Biochar Soil Technology.....Husbandry of whole new orders of life

Dear Picken's plan folks;
Where Biomass is available, basicly where wind and agriculture coincide, Pyrolysis Biofuel systems seem the perfect fit to provide balanced power generation.

A list of companies making these reactors;
Companies; http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/company
Organizations; http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/organizations
Country; http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/country
Products; http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/materials

Biochar Soil Technology.....Husbandry of whole new orders of life

Biotic Carbon, the carbon transformed by life, should never be combusted, oxidized and destroyed. It deserves more respect, reverence even, and understanding to use it back to the soil where 2/3 of excess atmospheric carbon originally came from.

We all know we are carbon-centered life, we seldom think about the complex web of recycled bio-carbon which is the true center of life. A cradle to cradle, mutually co-evolved biosphere reaching into every crack and crevice on Earth.

It's hard for most to revere microbes and fungus, but from our toes to our gums (onward), their balanced ecology is our health. The greater earth and soils are just as dependent, at much longer time scales. Our farming for over 10,000 years has been responsible for 2/3rds of our excess greenhouse gases. This soil carbon, converted to carbon dioxide, Methane & Nitrous oxide began a slow stable warming that now accelerates with burning of fossil fuel.

Wise Land management; Organic farming and afforestation can build back our soil carbon,

Biochar allows the soil food web to build much more recalcitrant organic carbon, ( living biomass & Glomalins) in addition to the carbon in the biochar.

Biochar, the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth, TP), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages… SIMULTANEOUSLY!
Modern Pyrolysis of biomass is a process for Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration,10X Lower Methane & N2O soil emissions, and 3X Fertility Too.
Every 1 ton of Biomass yields 1/3 ton Charcoal for soil Sequestration, Bio-Gas & Bio-oil fuels, so is a totally virtuous, carbon negative energy cycle.

Biochar viewed as soil Infrastructure; The old saw;
"Feed the Soil Not the Plants" becomes;
"Feed, Cloth and House the Soil, utilities included !".
Free Carbon Condominiums with carboxyl group fats in the pantry and hydroxyl alcohol in the mini bar.
Build it and the Wee-Beasties will come.
As one microbiologist said on the Biochar list; "Microbes like to sit down when they eat".
By setting this table we expand husbandry to whole new orders of life.

This is what I try to get across to Farmers, as to how I feel about the act of returning carbon to the soil. An act of pertinence and thankfulness for the civilization we have created. Farmers are the Soil Sink Bankers, once carbon has a price, they will be laughing all the way to it.

One aspect of Biochar systems are Cheap, clean biomass stoves that produce biochar and no respiratory disease. At scale, the health benefits are greater than ending Malaria.
A great example;
http://www.unccd.int/publicinfo/poznanclimatetalks/docs/Natural%20D...

The biochar Fund is also doing amazing work in the developing world;
http://terrapretapot.org/

Also , I would like Rebut the BioFuelWatch folk's recent criticisms with the petition of 1500 Cameroon Farmers;
The Biochar Fund
http://biocharfund.org/
and to explain their program;
http://biocharfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&a...

The USDA-ARS have dozens of studies happening now to ferret out the reasons for char affinity with MYC fungi and microbes, but this synergy is solidly shown by the Japanese work, literally showing 1+1=3

Senator / Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar has done the most to nurse this biofuels system in his Biochar provisions in the 07 & 08 farm bill,
http://www.biochar-international.org/newinformationevents/newlegisl...

Charles Mann ("1491") in the Sept. National Geographic has a wonderful soils article which places Terra Preta / Biochar soils center stage.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/soil/mann-text

Biochar data base; TP-REPP
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node

NASA's Dr. James Hansen Global warming solutions paper and letter to the G-8 conference, placing Biochar / Land management the central technology for carbon negative energy systems.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf

The many new university programs & field studies, in temperate soils; Cornell, ISU, U of H, U of GA, Virginia Tech, JMU, New Zealand and Australia.

Soil Carbon Sequestration Standards Committee. Hosted by Monsanto, this group of diverse interests has been hammering out issues of definition, validation and protocol. The past week, this group have been pressing soil sequestration's roll for climate legislation to congress.
http://www.novecta.com/documents/Carbon-Standard.pdf

Along these lines internationally, the work of the IBI fostering the application by 13 countries for UN recognition of soil carbon as a sink with biochar as a clean development mechanism will open the door for programs across the globe.
http://www.biochar-international.org/biocharpolicy.html.

Reports:
This new Congressional Research Service report (by analyst Kelsi Bracmort) is the best short summary I have seen so far - both technical and policy oriented.
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40186_20090203.pdf .

This is the single most comprehensive report to date, covering more of the Asian and Australian work;
http://www.csiro.au/files/files/poei.pdf

Given the current "Crisis" atmosphere concerning energy, soil sustainability, food vs. Biofuels, and Climate Change what other subject addresses them all?

This is a Nano technology for the soil that represents the most comprehensive, low cost, and productive approach to long term stewardship and sustainability.

Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
Cheers,
Erich J. Knight
Shenandoah Gardens
540 289 9750

North American Biochar Conference 2009
Sunday, August 09, 2009 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009
http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/Default.aspx?eventid=684390
I will be attending the meeting in Boulder thanks to the folks at EcoTechnologies Group http://www.ecotechnologies.com/index.html

My first conference, hope to put faces with the many names floating in my head from three years of my Biochar avocation. See you there.

Biochar Studies at ACS Huston meeting;

Most all this work corroborates char soil dynamics we have seen so far . The soil GHG emissions work showing increased CO2 , also speculates that this CO2 has to get through the hungry plants above before becoming a GHG.
The SOM, MYC& Microbes, N2O (soil structure), CH4 , nutrient holding , Nitrogen shock, humic compound conditioning, absorbing of herbicides all pretty much what we expected to hear.

578-I: http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4231.html

579-II http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4496.html

665 - III. http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4497.html

666-IV http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4498.html

Company News & EU Certification

Below is an important hurtle that 3R AGROCARBON has overcome in certification in the EU. Given that their standards are set much higher than even organic certification in the US, this work should smooth any bureaucratic hurtles we may face.

EU Permit Authority - 4 years tests
Subject: Fwd: [biochar] Re: GOOD NEWS: EU Permit Authority - 4 years tests successfully completed

Doses: 400 kg / ha – 1000 kg / ha at different horticultural cultivars

Plant height Increase 141 % versus control
Picking yield Increase 630 % versus control
Picking fruit Increase 650 % versus control
Total yield Increase 202 % versus control
Total piece of fruit Increase 171 % versus control
Fruit weight Increase 118 % versus control

HOMEPAGE 3R AGROCARBON: http://www.3ragrocarbon.com

Also:

EcoTechnologies is planning for many collaborations ; NC State, U. of Leeds, Cardiff U. Rice U. ,JMU, U.of H. and at USDA with Dr.Jeffrey Novak who is coordinating ARS Biochar research. This Coordinated effort will speed implementation by avoiding unneeded repetition and building established work in a wide variety of soils and climates.
http://www.EcoTechnologies.com

Hopefully all the Biochar companies will coordinate with Dr. Jeff Novak's soils work at ARS; http://www.ars.usda.gov/pandp/people/people.htm?personid=24434

I spoke with Jon Nilsson of the CarbonChar Group, in their third year of field trials ;
An idea whose time has come | Carbon Char Group
He said the 2008 trials at Virginia Tech showed a 46% increase in yield of tomato transplants grown with just 2 - 5 cups (2 - 5%) "Biochar+" per cubic foot of growing medium. http://www.carbonchar.com/plant-performance

Most recent studies out;

Imperial College test,
this work in temperate soils gives data from which one can calculate savings on fertilizer use, which is expected to be ongoing with no additional soil amending.

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1755-1315/6/37/372052/ees9_6_372052.p...

The BlueLeaf Inc. and Dynamotive study are exciting results given how far north the site is,and the low application rates. I suspect, as we saw with the Imperial College test, the yield benefits seem to decrease the cooler the climate.
The study showed infiltration rates for moisture are almost double. The lower leaf temperatures puzzles me however, I thought around 21C was optimum for photosynthesis.

BlueLeaf Inc. and Dynamotive Announce Biochar Test Results CQuest(TM) Biochar Enriched Plots Yield Crop Increase Ranging From Six to Seventeen Percent vs. Control Plots
http://www.usetdas.com/TDAS/NewsArticle.aspx?NewsID=13603

The full study at Dynomotives site;
http://www.dynamotive.com/wp-content/themes/dynamotive/pdf/BlueLeaf...

Low Tech Clean Biochar;
http://holon.se/folke/carbon/simplechar/simplechar.shtml

Tags: biochar, biofuel, sequestration, soil

Attachments:

Clock Is Ticking.mp3, 4.7 MB
scriptweneed.rtf, 13 KB

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Erich J. Knight on May 27, 2009 at 4:44pm: Hi Folks.
The screen play outline I attached works better with active links , so here it is;

This is just a start, I'm composing an outlined screen play ( Act I; Biosphere, Scene I; Atmosphere, scene II; Rizosphere etc.), including more quips and analogies.
Below , I'm just throwing out ideas, philosophy, sources, to you all, as I flesh it out to present to my list of other principle people and the forums for further input and support.

Thanks for all edits and suggestions,
Erich
540 289 9750

The Script We Need;

People need to see this process for their eyes NOT to glaze over.
A scaling animation, (or at least Power point/flow chart) following the path of the molecules of interest as they feed through the soil food web.

This is an example of what I would like to see done, through the Biosphere instead of the Universe, to explain biochar tech to the masses;
Molecular Expressions: Science, Optics and You - Secret Worlds: The Universe W
http://www.micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof...

It will take a multidisciplinary effort, organic& bio chemistry, all the way to atmospheric science with many in between.

Biochar viewed as soil Infrastructure; The old saw, "Feed the Soil Not the Plants" becomes "Feed, Cloth and House the Soil, utilities included !". Free Carbon Condominiums, build it and they will come.
As one microbologist said on the list; "Microbes like to sit down when they eat". By setting this table we expand husbandry to whole new orders of life.

Staring as the main characters:
nano; compounds, ions, chemistry
micro; microbes, fungi, algae
macro; wee-beasties, worms, bugs & us
At each scale show their bio char enhanced qualities/populations relative to standard soils.

Take note grad students looking for a great project writing this biologic screen play!

Act I - Biosphere

Scene I
Atmosphere

Zoom in through atmosphere, telling the story of each relevant CHG. (C02, N20, CH4).
At 30,000 ft., survey geographic carbon sinks and sources.
Account the airborne bacteria, dust, fungal spores + rain nucleation, lighting and nitrates, (the success of SOX and NOX cap and trade system)
Bio-carbon's Hg scrubbing potential for coal-fired power generation,
Plant respiration, biomass + rot.

Scene II
Rizosphere

Plant root / fungi symbiosis; superhighway for moisture and nutrients, Internet for plant chemical communication, Extending roots 100 fold.
Glomalins; 1/3 of soil carbon - soil aggregate glue - Soil texture

Act II - BioChar

Scene I
A Wee-Beastie Feast

Circumventing the carbon cycle. Charcoal vs. rot.
The cornucopia for the rest of the Wee-Beastie food web.
Increased; CEC, Humic substances, microbes, fungi, worms etc.
Soil Bioturbation; Aeration+ moisture, and and methane reductions.
Increased; Glomalins - aggregation - tilth, N20 emissions connection.
Absorptive mechanisms;nutrient holding + downstream effects.
Biologic and Absorptive mechanisms for toxic soil Restoration / Mitigation.

Biochar viewed as soil infrastructure; The old saying;"feed the soil, not the plants" becomes "Feed, clothe, and house the Soil with all utilities". Furnished Carbon condominiums, no fees, carboxylated fats in the pantry, hydroxyl alcohol mini bar,

Scene II
Climate, Biofuels and Bread

Pryolsis economics at all scales, the climate effect when brought to full scale,
The only soil amendment that keeps on working.
The total C02e (equivalent) value of Biochar soil's concomitant benefits.
How soil CO2 emissions need to struggle through the green plant canopy before becoming a GHG .
Crop results.
A Whole New Order of Husbandry

Further episodes:

Bring Out the Plow One Last Time (Maximun soil Carbon Sequestration 100 T/Ac)
BioChar and Fungi Synergies ( Their affinity produces; 1+ 1 = 4 )
Incubating Biochar with Compost

Philosophy:
The paleoclimatology of Ruddiman at VT, showing the hallmarks of agriculturally induced soil carbon to the atmosphere. http://www.computare.org/Support%20documents/Fora%20Input/CCC2006/E...
The prehistoric and historic records gives a logical thrust for soil carbon sequestration. I wonder what the rizosphere soil carbon concentration was REALLY like before the cutting and burning of the world's forest, only very recent Ag practices like no-till and reforestation have started to help rebuild it. It makes implementing Terra Preta soil technology like an act of penitence, a returning of the misplaced carbon to where it belongs.

A reply I made to the Biochar list, biochar : Biochar concerning worms and other soil life;

Many reports on TP cite high moisture and bioturbation of soil credited to worms and termites. I have seen many reports of worms loving char in compost (below);

"One of the most impressive things I have seen in my composts is how worms love the added biochar, in a 400lt bin I have noticed up to 80% of the worms are focused in the layers which contain the char, I feel worms play a massive roll in moving char about. As I also char beef bones I'm sure the added calcium attracts them. I have noticed this over the last 4 compost batches I have made. "

I feel worms and all the Wee beasties are movers and shakers of soil growth and motility, If there are microbes to eat, worms will come.
( Charles Mann contents, in the May 07 NGM Jamestown article, that earth and blood worms are invasive species, brought to north America by Jamestown colonist, which have profoundly changed soil ecology and spread across the country in the past 400 years.)

New Soils Book;
Dr. Nardi, a scientist at the University of Illinois, writes in his newly published book, "Life in the Soil," that a square meter of healthy garden soil is home to 10 trillion bacteria, 10 billion protozoa, 5 million nematodes, 100,000 mites, 50,000 springtails, 10,000 creatures called rotifers and tardigrades, 5,000 insects and arachnids, 3,000 worms and 100 snails and slugs. Throw in the occasional mammal such as a chipmunk or a mole, and a salamander or two, and you get the idea that you don't have to travel to the Brazilian rain forest to luxuriate in the biodiversity at our feet.

THE CASTING CALL:
In E. O. Wilson's "The Future of Life" he opens the book with a letter to Thoreau updating him on our current understanding of the nature of the ecology of the soils at Walden Pond.

" These arthropods are the giants of the microcosm (if you will allow me to continue what has turned into a short lecture). Creatures their size are present in dozens-hundreds, if an ant or termite colony is presents. But these are comparatively trivial numbers. If you focus down by a power of ten in size, enough to pick out animals barely visible to the naked eye, the numbers jump to thousands. Nematode and enchytraied pot worms, mites, springtails, pauropods, diplurans, symphylans, and tardigrades seethe in the underground. Scattered out on a white ground cloth, each crawling speck becomes a full-blown animal. Together they are far more striking and divers in appearance than snakes, mice, sparrows, and all the other vertebrates hereabouts combined. Their home is a labyrinth of miniature caves and walls of rotting vegetable debris cross-strung with ten yards of fungal threads. And they are just the surface of the fauna and flora at our feet. Keep going, keep magnifying until the eye penetrates microscopic water films on grains of sand, and there you will find ten billion bacteria in a thimbleful of soil and frass. You will have reached the energy base of the decomposer world as we understand it 150 years after you sojourn in Walden Woods."

Certainly there remains much work to just characterize all the estimated 1000 species of microbes found in a pinch of soil, and Wilson concludes at the end of the prolog that;

"Now it is up to us to summon a more encompassing wisdom."

To gain this "More encompassing wisdom" people need to see this process. A scaling video animation or Power Point is desperately needed, following the path of the molecules & compounds of interest as they feed through the soil food web.Starting nano to micro to macro as the main characters, at each scale, show their biochar enhanced qualities relative to standard soils.

Perhaps this quote taken form "The Nature and Properties of Soils, Eleventh Edition ,Authors, Nyle C.Brady and Ray R. Weil, Copyright 1996," taken from page 365, under the heading "Soils and the Greenhouse Effect", can be useful:
" Because the soil can act as a major source or sink for carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, it is clear that, together with steps to modify industrial outputs, soil management can play a major role in controlling the emissions of greenhouse gases."

Source Material;

Renewable Energy Policy Project Data Base; TP-REPP biochar.bioenergylists.org

Movies of Soil Life
Broad-band version; http://www.agron.iastate.edu/~loynachan/mov/
Dial-up ; http://www.agron.iastate.edu/~loynachan/mov/defaultlow.html

USDA Agricultural Research:
This presentation is one of the best I've seen to get across how MYC / AMF symbiotically permeates all in roots & soils, and elucidates often hidden benefits. Very nice pictures;
http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/person/4947/Presentations/Scag...

Microorganisms;

Proliferation of Microorganisms in Compost by Addition of Bamboo Charcoals (Shuji Yoshizawa, Michio Ohata, Satoko Tanaka)

SEM photograph of microorganism in bamboo charcoal.
In Japan, charcoal and compost of biomass waste have been used for a long time as soil improvers in farms. Wood and bamboo charcoals have pores of several microns or several ten microns which are suitable for microorganisms grown for composting the biomass waste.
It was observed as shown in the photograph (left) taken by scanning electron micrograph (SEM) technique that the microorganisms proliferated on the charcoal powder and in the pores of the charcoal.
http://acer.meisei-u.ac.jp/doc/acernews2/index_en.html

Bacteria
Total weight of all the bacteria on Earth is greater than the combined weight of every other living thing on the planet!!
There are more bacteria in your mouth right now than the total population of planet Earth, including all the people who have ever lived

Bacteria live in us, on us, and around us
Human body contains about 100 trillion cells
90 trillion of those cells are actually bacteria
Only 1 out of ten cells in your body are actually your cells!!

Total Number of Bacteria on Earth:
Out-Numbered: First-ever estimate suggest more than half of Earth's protoplasm is bacterial
In soil ; 1220 gigatons (Billion Tons, to 1 m depth)

Amazing utility of fungi
Paul Stamets - Bioremediation with Fungi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BelfLIJErek

How the lion's share of sugars that plants produce feed the fungi, to extend the functionality of roots 100 times over, a Highway for nutrients & moisture, an Internet for Plant Chemical Communication, in order for the plant make the sugars that we consume.

Research:

Dr. Jeff Novak's soils work at ARS;
http://www.ars.usda.gov/pandp/people/people.htm?personid=24434

Michinori Nishio
National Institute of Agro-Environmental Sciences
Kannondai 3-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305 Japan, 1996-10-01

This Bulletin discusses microbial products in Japan, where they are used on many farms, particularly by organic farmers who hope that these products will improve nutrient uptake by plants and the quality of their products. It discusses the use of charcoal and rhizobia to stimulate nutrient uptake, and the use of arbuscular mycorrizal fungi (AMF) to help establish vegetation on barren land. The range of commercial AMF products available in Japan is briefly described, and their use and effectiveness in Japanese agriculture.http://www.agnet.org/library/eb/430/
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/nishio

Transect graph showing plant benefits decline beyond to 30% Char;
Submitted by ursine on Wed, 2008-08-06 01:11

Box Plots Showing Effect of Composition Across Three Transects
Figure 1. Box Plots Showing Effect of Composition Across Three Transects
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/node/768

Nice Crop Pictures;
http://www.biochar.info/biochar.biochar-overview.cfml

Education
Here, you can freely register your biochar soil amendment trials in a standard format, CharML (Charcoal Markup Language), browse the registered trials and reuse parts of them to create new protocols.
http://terracarbona.org/chardb/index.php

Home Made Low Tech Clean Emission Biochar;
http://holon.se/folke/carbon/simplechar/simplechar.shtml

COMING SOON !! to a YouTube near you.
Cheers,
Erich
289 9750; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Eric Koch on May 27, 2009 at 4:51pm: we need to get these two american companies to communicate on this topic.

http://www.biocharengineering.com/

http://www.northernpower.com/

Northern Power produces a 100kW turbine and a 2.2MW turbine.

Biochar Engineering produces two stand alone models.....this is good...i don't think they need to stop making either of them....they just need to partner and package with Northern Power for an entirely electric powered self feeder that can respond to over-voltage with char production and syngass generation that responds to under-voltage.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Chris Lewis on May 27, 2009 at 6:52pm: Thank you Erich for the extensive yet understandable information. You're really awesome. I must admit I am still reading and digesting all this information but at least I now understand what 'biochar' and 'pryolsis' means. If you aren't a college professor teaching this you should be. You explain it so well. My organic gardening will certainly benefit from what I'm learning here and I'll be sharing my knowledge also. You sir, are a gift. Thank you again for the incredible amount of time you've put in here. Ever think of writing a book?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Erich J. Knight on November 20, 2009 at 3:13pm: Please don't throw the Biochar baby out with Mantria's Snake Oil bath water.
http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2009/2009-247.htm

The thermal conversion technology that they got hold of nefariously, is a solid, important innovation for the capture of energy from waste and low cost sequestration of carbon in soils. http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/taxonomy/term/93

All political persuasions agree, building soil carbon is GOOD.
To Hard bitten Farmers, wary of carbon regulations that only increase their costs, Building soil carbon is a savory bone, to do well while doing good.

Biochar provides the tool powerful enough to cover Farming's carbon foot print while lowering cost simultaneously.

Another significant aspect of bichar is removal of BC aerosols by low cost ($3) Biomass cook stoves that produce char but no respiratory disease emissions. At Scale, replacing "Three Stone" stoves the health benefits would equal eradication of Malaria.
http://terrapretapot.org/ and village level systems http://biocharfund.org/
The Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF).recently funded The Biochar Fund $300K for these systems citing these priorities;
(1) Hunger amongst the world's poorest people, the subsistence farmers of Sub-Saharan Africa,
(2) Deforestation resulting from a reliance on slash-and-burn farming,
(3) Energy poverty and a lack of access to clean, renewable energy, and
(4) Climate change.

The Biochar Fund :
Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon
http://scitizen.com/screens/blogPage/viewBlog/sw_viewBlog.php?idThe...
The broad smiles of 1500 subsistence farmers say it all ( that , and the size of the Biochar corn root balls )
http://biocharfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&a...

Mark my words; Given the potential for Laurens Rademaker's programs to grow exponentialy, only a short time lies between This man's nomination for a Noble Prize.

This authoritative PNAS article should cause the recent Royal Society Report to rethink their criticism of Biochar systems of Soil carbon sequestration;

Reducing abrupt climate change risk using
the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory
actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/09/0902568106.full.pdf+html

There are dozens soil researchers on the subject now at USDA-ARS.
and many studies at The up coming ASA-CSSA-SSSA joint meeting;
http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2009am/webprogram/Session5675.html

The Clean Energy Partnerships Act of 2009
The bill is designed to ensure that any US domestic cap-and-trade bill provides maximum incentives and opportunities for the US agricultural and forestry sectors to provide high-quality offsets and GHG emissions reductions for credit or financial incentives. Carbon offsets play a critical role in keeping the costs of a cap-and-trade program low for society as well as for capped sectors and entities, while providing valuable emissions reductions and income generation opportunities for the agricultural sector. The bill specifically identifies biochar production and use as eligible for offset credits, and identifies biochar as a high priority for USDA R&D, with funding authorized by the bill.
To read the full text of the bill, go to: http://www.biochar-international.org/sites/default/files/END09F94.pdf.

Senator Baucus is co-sponsoring a bill along with Senator Tester (D-MT) called WE CHAR. Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration Act! It focuses on promoting biochar technology to address invasive species and forest biomass. It includes grants and loans for biochar market research and development, biochar characterization and environmental analyses. It directs USDI and USDA to provide loan guarantees for biochar technologies and on-the-ground production with an emphasis on biomass from public lands. And the USGS is to do biomas availability assessments.
WashingtonWatch.com - S. 1713, The Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration (WECHAR) Act of 2009

Individual and groups can show support for WECHAR by signing online at:
http://www.biocharmatters.org/

Congressional Research Service report (by analyst Kelsi Bracmort) is the best short summary I have seen so far - both technical and policy oriented.
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40186_20090203.pdf .

United Nations Environment Programme, Climate Change Science Compendium 2009
http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/

Al Gore got the CO2 absorption thing wrong, ( at NABC Vilsack did same), but his focus on Soil Carbon is right on;
http://www.newsweek.com/id/220552/page/3

Research:
The future of biochar - Project Rainbow Bee Eater
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20090211-20142.html

Japan Biochar Association ;
http://www.geocities.jp/yasizato/pioneer.htm

Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
Cheers,
Erich; ▶ Reply to This