Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[mdnagel@verizon.net]

I'm sure there are figures out there on  carbon lost and carbon saved, energy lost energy saved.

I know someone who is VERY involved in biochar and he's never been able to provide me with with any such information.  And I've been challenging on this for a long time now!

Corporations aren't going to mess with it because oil is easier,  there is big money in it

I wouldn't make this assertion.  It works like this: 1) Something is viewed as being great/big; 2) It's then promoted/marketed as everyone needing it (think green-speak, cap and trade etc...); 3) Negative aspects are externalized, minimized and covered over; 4) Government subsidies come in to play, to "help" boost a "good" thing; 5) Large corporations crank up production; 6) Natural resources are gobbled up; 7) Opponents speak out, but are ridiculed as not being sympathetic to the "green/anti-climate change movement;" 8) Affects of externalizations start popping up everywhere; 9) Corporations start getting out of the business, as their profits now start to drop (may still be propped up by govt though); 10) People discover that they are the worse off for following this new "great" thing.

Not until it is absolutely proven that the benefits outweigh the negatives (and what those negatives are), should we even begin to advocate for ANYTHING!


-Mark Nagel
Everett, WA


Nov 10, 2009 10:12:46 AM, livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:
> 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