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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Biochar questions

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Marty Kraft <martyk@allspecies.org>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Biochar questions
  • Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:13:08 -0600

Paul

If you take a given amount of plant material and use some of it for making char and some of it for burning to make the char at the end you will have a percentage of your original amount as a very long lasting (a millennium) product that seems to be good for the soil.

If you compost that same amount and put it in the soil and even if the micorizzal fungi turn it into glomalin (which i'm a big fan of) it will be back in the atmosphere in a century.

I don't know how much of the energy from our hypothetical sample went to make the char but we still have the char and its embodied energy when the process is complete. I'm sure there are figures out there on carbon lost and carbon saved, energy lost energy saved.

Corporations aren't going to mess with it because oil is easier, there is big money in it, and it is hard for you and i to refine it for use. If we can figure out a way to heat our homes and greenhouses while making char that would be cool(ing the planet).

There seems to be some benefit in biochar. Certainly worth a few words, some research and an experiment or two.

Marty
On Nov 9, 2009, at 10:58 PM, Tradingpost wrote:

If that biogas was a practical substitute for petroleum it would still be widely used. It can't be anywhere near as efficient as refined petroleum, plus it takes energy to make biogas, which further lowers the throughput efficiency. It's been around since before WW II and I still don't see any corporations jumping on it. But biogas production isn't about biochar. We don't know how much energy it takes to make biochar - and no one can verify that doing it is better than just putting the organic matter into the soil in the first place.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


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On 11/9/2009 at 10:22 PM mdnagel@verizon.net wrote:

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