[Terrapreta] re Cameron Smith has some questions

[Reid, Keith (OMAFRA)]

If I may, I'd like to add my perspective to the mix.  It may help to
clarify the difference between soil organic matter and bio-char.

 

Soil organic matter (humus) is made up of a mixture of complex organic
compounds, including hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and other elements in
forms that are either retained in the soil (stable organic forms) or
cycled through the various soil biota.  Bio-char, in contrast, is nearly
pure carbon, and is not readily used as a food source for soil
organisms.  This is where the relative stability of char in the soil
comes into play.  The Terra preta soils in the Amazon rainforest are
unique because they contain a significant portion of carbon, in the form
of char, where organic matter is very quickly used up and leached away
in most soils.  The value of the char is not, if you like, the carbon
itself, but the fact that it provides the physical and chemical
conditions to be a habitat for a thriving soil biota, and acts to hold
on to nutrients that would otherwise wash away.  

 

The opportunities for bio-char in temperate soils are probably greatest
in the area of carbon sequestration, because it does hold the carbon in
a relatively stable form.  It is unknown, so far, if it will provide the
same productivity boost to plants growing in the char amended soil that
occurs in the highly degraded soils of the rain forest.  We should
probably be looking on bio-char as a companion to conventional practices
for increasing soil organic matter, rather than as a replacement.

 

Keith Reid

Soil Fertility Specialist

 

Phone:  519 271-9269

 

________________________________

From: biochar-ontario at googlegroups.com
[mailto:biochar-ontario at googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Lloyd Helferty
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 1:53 AM
To: 'Jeff Berg'; 'Cameron Smith'
Cc: 'Bruce Darrell'; 'Douglas Prest'; biochar-ontario at googlegroups.com;
'terra pretta group'
Subject: RE: re Cameron Smith has some questions

 

Jeff, Cameron,

 

  Sorry for the late reply, but I just wanted to come back to this
message.

  I'm going to forward this to a new grouping of people in Ontario who
have come together to talk 'Biochar'.  We are calling ourselves
"Biochar-Ontario".

I am also copying the folks on the TerraPreta BioEnergy List for
discussion there. (I can forward you a compendium of their responses at
a later date if you would like.)

 

  My own response would be as follows:

 

You say that "Taking carbon out of circulation may not be a good idea."
This statement actually astounds me. Humans are adding over eight
billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year from the
burning of fossil fuels (natural gas, coal and oil)!  (3.67 tonnes of
carbon dioxide is equivalent to 1 tonne of solid carbon.)

This is why the Global atmosphere is warming, polar ice caps are
melting, and we are at such a critical point with respect to the
biological equilibrium that keeps us all alive.

 

You correctly point out that all living things are part of the carbon
cycle and that carbon is continually turned over during the natural
progression through birth, growth, death, decomposition and re-birth. It
is always in a state of flux, moving between plants, animals, soils,
microbial biomass, the atmosphere, rivers and oceans. Some of the carbon
atoms in our bodies at this moment have in the past been constituents of
the plants, animals and soils present on earth many millions of years
ago. People are around 18% carbon, wood around 50% and the organic
matter component of soils are around 58% carbon.

Importantly, the processes that build new topsoil require that more
carbon be stored in soil than is lost to the atmosphere!

In a healthy ecosystem, vibrant, living soils are one of the most
important and dynamic parts of the carbon cycle. The carbon compounds
added to soil (usually naturally, as exudates from active plant roots
and the decomposition of plant and animal residues), are the 'fuel' for
all of the biological processes that improve soil structure, which in
turn increases oxygen and moisture retention and creates better
conditions for more life.  Deliberately adding additional carbon to
soils is intended to leverage this natural process.


82% of the carbon in the terrestrial biosphere is already in the soil --
not in the living biomass above the soil.  For instance, healthy
grasslands may contain over 100 times more carbon in the soil than on
it.

The world's soils hold three times as much carbon as the atmosphere and
over four times as much carbon as all of the vegetation combined. Soil
therefore represents the largest carbon sink over which we have control.

 

Up to 80% of the carbon has already been lost from the topsoil in many
farmed soils, often as a direct result of the loss of the soil itself.
Even today, most farming businesses continue to lose soil carbon - their
most valuable asset!

As a result, landholders invest a great deal of time and effort in
forcing 'dead' soils to be productive ~ using ever increasing quantities
of natural and chemical "fertilizers".

 

Soils under healthy perennial pasture may contain up to 350 tonnes of
carbon per hectare and sustain high levels of microbial activity.
Conversely, there is very little organic carbon left to lose from the
surface horizons of many farmed soils.

 

Increasing soil carbon levels will result in improved soil structure,
lower bulk density, greater porosity, higher infiltration rates, more
effective use of rainfall, enhanced water quality, higher cation
exchange capacity, greater sequestration of nitrogen and sulphur,
enhanced availability of phosphorus and trace elements, reduced costs,
reduced inputs, improved biodiversity and increased productivity.


These positive outcomes are all linked to what should be the core
business of EVERY farm business - the sequestration of atmospheric
carbon!

 

For every 2.7 tonnes of carbon that can be sequestered into soil, this
represents 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere.
Humans would have to bury over 2 Billion tons of Biochar every year to
make up for what we are adding to the atmosphere through the burning of
fossil fuels.  We won't be able to do it alone.

 

Our intention is to put the Biochar back into the soils and use the
Biochar as a type of 'catalyst' to assist and accelerate nature's own
processes to create ever more life so that nature herself can do the job
of sequestering all of that excess atmospheric carbon for us.

 

Biochar doesn't just "fix nitrogen".  Biochar can potentially benefits
the soil horizon by:

    * Enhancing plant growth
    * Suppressing methane emission
    * Reducing nitrous oxide emission (by up to 50%)
         -- Nitrous Oxide is a major greenhouse gas. The atmospheric
concentration of nitrous oxide has grown by about 15% since the
mid-1700's. It has 310 times more impact on global warming per mass unit
of carbon dioxide (CO2).
    * Reducing fertilizer requirements (by at least 10% in already
depleted soils)
    * Reducing the leaching of nutrients
    * Lowering soil acidity
    * Lowering aluminium toxicity
    * Increasing soil aggregation due to increased fungal hyphae
    * Improving soil water handling characteristics
    * Increasing soil levels of available Ca, Mg, P, and K (calcium,
magnesium, phosphorus and potassium -- all of which are essential for
plant growth)
    * Increasing soil microbial respiration
    * Increasing soil microbial biomass
    * Stimulating symbiotic nitrogen fixation in legumes
    * Increasing arbuscular mycorrhyzal fungi
    * Increasing cation exchange capacity

 

  And, most importantly, for storing carbon in a long term stable sink.

 

But it won't be just Biochar alone that will be able to do this.  It
will require substantial changes in a multitude of human 'systems' --
including the restoration of vast expanses of agricultural lands that
have now been so degraded as to be nearly unusable without their
chemical inputs. (This can be done through the use of organic methods of
farming, i.e. Permaculture, without having to sacrifice the production
of food ~ although food production would become more labour intensive
and thus more expensive.  But we are seeing the latter anyway,
especially with the rising prices of oil & natural gas.)

Basically, it will require that we (humanity) work to re-establish and
re-establish (re-naturalize) what we have effectively depleted; the most
important resource we have: the natural ecosystems of this Earth.

 

As Jeff has so correctly pointed out, Biochar is "The Mother of All
Wedges".

 

    Lloyd Helferty, Engineering Technologist

    Thornhill, ON

    905-707-8754

    647-886-8754

 

 

________________________________

From: Jeff Berg [mailto:jeffberg at rogers.com] 
Sent: June 17, 2008 9:07 PM
To: Bruce Darrell; Douglas Prest; Lloyd Helferty
Cc: Cameron Smith
Subject: re Cameron Smith has some questions 
Importance: High

	Gentleman I present to you Mr. Cameron Smith, Mr. Smith meet
what I call the burgeoning biochar brain trust.

	 

	Lloyd Helferty: GPO Research and Innovation Candidate and an
energy technologist.

	Douglas Prest: (if I remember correctly) Is a professionally
trained engineer and working with Lloyd on a business model for biochar.


	Bruce Darrel: Is a trained architect and FEASTA researcher where
he has worked with Richard Douthewaite for the last couple of years.

	 

	Cameron as most of you will probably already know is a writer
and thinker of some renown, writes articles for the Toronto Star, and is
a man who has been on the right side of the ecological ledger for many
decades now.  

	 

	Gentlemen below you will find a few questions by Senor Cameron
on biochar. (Or what I like to call 'The Mother of All Wedges":-)

	 

	ton confrere,

	 

	J.F. Berg
	www.postcarbontoronto.org
	www.pledgeTOgreen.ca 
	   

	----- Original Message ----- 

	From: Cameron Smith <mailto:camsmith at kingston.net>  

	To: Jeff Berg <mailto:jeffberg at rogers.com>  

	Cc: Wayne Roberts <mailto:getalife at web.ca>  ; Tyler Hamilton
<mailto:thamilt at thestar.ca>  ; Adria Vasil
<mailto:adriav at nowtoronto.com>  

	Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 12:56 PM

	Subject: Re: Biochar/Gassification Experimentation Kit

	 

	Jeff,  

	 

	Thanks for sending me this material on the experimenter's kit.

	 

	I have a concern that I haven't yet been able to resolve. As I
read it, biochar is like coke. It takes carbon out of circulation for a
long period of time. I've been searching, so far without success, for a
life cycle analysis of the carbon that is being sequestered. What would
it have been doing in the specific environment in question if it had
been dealt with in other ways? For instance, the compost you get from
biodigesters can be returned to the soil in ways that allow carbon to
ensure the availability of minerals and nutrients. As we know, carbon
operates in a zillion way to create a healthy soil, and good and
abundant food comes only from healthy soils. I keep seeing assertions
that biochar is a good fertilizer, because it fixes nitrogen. But
carbon's role in ecosystems goes way beyond that.

	 

	Globally, we've lost 20 per cent of topsoil within the past 50
years. I don't have an equivalent figure for soil degradation, but it
also is a major concern. Taking carbon out of circulation may not be a
good idea. I keep running into technological proposals all the time
where there hasn't been a thorough examination of ecological effects,
and so I keep trying to go back to basic ecological principles. 

	 

	Can you help with this?

	 

	Cameron

	 

	On 11-Jun-08, at 1:27 AM, Jeff Berg wrote:

	
	
	

	 

	 
	Gasification Experimenter's Kit 

	Jeremy Faludi <http://www.worldchanging.com/jeremy_bio.html> 
	May 29, 2008 10:27 PM

	 

	Want to make your own carbon-negative fuel at home? You may soon
be able to. We wrote last fall about gasification and biochar
<http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007427.html>  being a way to burn
agricultural waste or other organic matter in a special way that
(theoretically) sequesters more carbon in the resulting charcoal than it
emits into the atmosphere while burning... 


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