[Terrapreta] Terra Carbona and Bring Biochar to the Market

[chris braun]

Dear all,

Tom, thanks a lot for your posting and your enthusiasm ! Yes, people  
from this group can definitely help developing the Terracarbona  
project !

Actually, there are several "sub-projects" involving biochar I am  
trying to set up which I all see as complementary and which all aim at  
diffusing the biochar concept and at gathering data, feedbacks and  
experience from biochar field and pot trials being conducted all over  
the world, in order to gain more knowledge and even improve the whole  
process.
And eventually, my "long-term" goal, which explains my interest in  
biochar, is to improve the soil fertility in developing countries,  
especially in Africa, with methods that are at the same time easily  
applicable, low (or even no) cost and of course clean and respectful  
to the environment. I think this has a wonderful potential to mitigate  
both poverty and climate change and I will find no peace in my heart  
until everything has been tried to reach these goals.

So in the following I will briefly describe the projects I am  
currently involved in and I will then add a few words on what you,  
i.e. anyone interested in biochar and willing to help, can concretely  
do to contribute to them. And then it will be up to you to come from  
the theory to the practice  !

---------------------
1. CharDB
  Please read the very recent posting on that:
004605.html

What you can do:
The success in this project highly depends on the amount of people  
registering data on the website and giving feedback to improve it, so  
I am really looking for people who conduct trials and who could send  
me their data and/or also people who could just try the functions of  
the website and give me their comments. Also the CharML format may be  
improved to better characterize biochar experiments...

---------------------
2. Biochar Trials Portal
The idea here is to able, not only to find but also to see easily the  
biochar trials being conducted all over the world, ordered by  
locations. So the way it works is similar to CharDB, I try to attract  
people who conduct "serious" biochar field tests to the website and to  
collect pictures and descriptions of their experiments.

What you can do:
As you can see on the website there is MUCH to add here ! So if you  
make tests, please participate ! If you don't make tests yourself but  
have heard of people who conduct interesting experiments, send them  
the link for the website http://terracarbona.com/ or send me their  
mail so that I can contact them !

---------------------
3. Charcoalab
This project performed a few months ago, which involved school pupils  
in New Zealand performing small biochar pot trials was very exciting !  
For the moment we are still thinking about it, but there may soon be a  
following story, so you can keep an eye on it !

What you can do:
Just be patient and wait for a new posting on this topic :-)

---------------------
4. Future work
The next thing I would like to do is to propose a panel of "good"  
methods for people who want to produce biochar themselves in a way  
which is efficient and respects the environment, at different scales  
so that one can choose what best suits to his needs.
For instance, the first methods I will propose are the following ones:
- micro-scale: the cook stove "Flanastove" developed by Robert  
Flanagan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5OAkmum7gU
- middle-scale: the pyrolyzer "Pyro" developed by Pro-Natura  
International: http://pronatura.org/?lang=en&page=climate#clim1

What you can do:
I know there are thousands of methods for producing charcoal but you  
can send me the links and infos for the ones you really think are  
worth considering... Better would actually be comparisons between such  
technologies, but that I have hardly seen so far...
---------------------

Now you have the choice ! And don't hesitate to write me if you have  
any further question or comment,

Sincerely yours,
Christelle
http://terracarbona.com



On Apr 26, 2008, at 4:12 PM, Tom Miles wrote:

> While carbon sequestration may become an important economic stimulus  
> it is one of many compelling reasons to use Biochar. Others include  
> increasing soil fertility or reducing or fertilizer use.
>
> Some of the most productive discussion on this list is about pot  
> trials and field trials. We should help develop Christelle’s  
> Terracarbona project to identify and characterize pot trials and  
> field trials.  Christelle, what can this group to aid that project?
>
> See:
> Terracarbona http://terracarbona.com/
> Charcaldb http://terracarbona.com/
>
> Also, for those who may have missed it, Dr. Steven Joseph made an  
> excellent summary presentation at a conference in Ames, Iowa in  
> November 2007 titled.”Bring Biochar to the Market; Materials,  
> Process and Plant Considerations” Seehttp://www.bioeconomyconference.org/images/Joseph,Stephen.pdf
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/
> http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org
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