[Graeme]

The Biochar Debate by James Bruges

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t's called biochar, and if you believe its most ardent supporters, then this unassuming, fine black powder is a vital tool in the solutions to some of humanity's most urgent ecological threats, including climate change, peak oil, soil degradation and water pollution due to agrochemicals. However, if you side with biochar's staunch opponents, then it seems like a fledgling, poorly understood technology with real risks, including the displacement of entire communities and the serious jeopardizing of world food security and biodiversity. Which view is correct? That's the question that sustainability expert James Bruges, who is cautiously optimistic about biochar, investigates in his book The Biochar Debate.

All in all, The Biochar Debate is a spirited yet critical look at a controversial emerging technology that could potentially go a long way toward mitigating climate change, restoring depleted soils and maintaining our food security into the future. Besides being extremely knowledgeable about biochar, Bruges is also quite opinionated about it and has many thoughts on how its subsidization, oversight, certification and research and development might best be handled. And he backs up all of these opinions and recommendations with solid evidence and real-world examples from his many travels to places around the world where biochar is being used successfully. The book also does a good job of pointing readers toward resources for further reading, as well as describing small ways in which each of us can be contributing something to the cause. And Bruges' conviction that successfully heading off a climate catastrophe is worth taking some calculated risks with biochar—or with any number of other climate change mitigation technologies that may yet emerge—is certainly well-taken.

[erich]

To me, in the long run, the final arbiter / accountancy / measure of sustainability will be
soil carbon content. Once this royal road is constructed, traffic cops ( Carbon Board ) in place, the truth of land-management and Biochar systems will be self-evident.

A dream I've had for years is to base the coming carbon economy firmly on the foundation of top soils. My read of the agronomic history of civilization shows that the Kayopo Amazon Indians and the Egyptians were the only ones to maintain fertility for the long haul, millennium scales. Egypt has now forsaken their geologic advantage by building the Aswan dam, and are stuck, with the rest of us, in the soil C mining, NPK rat race to the bottom. The meta-analysis of Syn-N and soil Carbon content show our dilemma;
http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/ ... /36/6/1821
and
http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/38/6/2295


The Ag Soil Carbon standard is in final review by the AMS branch at USDA.
Contact Gary Delong . http://www.novecta.com 515-334-7305 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              515-334-7305      end_of_the_skype_highlighting office
Read over the work so far;
http://www.novecta.com/documents/Carbon-Standard.pdf

In my efforts to have Biochar's potential included, I have recruited several to join the list, briefed the entire committee about char when issues concerning N2O & CH4 soil GHG emissions were raised, fully briefed a couple of the 50 members when they replied individually to my "Reply all" briefs. The members cover the full spectrum of Ag interest.

With the Obama administration funding an inter-departmental climate effort of NASA, NOAA, USDA, & EPA, and now even the CIA is opening the data coffers, then soil carbon sensors may be less than 5 years away. I'm told by the Jet Propulsion Lab mission specialists responsible for the suite of earth sensing satellites, that they will be reading soil carbon using multiple proxy measurements in 5 years. Reading soil moisture to 3 foot dept in two year with SMAP, Reading GHG emissions and biomass from the tree tops down next year when the Orbital Carbon Observer (OCO, get it:) is rebooted, to 1 Ha resolution and don't even ask about the various spectrometric; lasers, UV, IR, lidars, temperature sensors, interferometry etc.

Then, any farmer can click "Google Carbon maps" to see the soil carbon accounted to his good work, a level playing field to be a soil sink banker.
The Moon Pie in the sky funding should be served to JPL
Since we have filled the air , filling the seas to full, Soil is the Only Beneficial place left.
Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.

Hope to see you at ISU for the 2010 US Biochar Conference

Dr. Robert Brown <rcbrown@iastate.edu>, and the team in Ames Iowa are planing the next national biochar conference. The Conference will be June 27-30 in Ames Iowa Hosted by Iowa State University.
http://www.biorenew.iastate.edu/events/biochar2010.html

The Biochar Fund deserves your attention and support.
Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon
http://scitizen.com/screens/blogPage/vi ... ution=3011


Thanks for your efforts.
Erich

Erich J. Knight
Chairman; Markets and Business Opportunities Review Committee
US BiocharConference, at Iowa State University, June 27-30
http://www.biorenew.iastate.edu/events/biochar2010.html

EcoTechnologies Group Technical Adviser
http://www.ecotechnologies.com/index.html
Shenandoah Gardens (Owner)
1047 Dave Barry Rd.
McGaheysville, VA. 22840
540 289 9750
Co-Administrator, Biochar Data base & Discussion list TP-REPP





Biochar current Developments in Research, Legislation & Reports:


Biochar Soils.....Husbandry of whole new Orders & Kingdoms 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. Agriculture allowed our cultural accent and Agriculture will now prevent our descent.

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.

Every 1 ton of Biomass yields 1/3 ton Charcoal for soil Sequestration (= to 1 Ton CO2e) + Bio-Gas & Bio-oil fuels = to 1MWh exported electricity, 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 with carboxyl group fats in the pantry and hydroxyl alcohol in the mini bar.
Build it and the Wee-Beasties will come.
Microbes like to sit down when they eat.
By setting this table we expand husbandry to whole new orders & Kingdoms of life.
( These oxidised surface charges; carbonyl. hydroxyl, carboxylic acids, and lactones or quinones, have as well a role as signaling substances towards bacteria, fungi and plants.)

This is what I try to get across to Farmers, as to how I feel about the act of returning carbon to the soil. An act of penitence and thankfulness for the civilization we have created. Farmers are the Soil Sink Bankers, once carbon has a price, they will be laughing all the way to it.
Unlike CCS which only reduces emissions, biochar systems draw down CO2 every energy cycle, closing a circle back to support the soil food web. The photosynthetic "capture" collectors are up and running, the "storage" sink is in operation just under our feet. Pyrolysis conversion plants are the only infrastructure we need to build out.


Legislation:
Senator Baucus is co-sponsoring a bill along with Senator Tester (D-MT) called WE CHAR. Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration Act! It focuses on promoting biochar technology to address invasive species and forest biomass. It includes grants and loans for biochar market research and development, biochar characterization and environmental analyses. It directs USDI and USDA to provide loan guarantees for biochar technologies and on-the-ground production with an emphasis on biomass from public lands. And the USGS is to do biomas availability assessments.
WashingtonWatch.com - S. 1713, The Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration (WECHAR) Act of 2009

Individual and groups can show support for WECHAR by signing online at:
http://www.biocharmatters.org/



Biochar systems for Biofuels and soil carbon sequestration are so basically conservative in nature it is a shame that republicans have not seized it as a central environmental policy plank as the conservatives in Australia have; Carbon sequestration without Taxes.

Another significant aspect of low cost Biomass cook stoves that produce char is removal of BC aerosols and no respiratory disease emissions. At Scale, replacing "Three Stone" stoves the health benefits would equal eradication of Malaria
The Biochar Fund :
Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon
http://scitizen.com/screens/blogPage/vi ... ution=3011
The broad smiles of 1500 subsistence farmers say it all ( that , and the size of the Biochar corn root balls )
http://biocharfund.org/index.php?option ... &Itemid=75

Major Endorsements:

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-international.org/ne ... ation.html

NASA's Dr. James Hansen Global warming solutions paper places Biochar / Land management the central technology for carbon negative energy systems.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf

Dr. James Lovelock (Gaia hypothesis) says Biochar is "The only hope for mankind"

Charles Mann ("1491") in the Sept. National Geographic has a wonderful soils article which places Terra Preta / Biochar soils center stage.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/ ... /mann-text

Al Gore got the CO2 absorption thing wrong, ( at NABC Vilsack did same), but his focus on Soil Carbon is right on;
http://www.newsweek.com/id/220552/page/3

Tony Blair & Richard Branson in the UK and conservative party opposition leader John Turnbull and Abbott in Oz.




Research:

This is the finest explanation I have read on the process of biochar testing. Hugh lays it out like medical triage to extract the data most needed for soil carbon sequestration. A triage for all levels of competence, the Para-Medic Gardener to the Surgeon Chem-Engineer.
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/Ch ... g_Biochars

The Ozzie's for 5 years now in field studies
The future of biochar - Project Rainbow Bee Eater
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features ... 20142.html

Phosphorous Solution;
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/nishio

The Japanese have been at it dacades:
Japan Biochar Association ;
http://www.geocities.jp/yasizato/pioneer.htm

UK Biochar Research Centre
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs/biochar/

ICHAR, the Italian Biochar Association
http://www.ichar.org/

Virginia Tech is in their 4 th year with the Carbon Char Group's "CharGrow" formulated bagged product. An idea whose time has come | Carbon Char Group
The 2008 trials at Virginia Tech showed a 46% increase in yield of tomato transplants grown with just 2 - 5 cups (2 - 5%) "CharGrow" per cubic foot of growing medium. http://www.carbonchar.com/plant-performance

USDA in their 2 nd year;
There are dozens soil researchers on the subject now at USDA-ARS.
and many studies at The ASA-CSSA-SSSA joint meeting;
http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2009am/we ... n5675.html

Nikolaus has been at it 4 years. Nikolaus Foidl,
His current work with aspirin is Amazing in Maize, 250% yield gains, 15 cobs per plant;
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/co ... d-charcoal

My 09 field trials with the Rodale Institute & JMU ;
Alterna Biocarbon and Cowboy Charcoal Virginia field trials '09
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/node/1408


Most recent studies out;
Imperial College test,
This work in temperate soils gives data from which one can calculate savings on fertilizer use, which is expected to be ongoing with no additional soil amending.
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1755-1315 ... e7e2f3ce1b


The BlueLeaf Inc./ Dynamotive study are exciting results given how far north the site is at 45 degrees, and the low application rates. I suspect, as we saw with the Imperial College test, the yield benefits seem to decrease the cooler the climate. In 2008, a 20% increase in grain yield was shown and for a forage mixture in 2009 a 100% increase in fresh biomass was obtained. Other parameters showing increases with CQuest Biochar included earthworm, nematode and mycorrhizal root colonization, supporting the hypothesis that biochar may serve as a refuge for soil microbes. Surface soil water infiltration was also greater in biochar amended soil.
http://www.biofuelsjournal.com/articles ... 90009.html





Reports:

This PNAS report (by a Nobel lariat) should cause the Royal Society to rethink their report that criticized Biochar systems sequestration potential;
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Reducing abrupt climate change risk using
the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory
actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/ ... l.pdf+html

United Nations Environment Programme, Climate Change Science Compendium 2009 http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/PDF/ ... um2009.pdf

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/R40186_20090203.pdf .
Recent Up Date;
http://environmental-legislation.blogsp ... ncept.html

This is the single most comprehensive report to date, covering more of the Asian and Australian work;
http://www.csiro.au/files/files/poei.pdf

Dr. Scherr's report includes biochar. http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6124

I think we will be seeing much greater media attention for land management & biochar as reports like hers come out linking the roll of agriculture and climate.




Biochar data base;
TP-REP
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node

Disscusion Groups;
The group home page location, General orientation:
Biochar (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/
Biochar POLICY;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar-policy
Biochar Soils;
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar-soils/
Biochar Production;
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar-production/

Earth Science Terra Preta Forum, Great for students;
Terra Preta - Science Forums
http://hypography.com/forums/terra-preta/

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, a fractal vision of Life's relation to surface area 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

[Graeme]

Brilliant! Must have taken a while to type in your post!!! Love it. Found your post just as I was about to post another optimistic view of the future explained in a book by Matt Ridley called "The Rational Optimist". The title of the thread is the same as the nytimes article title: Doomsayers Beware.

[Graeme]

I was inspired to try to find out a little more about biochar. My effort doesn't approach the detail of the above post by Erich but I found the following:

A good introduction to biochar can be found at the wikipedia site. A couple of news articles piqued my interest. These are this Huff Post article, and the BREAD program sponsored by the NSF. But the article I liked the most is this one published in Nature.

The bright prospect of biochar

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s a solution to escalating emissions, biochar is certainly promising. Every year, human activity results in the release of somewhere between 8 and 10 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Of that, several billion tonnes are soaked up by the oceans and land, leaving around 4.1 billion tonnes in the atmosphere.

That number is dwarfed by the 60.6 billion tonnes of carbon that terrestrial plants absorb during photosynthesis every year. A similar amount goes back into the atmosphere through plant respiration. But if a fraction of that carbon could be stored in the soil, it would mitigate climate change to some degree. "Any organic matter that is taken out of the rapid cycle of photosynthesis ... and put instead into a much slower biochar cycle is an effective withdrawal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere," says Johannes Lehmann, a soil scientist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who has spent years studying terra preta and biochar.

Lehmann and colleagues think that the potential benefits could be huge. Of the more than 60 billion tonnes of carbon taken up annually by photosynthesis, around ten per cent eventually becomes available as agricultural residue such as corn and rice stalks, or forestry residue such as branch and leaf litter, as well as animal waste. If all 6 billion tonnes were put through pyrolysis — the heating process that turns biomass into charcoal — 3 billion tonnes of biochar would be produced every year, reducing atmospheric carbon emissions by the same amount1. That would offset a substantial proportion of the 4.1 billion tonnes of excess carbon dioxide that accumulates annually in the atmosphere.

And since biochar manufacture has the added benefit of creating liquid fuel as a useful by-product, there's even greater potential for mitigating climate change than from sequestering CO2 alone. According to Lehmann's calculations, a third of a tonne of biofuel could be produced for every tonne of biomass used. If those biofuels replaced fossil fuels — in transport, for example — it would reduce carbon emissions by an additional 1.8 billion tonnes per year.

Tim Lenton, professor of Earth-system science at the University of East Anglia, UK, recently rated biochar as one of the best technological fixes for cooling the planet.

[Graeme]

Charcoal takes some heat off global warming

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s much as 12 percent of the world’s human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be sustainably offset by producing biochar, a charcoal-like substance made from plants and other organic materials. That’s more than what could be offset if the same plants and materials were burned to generate energy, concludes a study published today in the journal Nature Communications.

“These calculations show that biochar can play a significant role in the solution for the planet’s climate change challenge,” said study co-author Jim Amonette, a soil chemist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “Biochar offers one of the few ways we can create power while decreasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. And it improves food production in the world’s poorest regions by increasing soil fertility. It’s an amazing tool.”

The study - by Amonette, Dominic Woolf and Alayne Street-Perrott from Swansea University in Wales, U.K., Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., and Stephen Joseph at the University of New South Wales, Australia - is the most thorough and comprehensive analysis to date on the global potential of biochar. The carbon-packed substance was first suggested as a way to counteract climate change in 1993. Scientists and policymakers have given it increasing attention in the past few years.

[erich]

NASA’s Space Archaeology; $364K Terra Preta Program
http://archaeologyexcavations.blogspot. ... llite.html

US Biochar 2010 Conference, Opening Report at ISU;
For those looking for an overview of biochar and its benefits, These authors have done a very nice job of distilling a great deal of information about biochar and applying it to the US context:

US -Focused Biochar report: Assessment of Biochar's Benefits for the USA http://www.biochar-us.org/pdf%20files/b ... lowres.pdf

[Graeme]

Study warns against hyping carbon-fixing biochar

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')n extensive study earlier this year estimated that as much as 12 percent of human-caused greenhouse gases could be offset by making biochar.

But that number best represents the technical potential of biochar, not a realistic expectation, according to the NRDC. It notes that, because there are no commercial biochar production systems, it's difficult to assess the environmental benefits and financial cost.

"The truth as to whether biochar is a cure-all or a scourge is apt to lie between the extremes, but we cannot say exactly where at present," according to the NRDC, which said it isn't in a position to endorse or discourage its development without further technical development and tests.

Among some of the concerns is the environmental impact from diverting land for biochar and the energy footprint of transporting biomass. The NRDC said that using waste biomass, such as plant residue or manure, looks like the most promising feedstock. Uncertainty around carbon markets makes it difficult to assess the costs of these systems.

Among its recommendations, the NRDC says that commercial-scale biochar facilities using slow pyrolisis use waste such as manure. It said that 5 to 10 demonstration facilities would cost between $100 million and $150 million.

[Graeme]

Refilling the carbon sink: Biochar’s potential and pitfalls

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t has an appealing symmetry to it: If we got ourselves into this climate mess by digging up and burning coal, maybe we can fix it by creating some more coal and putting it back into the ground.

That very idea, involving the charcoal-like substance known as biochar, has been both touted as a planet-saving climate change mitigator and then ridiculed as yet another tilt at the proverbial windmill. Biochar has been lumped in with other so-called geoengineering ideas like solar radiation management and ocean fertilization, but it carries ancillary benefits to agriculture that the other planetary experiments can’t claim. The last two years have seen a sharp rise in research indicating its technical potential, and while the world treads carefully around other geoengineering fixes, there are now dozens of companies already producing and selling biochar on a small scale. Is large-scale deployment really feasible, or is it time for a step back and to take a harder look at whether this is a technology worth pursuing?

[PrestonSturges]

It seems like it would be especially valuable breaking up a heavy clay. Because the sugars have been burned away, it would be more stable than just wood which microbes would break down pretty quickly. In archeology digs, how intact is the charcoal after its buried thousands of years? Is it better preserved than the other plant products and fiber?

[careinke]

I made a garden bed over a huge wood debris burn pile (I don't burn debris piles anymore). There was a lot of charcoal left over. Anyway, that is my most productive garden bed. The tilth is perfect, and the soil is a deep rich brown/black mixture.

My new rocket mass heater produces about a cup of nice charcoal a day. It is going staight into the beds. Biochar in your garden is a good thing.

What an awesome thread. Thanks for all the great links!

[Graeme]

Energy Quest's Gasification Process Can Produce Biochar From Agricultural Waste

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')nergy Quest, Inc. ("EQI") (OTCBB: EQST), an emerging leader in alternative energy and the development and production of hydrogen-enriched alternative fuels in an environmentally responsible manner, announced today its gasification process can produce Biochar from agricultural wastes and other biomass.

Using Biochar as a soil amendment is an excellent way to enhance crop production with the added benefit of removing net carbon from the atmosphere. NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen thinks that Biochar is one of the key ways to remove net carbon from the atmosphere.

Biochar, a kind of charcoal that is rich in carbon, traps CO2 from the atmosphere and can store it in soils for hundreds to thousands of years. Biochar soaks up nutrients such as calcium and magnesium, preventing them from leaching out of soil, and thereby boosts soil fertility.

According to Christoph Steiner, a University of Georgia research scientist in the Faculty of Engineering, "The potential of Biochar lies in its ability to sequester-capture and store huge amounts of carbon while also displacing fossil fuel energy, effectively doubling its carbon impact... scientists estimate Biochar from agriculture and forestry residues can potentially sequester billions of tons of carbon in the world's soils." More information on Biochar can be found at the University of Georgia Web-site.

By speeding up the biomass fuel throughput and adjusting the process parameters carbon content can be increased in the solid output residue from the gasifier. Making these simple changes to Energy Quest's gasifier results in the production of a high quality agricultural grade soil amending Biochar.

A modular gasification bio-energy plant consuming 10 to 12 tons per hour of agricultural waste biomass which can be provided from the surrounding farms such as the system being proposed for Lee County will produce 16 to 18 thousand tons per year of Biochar.

[Fishman]

On a smaller note. I've been semi burning woody debri over areas of my garden for the last two years. As with most of the eastern US, I have fairly high acidity soils. Burning debri, I rake out the charcoal before it burns to ashes (googled making charcoal) and extinguish parts of the fire with soil. I get more charcoal and less highly alkaline, easily disolvable ash this way. Its by far the cheapest soil ammendment I can find, has dramatically improved at least my beet production, and socked carbon into the soil long term (regardless of my views on global warming). There are better ways to make pure charcoal/biochar but I haven't found any simpler, more productive ways for my small garden.
Anyone else trying biochar in theri garden?

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Fishman', 'O')n a smaller note. I've been semi burning woody debri over areas of my garden for the last two years. As with most of the eastern US, I have fairly high acidity soils. Burning debri, I rake out the charcoal before it burns to ashes (googled making charcoal) and extinguish parts of the fire with soil. I get more charcoal and less highly alkaline, easily disolvable ash this way. Its by far the cheapest soil ammendment I can find, has dramatically improved at least my beet production, and socked carbon into the soil long term (regardless of my views on global warming). There are better ways to make pure charcoal/biochar but I haven't found any simpler, more productive ways for my small garden.
Anyone else trying biochar in theri garden?

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', '
')Not yet for me other then the ashes from ten cord of maple and ash each year out of the wood furnace and kitchen stove. Not too many charcoal clinkers in those. I suppose I could make a crib fire in the summer then hose it out at the right point to make quite a bit of charcoal. I've thought of just buying some bags of Bar-B-Q briquettes (plain ones not the self lighting kind) and smashing them to powder with a sledge hammer. Might work as a test bed.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '[')Proceed with caution, I had planned to do the same thing until I discovered that most if not all Briquettes actually contain 25%+ powdered coal to make them burn longer in their mixture. Not sure if anyone has tried powdered coal and what its effects might be. Lump charcole is different, but around where I live it is prohibitively expensive compared to Briquettes.

[steam_cannon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'P')roceed with caution, I had planned to do the same thing until I discovered that most if not all Briquettes actually contain 25%+ powdered coal to make them burn longer in their mixture. Not sure if anyone has tried powdered coal and what its effects might be. Lump charcole is different, but around where I live it is prohibitively expensive compared to Briquettes.

[Graeme]

Biochar And The Biomass Recycling Industry

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')IOCHAR, the high carbon content remains of organic biomass heated in the absence of oxygen, has been a topic of intense interest and growing experimentation in the past five years. The rediscovery of terra preta (or black earth) soils in the Amazon has sparked the imagination and curiosity of researchers around the world. These “human-built” soils are dark, productive deposits — a composite of charcoal (biochar), pottery shards and organic matter such as plant material, animal feces and fish and animal bones. Significantly, these soils are several thousand years old, yet continue to maintain high plant productivity and high soil carbon content despite existing in a region well known for low soil productivity and rapid organic matter decomposition. Charcoal presence is not unique to the tropics. U.S. farmland soils can vary in charcoal content from 10 to 35 percent of the total organic carbon (TOC), with charcoal-enriched areas in regions with a wildfire-dependent ecology (Skemstad et al., 2002).

Much of the published terra preta research to date has focused solely on the biochar component. A full picture of “biochar-only” effects is yet to be fully understood. Most of the best-documented studies have used a single addition of biochar, which is intensively measured over a number of years, but data to date suggest a wide range of outcomes. Biochar additions have been seen to be positive, neutral and even negative. This wide range in outcomes may be due to differences in the specific biochar used, time since addition, the crop species tested and the particular starting soil properties/deficiencies.

Biochar is a by-product of pyrolysis and gasification. Large-scale flash pyrolysis systems convert 70 percent of the biomass to oil, 15 percent to gas and 15 percent to char. The char is sometimes consumed to heat the process. Gasification and staged combustion can be adjusted to produce more (15%) or less (2%) biochar. Pyrolysis systems vary in the amount of volatile nutrients like nitrogen, sulfur and potassium that are retained. Hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) is a new process that converts biomass to char under heat and pressure in aqueous solutions. It may be suitable for wet wastes like biosolids since it promises a higher retention of nutrients than dry pyrolysis.

Interest is rising in the biochar community to further explore the dynamic relationship between the known properties of biochar and the organic materials long used to build soil carbon and productivity. To realize the full potential of biochar as a tool for carbon cycle management and to sustainably increase soil productivity, biochar should be tested in combination with other organic waste streams, and in multiple applications over years.

[erich]

The single best book ;"The Biochar Solution"
http://www.biocharsolution.com/

The second best; "The Biochar Revolution"
http://biochar-books.com/The_Biochar_Revolution

Black Swan of Biochar
Short a nano material PV / thermoelectrical / ultracapasitating Black swan,
What we can do now with "off the shelf" technology, what I proposed at the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, to the EPA chiefs of North America.
The most cited soil scientist in the world, Dr. Rattan Lal at OSU, was impressed with this talk, commending me on conceptualizing & articulating the concept.

Bellow the opening & closing text. A Report on my talk at CEC, and complete text & links are here:http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar-policy/message/3233

The Establishment of Soil Carbon as the Universal Measure of Sustainability
The Paleoclimate Record shows agricultural-geo-engineering is responsible for 2/3rds of our excess greenhouse gases. The unintended consequence, the flowering of our civilization. Our science has now realized these consequences and has developed a more encompassing wisdom. Wise land management, afforestation and the thermal conversion of biomass can build back our soil carbon. Pyrolysis, Gasification and Hydro-Thermal Carbonization are known biofuel technologies, What is new are the concomitant benefits of biochars for Soil Carbon Sequestration; building soil biodiversity & nitrogen efficiency, for in situ remediation of toxic agents, and, as a feed supplement cutting the carbon foot print of livestock. Modern systems are closed-loop with no significant emissions. The general life cycle analysis is: every 1 ton of biomass yields 1/3 ton Biochar equal to 1 ton CO2e, plus biofuels equal to 1MWh exported electricity, so each energy cycle is 1/3 carbon negative.

Beyond Rectifying the Carbon Cycle;
Biochar systems Integrate nutrient management, serving the same healing function for the Nitrogen and Phosphorous Cycles.
The Agricultural Soil Carbon Sequestration Standards are the royal road for the GHG Mitigation;

The Bio-Refining Technologies to Harvest Carbon.
The photosynthetic "capture" collectors are up and running all around us, the "storage" sink is in operation just under our feet, conversion reactors are the only infrastructure we need to build out. Carbon, as the center of life, has high value to recapitalize our soils. Yielding nutrient dense foods and Biofuels, Paying Premiums of pollution abatement and toxic remediation and the growing Dividend created by the increasing biomass of a thriving soil community.

Since we have filled the air,
filling the seas to full,
soil is the only beneficial place left.
Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.

[careinke]

It might be interesting to run the math on how much biochar needs to be produced to put CO2 on a downward slope.

[erich]

The best estimates I've found are that the total loss of forest and soil carbon (combined
pre-industrial and industrial) has been about 200-240 billion tons. Of
that, the soils are estimated to account for about 1/3, and the vegetation
the other 2/3.

Since man controls 24 billion tons in his agriculture then it seems we have plenty to work with in sequestering our fossil fuel CO2 emissions as stable charcoal in the soil.

As Dr. Lehmann at Cornell points out, "Closed-Loop Pyrolysis systems are the only way to make a fuel that is actually carbon negative". and that " a strategy combining biochar with biofuels could ultimately offset 9.5 billion tons of carbon per year-an amount equal to the total current fossil fuel emissions! "
Terra Preta Soils Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration, 10X Lower CH4 & N2O soil emissions, and 3X FertilityToo

This some what orphaned new soil technology speaks to so many different interests and disciplines that it has not been embraced fully by any. I'm sure you will see both the potential of this system and the convergence needed for it's implementation.

The integrated energy strategy offered by Charcoal based Terra Preta Soil technology may
provide the only path to sustain our agricultural and fossil fueled power
structure without climate degradation, other than nuclear power.