Thanks for the response guys, sorry it's been a crazy week. I would have posted sooner if I could. Also, Chris and I come from very different directions, which is ok, that just makes me slow because I like to take a thorough approach to new ideas.
I'm going to save the solar debate for another day, my feelings towards it are not adversarial and we have more interesting things to discuss right now imo.
Jumping right in about AD...don't know much about it. I bet that stuff probably stinks though! It sounds like a totally different process from what I know. Of course with composting you specifically want to avoid an anerobic environment. Meats, diary, things that generally contribute to an anerobic situation...I have NEVER used manure or any other form of dookie. Is that what you really want to be feeding your food with? I'm big on sugar free diets...aka paleo...and I think many aspects of agriculture should work on the same principles. Our domestication of food has gotten out of hand in many ways. Animal waste management is a huge area of that. We're feeding it back to them in some cases. Chickens and pigs don't even eat on the open range any more. You have to find special animals for that.
If we're being conservative about composting, there are a lot of "smart" people who will argue it releases GHG, etc. But I'm sure that wholly depends on what you're composting. I've read many papers, including one that is supposed to cost about a hundred bucks, and I know scientifically what a good mix looks like and you are definitely using carbon...ie newsprint, cardboard, etc...We're probably talking 15% max? Maybe a bit higher. Worms love them some cardboard--- they add a whole different dimension to the topic.
I've heard of piles of pure animal waste...I've seen man-made horse piles. Not pleasant, I mean there is a reason horses do not collectively shit and piss out a mountain of steaming doom...people will compost that for a season, maybe two if you're lucky, and throw it in a bag. In a zone like mine you need at least two years for all the bad crap from the urine alone to evaporate. There's your source of GHG. It's just not a good look. Like I said, I would never use animal waste in my compost. EXCEPT guano and maybe 5% chicken shit.
I read a paper by a big industry scientist who said composting put off up to 4.2 lbs/CO2 per lb of compost. I guarantee you with a few test runs you could make a carbon and GHG reducing pile.
Here's a government paper that seems more balanced:
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/waste/downloads/composting-chapter10-28-10.pdfChris, I assume when you mentioned fertilizer you were referring to chemical fertilizer? Very intensive. Not really too great for your plants either. Organic methods have been shown academically to increase yield and individual crop sizes x1.5-4 more than chemical fertilizer. So just exponential compared to no fertilizer.
The crunching the numbers thing would involve a lot more reading and reflection, at least on my part. But I suspect one of the keys will be this. I've gone stretches up to 2 mos without taking my trash to the curb. If you cut trash pick up down to once a month youre saving a lot of carbon with mass adoption. I would keep down those lines, consider the carbon that would be saved by substitution of activity.
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