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Tip of the Day
When given the choice, take the stairs instead of the elevator to save energy and workout at the same time!
Wide-scale biochar production could cut CO2 emissions by 12%
image credit PNNL - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Flickr CC)
Biochar is charcoal produced from burning biomass – basically, any plant or animal waste – in very low oxygen conditions. Pre Colombian Amazonian cultures did this by smoldering agricultural waste in soil pits and then using the resultant biochar for fuel and fertilizer.
When biochar is produced it captures carbon rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. It therefore has great potential as a way of revolutionizing the way we dispose of waste.
Researchers at Cornell University have estimated that if biochar technology were applied to waste management all around the world it could reduce global carbon emissions by 1.8 gigatons – about 12% per year.
From a BBC News Earth Watch article:
The researchers identify six ways in which biochar curbs emissions, including reducing methane production from decaying plant waste, reducing nitrous oxide release from soils, and avoiding carbon dioxide emissions by storing carbon in the soil.
Because it also fertilizes soil, biochar is potentially great for food production as well as waste management and climate change mitigation. But if it is produced as a product, rather than a waste bi-product, it could do more harm than good. There are also important differences in the benefits/risks of biochar produced from different sources.
It seems fitting, however, that a simple product, so beneficial for soil health, plant growth – and potentially climate change mitigation – should come from the ancient cultures of the Amazon.
For more on biochar see the following piece from the New York Times:
Once-Lowly Charcoal Emerges as ‘Major Tool’ for Curbing Carbon
Tags: amazon, biochar, charcoal, Climate change, mitigation, SOIL, waste
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Thanks for your comment. I have heard of some of these other biochar applications, but understood them to be more ‘experimental’.
For the future, if you include that many links in a comment, it goes into spam on most blogs and is often lost
Recent NATURE STUDY;
Sustainable biochar to mitigate global climate change
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v1/n5/full/ncomms1053.html
Not talked about in this otherwise comprehensive study are the climate and whole ecological implications of new , higher value, applications of chars.
First,
the in situ remediation of a vast variety of toxic agents in soils and sediments.
Biochar Sorption of Contaminants;
http://www.biorenew.iastate.edu/events/biochar2010/conference-agenda/agenda-overview/breakout-session-5/agriculture-forestry-soil-science-and-environment.html
Dr. Lima’s work; Specialized Characterization Methods for Biochar http://www.biorenew.iastate.edu/events/biochar2010/conference-agenda/agenda-overview/breakout-session-4/production-and-characterization.html
And at USDA;
The Ultimate Trash To Treasure: *ARS Research Turns Poultry Waste into Toxin-grabbing Char
http://www.ars.usda.gov/IS/AR/archive/jul05/char0705.htm
Second,
the uses as a feed ration for livestock to reduce GHG emissions and increase disease resistance.
Third,
Recent work by C. Steiner showing a 52% reduction of NH3 loss when char is used as a composting accelerator. This will have profound value added consequences for the commercial composting industry by reduction of their GHG emissions and the sale of compost as a nitrogen fertilizer.
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.
WorldStoves in Haiti ; http://www.charcoalproject.org/2010/05/a-man-a-stove-a-mission/ and
The Biochar Fund http://biocharfund.org/ deserves your attention and support.
Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon
NSF Awards $1.6 million in grants;
BREAD: Biochar Inoculants for Enabling Smallholder Agriculture
http://iapnews.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/cornell-university-wins-biocharstove-research-grants/
Thanks for your efforts.
Erich
Erich J. Knight
Chairman; Markets and Business Review Committee
US BiocharConference, at Iowa State University, June 27-30
http://www.biorenew.iastate.edu/events/biochar2010/conference-agenda/agenda-overview.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