 2 feet of flex was packed with dirt... smart ass gophers. I then dropped a line into the irrigation ditch and pumped about 10,000 gph into the same burrow system, as gophers were flushed out and started running I played whack'em with a 9" shovel...score 37 above ground, drownings unknown, area gopher free for the season and the direct injection of water seems to have caused no known problems.

If people would simply wake up the reality of new-tech steam engines (see: www. cyclonepower.com), we could realise a tremendous boost in efficiency from the low-end torque of steam engines (and these new ones boast of 30% efficiency), and they can run off any liquid fuel with no change over of parts, with very efficient and clean external combustion. Steam tractors make sense. The new engines have a condensate return system and a (smallish) air-cooled condenser. Oh, and did I mention the lubricant is - you guessed it - water, not oil. Oil is fuel in this new generation. Cold start in freezing condition is about 20 seconds longer than the normal start up of 10 seconds. Forget "plowing under the pollution", unless you simply want to lace the ground with carbon dioxide and NOx(much lower amounts due to lower temperatures in the combustion zone of external combustion).

But you did not answer the question! And as we found out the CO is what OP needs. Your machine is far to clean to be useful in this application (ok no oil would be good!).

Could you adjust the combustion to be less effective by choking the air inlet to produce more CO?

So what's the point of going to a 30% efficient steam engine when a stock diesel runs similar to greater efficiency numbers?