Biochar: As Dumb As Biofuels?

Amen! (4.00 / 2)

Having read that and heard other viewpoints, here's my thought: If the idea behind biochar is that we grow trees, burn them, and bury the resulting biochar in the ground to sequester carbon - then why bother with steps 2 and 3?

I can't agree with that highly enough!

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

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by: wide eyed lib @ Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 15:25:12 PM CDT

Trees are great. . . (4.00 / 1)

. . . but I think we're talking about agricultural land.

I highly applaud more trees. But there are sources of biochar that wouldn't mean cutting down trees - and we are looking at all kinds of ways to improve the health of soil under cultivation, i.e. soil that is not going to be growing trees.

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by: robespierrette @ Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 20:38:26 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

OK, I've been waiting for this (4.00 / 3)

I've been waiting for a dissenting opinion on biochar, because I have been thinking that maybe it's just another false solution like biofuels.  I'm no expert but I didn't want to get overexcited about something again.

However, in Mother Earth News I think it said that you can just take some charcoal from your fireplace, put it in the garden, and you've got biochar.  Or what about taking weeds that shouldn't be composted and burning them into biochar?  Couldn't that be an "acceptable" use of it?

Vote for yourself at www.ni4d.us!

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by: rossl @ Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 16:07:51 PM CDT

perhaps (4.00 / 4)

I'm not sure. I think where I'm having a problem with it is in a large scale use that would turn into an industry.  

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 16:19:21 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Actually, it's very scalable (4.00 / 1)

The original use of biochar was hundreds of years ago in the Amazon - try the Wikipedia articles on biochar and terra preta.  So it is something that can be done low-tech and on a very local scale.

I also went to the Iowa State link in the terra preta article, where they are looking at using part of the corn stover (some must be left to protect the soil!) to make biochar, mix it with fertilizer also produced from the corn stover, and enrich the soil, cut fertilizer costs, and make the soil better able to hold nutrients so we have less going down the rivers to the Gulf of Mexico.

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by: RunawayRose @ Wed Apr 01, 2009 at 17:25:02 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

ok here's where I have trouble again (0.00 / 0)

perhaps it CAN be done in an environmentally friendly way on a large scale but what's to say it WILL BE. It will most likely happen in the most profitable way possible, environment be damned.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Wed Apr 01, 2009 at 17:31:50 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

:-) How about - trust but verify? (0.00 / 0)

Regulate it so the profitable way is environmentally friendly, because if you try to do it cheap and dirty, you WILL be hit with a big fine-hammer, maybe even do jail time.

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by: RunawayRose @ Wed Apr 01, 2009 at 22:30:59 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Not the Whole Story (4.00 / 3)

Jill,

I always appreciate people who question what they're told, but unfortunately I believe you're missing part of the biochar equation. You're correct, trees do sequester carbon. However, what happens to trees when they die? Though some trees live for upwards of 200 years, they all eventually die, fall and decompose. Decomposition relies mostly on cellular respiration, a process where carbon bonds are broken resulting in the release of CO2. In fact, most microorganisms respire about half of the carbon they eat (which in this case would be trees) as CO2. What happens to the other half? It is locked up in the bodies of these microorganisms, which are themselves eventually consumed by larger organisms and respired as CO2. The same is true for other schemes such as compost and mulch. They are not long term mechanisms to store carbon. By contrast, biochar is a long term carbon storage mechanism. Current peer-reviewed studies put the half-life of biochar in agricultural soils at around 1400 years. That means that 1400 years from now, a maximum of 1/2 of the biochar you bury today will be released as CO2. This is much better than compost, mulch or even industrial carbon capture and storage (CCS).

best,

Jason Aramburu

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by: jaramburu @ Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 17:07:18 PM CDT

This is how I thought it worked too (4.00 / 2)

I brought up biochar to my mom and she thought I was nuts. It doesn't make intuitive sense that burning something would store the carbon, we're all taught that burning releases carbon into the atmosphere. Biochar seems very cool, and I'm all for it. PS: I'm no expert either, I've just read a few A Siegel and Bill White diaries over at dKos.. like this one and this one

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by: Curtis Abbey @ Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 17:57:43 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

wait a second though (4.00 / 1)

doesn't burning it release carbon though? And are we waiting for the trees to die to burn them or are we burning live trees? Because I would assume that with the lifespan of a tree, unless there's a huge tree die-off we're not expecting a problem of too many decomposing trees, right?

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 20:37:59 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Something I don't understand... (4.00 / 2)

As I understand it, burning is itself a form of pollution and releases things other than carbon into the atmosphere. I remember I once read a book about how burning wood in a fireplace is actually not a particularly environmentally friendly thing to do.

When these folks are talking about the pluses and minuses of biofuel, are they including pollutive elements other than carbon in their calculations?

Science makes my head hurt...

I wish I knew half what the flock of them know
Of where all the berries and other things grow,
Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top
Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop.
--"Blueberries" by Robert Frost

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by: wide eyed lib @ Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 21:46:23 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Depends on how it is made (4.00 / 1)

Charcoal was originally done by partially burning wood under reduced oxygen conditions.  If this is done on industrial scale, the most likely method would involve retorts, where you don't release material to the atmosphere, and the heating may be accomplished externally rather than by burning the wood.  Some of it still likely would go to CO2, but ALL of it will go to CO2 if it rots.  The biochar is a more mineralized form, which will resist biological decay, but still form a good substrate for helpful soil life.  It has to be done WITH fertilizer.  The articles I have read on home experimenting with biochar suggest soaking the charcoal used with something like compost tea before use.

Biochar will last in the soil a lot longer than wood, compost, etc - that's why it has promise to sequester carbon.

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by: RunawayRose @ Wed Apr 01, 2009 at 17:30:13 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Biochar Soil Technology.....Husbandry of whole new orders of life (4.00 / 1)

Biochar Soil Technology.....Husbandry of whole new orders of life

Biotic Carbon, the carbon transformed by life, should never be combusted, oxidized and destroyed. It deserves more respect, reverence even, and understanding to use it back to the soil where 2/3 of excess atmospheric carbon originally came from.

We all know we are carbon-centered life, we seldom think about the complex web of recycled bio-carbon which is the true center of life. A cradle to cradle, mutually co-evolved biosphere reaching into every crack and crevice on Earth.

It's hard for most to revere microbes and fungus, but from our toes to our gums (onward), their balanced ecology is our health. The greater earth and soils are just as dependent, at much longer time scales. Our farming for over 10,000 years has been responsible for 2/3rds of our excess greenhouse gases. This soil carbon, converted to carbon dioxide, Methane & Nitrous oxide began a slow stable warming that now accelerates with burning of fossil fuel.

Wise Land management; Organic farming and afforestation can build back our soil carbon,

Biochar allows the soil food web to build much more recalcitrant organic carbon, ( living biomass & Glomalins) in addition to the carbon in the biochar.

Biochar, the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth, TP), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages... SIMULTANEOUSLY!
Modern Pyrolysis of biomass is a process for Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration,10X Lower Methane & N2O soil emissions, and 3X Fertility Too.
Every 1 ton of Biomass yields 1/3 ton Charcoal for soil Sequestration, Bio-Gas & Bio-oil fuels, so is a totally virtuous, carbon negative energy cycle.

Biochar viewed as soil Infrastructure; The old saw, "Feed the Soil Not the Plants" becomes "Feed, Cloth and House the Soil, utilities included !". Free Carbon Condominiums, build it and they will come.
As one microbologist said on the TP list; "Microbes like to sit down when they eat". By setting this table we expand husbandry to whole new orders of life.

Senator / Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar has done the most to nurse this biofuels system in his Biochar provisions in the 07 & 08 farm bill,

http://www.biochar-internation...

Charles Mann ("1491") in the Sept. National Geographic has a wonderful soils article which places Terra Preta / Biochar soils center stage.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic....

Biochar data base;    TP-REPP

http://terrapreta.bioenergylis...

NASA's Dr. James Hansen Global warming solutions paper and letter to the G-8 conference, placing Biochar / Land management the central technology for carbon negative energy systems.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/pap...

The many new university programs & field studies, in temperate soils; Cornell, ISU, U of H, U of GA, Virginia Tech, JMU, New Zealand and Australia.

Glomalin's role in soil tilth, fertility & basis for the soil food web in Terra Preta soils.

UNCCD Submission to Climate Change/UNFCCC AWG-LCA 5
"Account carbon contained in soils and the importance of biochar (charcoal) in replenishing soil carbon pools, restoring soil fertility and enhancing the sequestration of CO2."
http://www.unccd.int/publicinf...

This new Congressional Research Service report  (by analyst Kelsi Bracmort) is the best short summary I have seen so far - both technical and policy oriented.
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts... .

Given the current "Crisis" atmosphere concerning energy, soil sustainability, food vs. Biofuels, and Climate Change what other subject addresses them all?

This is a Nano technology for the soil that represents the most comprehensive, low cost, and productive approach to long term stewardship and sustainability.

Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
Cheers,
Erich J. Knight
Shenandoah Gardens
540 289 9750

Biochar Studies at ACS Huston meeting;

Most all this work corroborates char soil dynamics we have seen so far . The soil GHG emissions work showing increased CO2 , also speculates that this CO2 has to get through the hungry plants above before becoming a GHG.
The SOM, MYC& Microbes, N2O (soil structure), CH4 , nutrient holding , Nitrogen shock, humic compound conditioning, absorbing of herbicides all pretty much what we expected to hear.

578-I: http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/...

579-II http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/...

665 - III. http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/...

666-IV http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/...

Company News & EU Certification

Below is an important hurtle that 3R AGROCARBON has overcome in certification in the EU. Given that their standards are set much higher than even organic certification in the US, this work should smooth any bureaucratic hurtles we may face.

EU Permit Authority - 4 years tests
Subject: Fwd: [biochar] Re: GOOD NEWS: EU Permit Authority - 4 years tests successfully completed

Doses: 400 kg / ha - 1000 kg / ha at different horticultural cultivars

Plant height Increase 141 % versus control
Picking yield Increase 630 % versus control
Picking fruit Increase 650 % versus control
Total yield Increase 202 % versus control
Total piece of fruit Increase 171 % versus control
Fruit weight Increase 118 % versus control

HOMEPAGE 3R AGROCARBON: http://www.3ragrocarbon.com

Also:

EcoTechnologies is planning for many collaborations ; NC State, U. of Leeds, Cardiff U. Rice U. ,JMU, U.of H. and at USDA with Dr.Jeffrey Novak who is coordinating ARS Biochar research. This Coordinated effort will speed implementation by avoiding unneeded repetition and building established work in a wide variety of soils and climates.
www.EcoTechnologies.com

Hopefully all the Biochar companies will coordinate with Dr. Jeff Novak's soils work at ARS;

http://www.ars.usda.gov/pandp/...

I spoke with Jon Nilsson of the CarbonChar Group, in their third year of field trials ;
An idea whose time has come | Carbon Char Group
He said the 2008 trials at Virginia Tech showed a 46% increase in yield of tomato transplants grown with just 2 - 5 cups (2 - 5%) "Biochar+" per cubic foot of growing medium.  http://www.carbonchar.com/plan...

Low Tech Home made Clean Biochar;
http://holon.se/folke/carbon/s...

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by: erich @ Thu Apr 02, 2009 at 01:28:56 AM CDT