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Charles Mann ("1491")in the Sept. National Geographic has a wonderful soils article which places Terra Preta / Biochar soils center stage.
I think Biochar has climbed the pinnacle, the Combined English and other language circulation of NGM is nearly nine million monthly with more than fifty million readers monthly!
We need to encourage more coverage now, to ride Mann's coattails to public critical mass.
I love the "MEGO" factor theme Mann built the story around. Lord... how I KNOW that reaction.
I like his characterization concerning the pot shards found in Terra Preta soils;
so filled with pottery - "It was as if the river's first inhabitants had
thrown a huge, rowdy frat party, smashing every plate in sight, then
buried the evidence."
Given the current "Crisis" atmosphere concerning energy, soil sustainability, food vs. Biofuels, and Climate Change what other subject addresses them all?
Biochar, the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages… SIMULTANEOUSLY!
This technology represents the most comprehensive, low cost, and productive approach to long term stewardship and sustainability.
Terra Preta Soils 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.
Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
Thanks, great additional information! I'll take a good look at all the links you posted over the upcoming weekend, as I am very excited about all the possibilities for this lovely blue planet we inhabit!
erichj, Whoa, what great info links! See what you started with this article Darius, LOL. I hope to see many more follow up articles on biochar down the road!! Could you start a thread, possibly in the Sustainable Alternatives forum, to house all the potential info for future reference, please?
Yes, great links, Erich. I really liked the National Geo one and how it was put together, great info!
Darius, thanks for a great intro to Biochar. I bet that'll get lots more people interested in it. And when you stumble on a great home-made system to char some wood please post a follow-up article.
Lastly, in addition to the store-bought "real charcoal" you mentioned (Cowboy?) our local Wally World sells another clean brand, pure wood/no additives called "Royal Oak". (Ten pound bags were recently on sale for about $7.00. I suppose 'end of season'?)
This has been really eye-opening for me and not at all eye-glazing. I do hope that this practice comes into play more often when we look at ways to preserve our world. The NG story mentioned that we could offset humankind's use of fossil fuels by storing more carbon in terra preta nova! This is amazing and at the very least deserves to be something that is wholeheartedly pursued.
I love the last quote of the story too: "With eight billion people, we're going to have to start getting interested in soil. We're simply not going to be able to keep treating it like dirt."
Thanks to Darius for writing the article and thanks to erichj for the additional resources. This is a topic I look forward to learning more about.
Wouldn't there be a difference between CO2 released gradually into the atmosphere, say over 10-20 years and the impact of releasing the same amount in a few weeks?
I don't have the computer capability to access all those wonderful sites, so I don't know if this question has been addressed in the research. (Old software, slow dial-up)
I thought it isn't so much the decay of the rain forest that contributes dangerously but the burning of such a large biomass all at once. Although bio-char seems to be a wonderful soil amendment, I'm not sure converting mega-quantities of biomass to char on an industrial level would appropriately address decreasing green house gases.
There is a great misunderstanding about how we are polluting the planet even by relatively experienced individuals and scientists who still seem to think composting and in some cases conversion of solid waste to methane to recapture energy are sustainable and useful approaches to handling biomass waste.
Part of the problem has to do with the well known problem of letting the organic mass remain in the landfill. That is certainly going to change as it is easy to prove it is toxic. If we want to adopt a sustainable practice of returning high quality nutrients (including carbon) in a manner that reduces greenhouse gas emissions, we will need to adopt a fermentation process. This fermentation must be done at low pH where none of the noxious gases are produced (e.g. nitrous oxide, methane, ammonia, carbon dioxide). Generally speaking, aerobic processes contribute to much pollution and anaerobic processes at or near neutral pH release gases that do ultimately damage the planet.
Biochar which involves minimizing oxygen (burning organic matter with much reduced oxygen...pyrrolysis) produces a very basic end product that has its own inherent problems in soil management. Municipalities that will ask you to separate solid waste so they can then either compost or use it to produce methane are compounding the problem and we hope to convince them they are headed in the wrong direction.
Fermentation sustains the soil microbes and produces a much richer nutrient end product for plants when done at low pH as occurs using bokashi culture mixes.
We do live in interesting times...but there are also wonderful solutions.
So what would biomass fermentation at the home level look like? Is is reasonably possible? Are we just talking a cold compost, maybe with some elemental sulfur, pine needles or ?
