[Terrapreta] re Cameron Smith has some questions

[Mark Ludlow]

'scuze me! I am sending echoes of myself!

 

Mark

 

From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Mark Ludlow
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 11:49 PM
To: 'Reid, Keith (OMAFRA)'; biochar-ontario at googlegroups.com; 'Jeff Berg';
'Cameron Smith'
Cc: 'Douglas Prest'; 'terra pretta group'
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] re Cameron Smith has some questions

 

Hi Keith,

 

Will you please compare the relative stability of "forms that are either
retained in the soil (stable organic forms)" and Biochar. I have come to
believe that fully-developed humus is relatively impermeable to microbial
degeneration. Can you, please, speak to the relative efficacy of each? It
seems like humus would be much more efficacious in retaining soluble
nutrients (in solution).

 

Best regards,

Mark

 

 

From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org
[mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Reid, Keith
(OMAFRA)
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 7:26 PM
To: biochar-ontario at googlegroups.com; Jeff Berg; Cameron Smith
Cc: terra pretta group; Douglas Prest
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] re Cameron Smith has some questions

 

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 <mailto:adriav at nowtoronto.com>  Vasil 

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 

 <http://www.worldchanging.com/jeremy_bio.html> Jeremy Faludi
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
<http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007427.html> gasification and biochar
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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