Terra Preta: "Black Earth"

[gnm]

My experiments with bio-char are working great on my nasty thick clay soil. The areas where I have raked it in and re-seeded with drought tolerant clovers are doing real well. Significantly better than seeded bare clay areas. The coal bits get crushed ever finer just though walking around on it now and then and are starting to blend into the soil.

-G

[Ludi]

I certainly think biochar has its place for those who want to use the technique. It just seems like too much work to me. What you describe, gnm, with low-temperature burning of slashed brush, is an easy modification of the concept. But still too much work for me, and I would worry about grassfire danger with the burn piles. Not to mention the fact we're under a burn ban most of the time now. Don't want to get the volunteer fire dept out for nothing! Your situation is different, with no close neighbors.


(I hope I'm not confusing you with someone else, gnm )

[davep]

My experiments with bio-char are working great on my nasty thick clay soil. The areas where I have raked it in and re-seeded with drought tolerant clovers are doing real well. Significantly better than seeded bare clay areas. The coal bits get crushed ever finer just though walking around on it now and then and are starting to blend into the soil.

-G

Have you done a comparison with compost?

[gnm]

Yes. Compost is superior but I don't have easy access to a lot of compost and this has proven an easy method of not only getting rid of all the slash I have but putting it to good use as well. Heres what I found.

clay - poor
biochar alone - good
compost alone - better
biochar plus green alfalfa - better (nearly same results as compost alone - by green I mean spreading feed bales out)
biochar + compost - best

So now I am focusing on raking in biochar and then seeding it with green mulches (such as clover) to improve large areas of soil where it would not be economical to spread good compost.

Ludi - You remember right - and yes - it is a bit of work. I hate hauling slash. But it beats chipping/shredding for sure.

-G

[Vogelzang]

You're wasting your time.

Princeton Physicist Tells Congress Earth in 'CO2 Famine' -- Increase 'Will Be Good for Mankind'
Dr. Will Happer, once fired by Al Gore, challenges former vice president's much-published claim that warming debate over.

http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer ... 13407.aspx

[Vogelzang]

Another Ice Age?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 14,00.html

The Ice Age Cometh?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 50,00.html

You're all being suckered
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opini ... 50707.html

[mos6507]

You're wasting your time.

You're wasting OUR time. Get banned alread.

[Tanada]

New study released by Worldwatch Institute, Agricultural use of Biochar could offset 25% of all CO2 emissions per year.

Worldwatch link

Farmers Poised to Offset One-Quarter of Global Fossil Fuel Emissions Annually
by admin on June 2, 2009

Washington, D.C.-Innovations in food production and land use that are ready to be scaled-up today could reduce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to roughly 25 percent of global fossil fuel emissions and present the best opportunity to remove greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, according to a new report by the Worldwatch Institute and Ecoagriculture Partners. As the price of carbon rises with new caps on emissions and expanding markets for carbon offsets, the contribution of land-based, or "terrestrial," carbon to climate change mitigation efforts could increase even further.

Carbon capture and sequestration technologies, which remain unproven and will not be ready for implementation for a decade at best, promise only to sequester greenhouse gases that have yet to be released into the atmosphere. Agricultural and other land use management practices, in contrast, are the only innovations available today to sequester greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere-pulling in carbon dioxide through photosynthesis to grow and sustain more plants.

Mobilizing agricultural carbon sequestration is therefore an essential tool in the effort to reduce the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases to the 350 parts-per-million level that many scientists argue we must achieve to avoid catastrophic climate change. A recent assessment published by Worldwatch in State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World found that emissions of carbon dioxide will have to "go negative"-with more being absorbed than emitted-by 2050 to achieve this goal.

"The science and policy communities in Europe and beyond have focused most of their attention to date on improving energy efficiency and scaling up renewables," said Ecoagriculture Partners' Sara Scherr, co-author of Mitigating Climate Change Through Food and Land Use with Sajal Sthapit. "While these initiatives are integral in the transition to a low-carbon economy, any strategy that seeks to mitigate global climate change without reducing emissions from agriculture, forestry, and other land uses is doomed to fail."

More than 30 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are linked to agriculture and land use, rivaling the combined emissions of the transportation and industry sectors. The report outlines five major strategies for reducing and sequestering greenhouse gas emissions through farming and land use:

* Enriching soil carbon. Soil, the third largest carbon pool on Earth's surface, can be managed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by minimizing tillage, cutting use of nitrogen fertilizers, and preventing erosion. Soils can store a vast amount of additional carbon by building up organic matter and by burying carbon in the form of biochar (biomass burned in a low-oxygen environment).
* Farming with perennials. Two-thirds of all arable land is used to grow annual grains, but there is large potential to substitute these with perennial trees, shrubs, palms, and grasses that produce food, livestock feed, and fuel. These perennials maintain and develop their roots and branches over many years, storing carbon in the vegetation and soil.
* Climate-friendly livestock production. Livestock accounts for nearly half of all greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and land use. Innovations such as rotational grazing, manure management, methane capture for biogas production, and improved feeds and feed additives can reduce livestock-related emissions.
* Protecting natural habitat. Deforestation, land clearing, and forest and grassland fires are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Incentives are needed to encourage farmers, ranchers, and foresters to maintain natural forest and grassland habitats through product certification, payments for climate services, securing tenure rights, and community fire control.
* Restoring degraded watersheds and rangelands. Restoring vegetation on vast areas of degraded land can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while making land productive again, protecting critical watersheds, and alleviating rural poverty.

The report also responds to several key issues that have constrained the use of terrestrial carbon solutions and highlights six principles for tapping the full potential of land use mitigation. These include: incorporating the full range of terrestrial emission options, including cap-and-trade systems, in climate investment and policy; promoting voluntary markets for greenhouse gas emission offsets from agriculture and land use while working out rules for regulated markets; and linking terrestrial climate mitigation with climate adaptation, rural development, and conservation strategies to generate widespread benefits beyond climate-helping to mobilize a worldwide-networked movement for climate-friendly food, forest, and other land-based production.

Although the climate conversation has long focused on developing enduring solutions in the energy sector, Worldwatch President Christopher Flavin says that land use is equally important. "The bottom line is that innovations in agriculture provide the best opportunity to remove carbon from the atmosphere. We cannot reach 350 ppm without changing the way we grow our food and use our land."

[Tanada]

I was already planning to try to create terra preta when Mom told me this other fellow needed two more farms to enroll in order to apply for grant money, so now it is kind of seperately together...I still don't kow if the grant money will come through or not but that won't slow me substantially.

I was just looking to see if you ever posted your results but I can't find them.

How did it go? Good, bad, downright ugly?

[Cabrone]

I read this report a few months ago of a biochar study that took place in the Cameron.

The study found that:

a) Adding biochar at the rate of 10 or 20 tonnes a hectare typically added about 85% to the weight of grain produced compared to the adjacent plot with no fertiliser.

b) This is about the same increase as would be gained by adding both organic and artificial fertiliser to the unfertilised soil. So biochar is as effective at increasing yields as heavy application of fertiliser.

c) If both biochar and two types of fertiliser are added, the yield rises to an average of about 140% of the level without any additions. Biochar therefore substantially increases the food production of land above what would be achieved either with or without added fertiliser.

d) The most striking results are found on the poorer soils.

Overall some very promising results (at least on the type of soil found in Cameroon). Maybe a much needed boost for future food output?

[erich]

Modern thermal conversion of biomass can manage nutrients, provide biofuels and conserve the elemental carbon. only burning the hydro-carbon oils & gas.
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/bioc ... ssage/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.

Find out more at IBI;
http://www.biochar-international.org/

[pstarr]

isn't nano-biochar kind of oxymoronic? like jumbo shrimp or military intelligence?

[careinke]

Biochar carbon sequestration is the only form of Geo-engineering that makes sense to me. I practice it on a very small scale. Makes the soil so much nicer.

[pstarr]

I'd be interested in feedback on my paper on Clean Coal. Did I get anything wrong?

- David Stang
http://davidstang.com/?p=89

Yes. 'clean coal' is oxymoronic.