The powers that be, (TPTB), are desperate to keep Business As Usual, (BAU) going for as long as possible, as long as long as they can make a killing off of it, (both figuratively and literally).

First it was; "There is no such thing as Global Warming/Climate change".
Then when climate change could no longer be denied the argument changed to:
"The climate is changing, but it is natural and not caused by man. That bought TPTB a few more years of BAU. Now as that talking point is taking on water, the argument morphs once again, to: "Well maybe we are changing the climate, but don't worry some technology will save us." Once if/when this proves to be false, the final argument will be: "Well it is too late to do anything about the environment, so continue with BAU. (Party On!)"

IMHO TPTB only care for how they can exploit the planet and their fellow man during their brief time on Earth, so they can live the most extravagant lifestyle possible. Once they take their last breath, what they leave behind for future generations is of absolutely no concern to them. It is all about them and now, and nothing else.

I find this essay to be somewhat biased. The author presents a sort of 'straw man' argument in which biochar is simply a corporatist ploy to maintain business as usual.

I have about 1000 square feet of terra pretta gardens. In creating these my wife and I thouroughly researched the subject first. See: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Making-Terra-Preta-Soil-R-by-Ramona-Byron-080821-153.html and also: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Yes-We-Canned-by-Ramona-Byron-090827-346.html.

Much more than just biochar is needed. We use porous clay balls (hydrotons) to simulate the potsherds original used for example. Also, developing a terra preta soil is a long term process. It does not happen overnight. Also, climate and soils differ from place to place so getting things "right" is for now more of an art than it is a science. Buts with care positive results can be forthcoming.

Our findings are that soil fertility is much enhanced. Need for added fertilizers (organic only!) is considerably diminished. A complex ecology develops IN the soil--various kinds of worms, ants, microorganisms etc.

While this may not save the planet, it does have its uses. I don't think that the author understands this. If so her desire to make the case against attempted corporatization obscures this.

Mike Byron

Every year here in southern Oregon, slash piles (yep, we have piles!) are set ablaze by individuals, forest service, etc... All of that could be charred in special stoves or kilns, creating less pollution. The farmers here could use that char or make their own easily to use in their soil to provide home to wee soil beasties, mycelium, nutrients and water. This also allows them to use less nitrogen. They can do this all organically. They can even use the stove to cook or make electricity. Biochar can be done sustainably and ethically.

Biofuelwatch folks reject biochar outright even though there are proven benefits. They make people afraid of biochar when it is human greed that is the problem. I would suggest people do their own research. Deforestation and mono-cropping need not be done at all to make biochar. I would hate for that to happen but there are always people wanting to make money off something and biochar is no exception. The science is out there and ongoing. At least there is some hope that something so simple and ancient could offer us solutions.

I think it unhelpful to accuse those of us interested in the benefits of biochar as worshipers of some crazy religion. Instead of addressing the issue of the potential for abuse of biochar, the whole article was spent attacking people who advocate for biochar as if we were some brainwashed fools. Perhaps you have changed your tactics from fear-mongering to ridicule. If you are going to make fun of us, don't forget, some of us like to pee on our char!

This article is disingenuous, and frankly bizarre.

Take a look at the IBI website and judge for yourself:

http://www.biochar-international.org

or, for excruciating detail, see Lehmann, J., and Joseph, S., "Biochar for Environmental Management - Science and Technology", Earthscan Publishers Ltd, March 2009.

These people aren't the petroleum industry, folks. And, notwithstanding Ms. Smolker's frivolous rant, they aren't a religious cult either. On the contrary, they strike me as technically literate and entirely forthcoming about the trade-offs involved.

Quote: "... We know that indigenous peoples in the Amazon created remarkably fertile, carbon rich soils -- called Terra Preta -- between 500 and 2,500 years ago by adding a mix of kitchen waste, fish bones, river sediments and many other diverse residues as well as charcoal to their soils over very long periods of time..." Yet...

"... Nobody knows exactly how Terra Preta was created..."
Yoink. Time to stop reading.

I'd never heard of biochar, but it sounds like a good idea. I did run across a clever idea in a Science Fiction magazine a few years ago. Someone did a calculation that if the U.S. just practiced no-till agriculture, and gathered all the vegetative wastage (what would normally be tilled under) in their crops, hauled if off the West Coast and dumped it, it would sink to the bottom of the ocean, get covered in silt, and eventually subduct with the Pacific Plate under the mantle. This would reduce so much CO2 the U.S. could meet the Kyoto Protocol. Biochar sounds like a similar idea with the advantage of making more fertile soils as well.

I don't have an objection to 'carbon trading' but think without careful oversight these CO2-reduction farms can be gamed. For example, put them overseas where, like Nike shoe factories, they can do what they want regardless of U.S. law. And I'm aware that the major promoter of these kinds of CO2-reduction ideas would be the fossil fuels industry. Still, it is something to be looked at, and could prove useful, especially if we need 'rapid reduction' in the future (which seems likely given all the foot-dragging going on).

Does anyone understand the chemistry behind biochar? How does elemental carbon grab carbon dioxide out of the air? And how does it release nutrients into the soil? Just asking...don't know the answers.

Rachel, please give me a straight answer to an honest question, which I need to first set in context:

Atmospheric CO2 currently stands at about 390ppm. A scientific consensus has emerged (in the years since the last IPCC report was written) that it needs to be rapidly reduced to 350ppm if irreversible tipping points in the earth's climate system are to be avoided.

That means that CO2 has to be taken _out_ of the atmosphere. Slowing down the rate at which we emit it - through largescale conservation and efficiency measures and a massive shift to sustainable renewables - is still an urgent imperative, but it is no longer enough. We must go carbon-negative, and to do that we need to sequestrate carbon, and we need to do it rapidly.

(The alternative is to go straight to solar radiation management [SRM] technologies - sulphur aerosols, cloud seeding, space-based mirrors, etc - whose unintended but unavoidable climate consequences would result in major global climate disruption in their own right. And they wouldn't solve the problem of growing ocean acidification.)

Several mechanisms have been suggested for sequestration. Ocean nourishment by "fertilisation" with iron filings is ecologically disruptive; ambient carbon capture is inefficient and costly; carbon capture and storage at power stations presents both economic and (in most locations) technical difficulties; reforestation cannot be achieved fast enough (if at all) on the scale required because of population and agricultural pressures. And then there is biochar technology.

From what I have seen in publications by your organisation and its partners, you oppose all of these options (except perhaps reafforestation). I agree with you on nearly all of them.

So, my question is: HOW do YOU propose to reduce atmospheric CO2 to sustainable levels without using biochar?

Until you are able to give a credible answer to this straightforward question, Rachel, I am not able to take you seriously and will be urging others to disregard your writings.

But once you have faced this question, perhaps we can all start discussing sensibly how to devise policies and mechanisms for implementing the best (or least bad) carbon sequestration options in a way that can genuinely empower poor farmers and indigenous people. This is an urgent task. Your current regular streams of anti-biochar invective merely make it more difficult. But if you were to stand back and look at the bigger picture I'm sure your skills could be very useful in constructing a positive way forward.

Mark Bigland-Pritchard MA MSc PhD
sustainable energy consultant
Borden, Saskatchewan, Canada

Disclaimer: I have no commercial interests in biochar - I merely see it as a technology which offers the prospect of so many environmental benefits that it needs to be considered seriously.

In response to drosera -

The concept of the biochar process (which Rachel makes no attempt to make clear) is that organic materials are subjected to pyrolysis (NOT combustion, and NOT "cooking up some trees"). This means that they are heated under controlled conditions (of pressure, temperature, water vapour content, etc) in the absence of oxygen, so that they decompose rather than burning.

Typically, there may be 3 products - a hydrogen-rich gas (which may be burned for heat or electricity), an oily liquid (which may also be used for energy production, or as a chemical feedstock), and the biochar itself. By putting the char in the soil, you are preventing it from oxidising to carbon dioxide - this is how the system can be carbon-negative, while also offering a renewable source of energy in the gas and oil.

Of course, as with all biomass combustion, it makes environmental sense only if done as part of a sustainably managed system. Take the example of an agricultural by-product scheme in a grain-growing area, in which straw is the material undergoing pyrolysis. Say the straw contains 100 units of carbon. About 50 units would go into the soil as char, and the other 50 would go into the atmosphere as CO2 from burning the gas and oil. But then the next year's crop would absorb 100 units by photosynthesis as it grows, so we are carbon-negative by 50 units. Compare this to common current practices. Just burning the straw in the field means 100 units are emitted and 100 absorbed - i.e. carbon neutral in itself, but with no energy benefit. Burning it in a boiler or power station is also carbon-neutral (in this simple first-order analysis), but some fossil fuels are displaced. Burying it underground - or just leaving it in the field uncut after the grain is harvested - will result in short-term carbon sequestration, but natural decomposition processes will put that carbon back in the atmosphere within a few years, so that option is ultimately carbon-neutral rather than carbon-negative. (By contrast, the terra preta soils have been there intact for thousands of years - if done right, biochar really is a longterm sequestration method)

As for the fertility issue, biochar researchers tell me that it's the molecular structure of the char that makes a difference. There are lots of gaps in which nutrient ions and molecules can bond, and lots of larger gaps in which beneficial bacteria can settle. Carbon isn't a fertiliser, but it enables soil fertility to be stabilised through these "storage sites". I don't think there is anyone seriously proposing biochar alone for soil fertility - normally it is proposed in a mixture with some nutrient-rich substance - manure, compost, human urine, or whatever.

This ability to hang on to nutrients is important for two other reasons. Nitrates have a habit of getting leached out of soils (and then causing havoc in watercourses), or of getting chemically converted to nitrous oxide (a powerful greenhouse gas) and emitted. Biochar's buffering effect ought to be able to significantly reduce both of these problems - though research is necessary to demonstrate this in practice.

Does this explanation make sense? For more info, go to the IBI website as suggested by SunMesa.

Mark

I would like to point out that the title is exactly false.

"Charcoal" -meaning burning the burnt remains of plants- most certainly WOULD and could "Cool the Planet(Duh)!"

(BTW, I think you meant "Cool the Planet(Duh!)." or "Cool the Planet! (Duh)." ;) )

If we burn as many plants as we would need to compensate for current fossil carbon burning, and we let all the smoke go up into the atmosphere (ALL the smoke, mind, the gases AND the particulates), we would very quickly find that Global Warming -Anthopogenic or otherwise- is no longer a bother to us.

In fact, as the resultant Ice Age set in, we might find ourselves rather thrilled with the idea of Global Warming!

[The above was intended as a semi-funny reminder that a) "Climate Change" is more than just "CO2 make things hot. Hot bad." and b) despite the sayings of the Global Warming Death Cult, Global Cooling (Ice Age), likely would (will?) be much worse. Have Fun.]

-matti.

Rachel,

You claim to have a PhD in a scientific field, and yet your blog articles and reports on biochar, cleverly formatted as peer-reviewed scientific articles (even tho' they are not) read like third-rate tabloid journalism. The PhD scientists that I work with here are / ever / so / careful / in the way they discern speculation from fact. I admire their capability in this regard.

You, however, seem to have a real talent for sensationalized misinformation. You continue to claim that biochar is produced by "burning trees", among many other blatantly false statements, simply to gain political leverage. You know full well that biochar is produced with pyrolysis, heating biomass in a vessel without oxygen specifically so it does not burn. Those of us working with biochar are not advocating setting the world's forests on fire to produce it! You know that!!

You claim that there has been little research on biochar. There are hundreds of published peer-reviewed scientific articles on biochar that are a vastly better source of information than your blatantly politicized effort to mis-characterize biochar in any way you can. Two excellent sources are Johannes Lehmann's website:

http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/publications/index.html

and the biochar bibliography that the IBI maintains:

http://www.biochar-international.org/biblio

Numerous studies indicate that charcoal in soil has a fertility enhancing effect over years, decades, centuries, even millennia, as Terra Preta soils, among others, demonstrate. The effect has nothing to do with ash.

You compare biochar development to the pharmaceutical industry pressing ahead to market a drug without adequate testing. This is utter nonsense. Charcoal has been present in soils since terrestrial plant life first began, from the wildfires that arose at the same time. Black fertile soils in areas like the American Midwest are rich in charcoal from tens of thousands of years of prairie fires.

Your charcoal dust theory is absolute nonsense. If it were true, the atmosphere would be full of charcoal dust already from the hundreds of millions of years of charcoal formation that has already taken place.

And the idea that biochar producers could use trees as a feedstock at large scale is utterly unfounded on economic grounds. Per hectare, broad acre farming typically has a profit margin of several hundred dollars per hectare and year. A median biochar application rate is some 20 tonnes per hectare, which sounds like a lot, but really isn't. It works out to be 2 kilograms per square meter, a very small percentage by volume when mixed into the top 20 cm of topsoil where roots will penetrate.

What you have neglected in your tabloid analysis is that biochar isn't free to produce at scale. Trees harvested specifically for biochar are the most expensive feedstock source there is because of the energy intensive nature of havesting, drying, and chipping the wood in preparation for pyrolysis. I can't imagine a farmer going to the trouble of pillaging forests for feedstock - it’s a bloody expensive, labor intensive thing to do - and indeed, 99% of the farms in the world are not close enough to a pillagable forest for it to be an option.

So we have to assume a "greedy, unethical" trader in the middle, hacking down forests wherever he can in an effort to make a profit on biochar sales. Once long distance transport is taken into account, a farm gate price of some $400 - $500 a tonne seems the lowest we can expect from such an activity. Prices on the charcoal market confirm this range.

If we take $400 a tonne as our assumed farm gate price, $100 a tonne for additional materials like minerals and compost to properly balance the soil chemistry and the cost to incorporate it in soil, so $500 a tonne incorporated times 20 tonnes per hectare yields an investment of $10,000 per hectare.

The vast majority of farm crops, grains, soybean, corn, earn several hundred dollars per hectare and year. Farms where biochar might have a substantial effect perform well under the genetic potential of the plant.

Let’s assume our farmer used to make $250 from grain sales per hectare and doubles that to $500 because of the increased yields after biochar incorporation, which would be an excellent result. It is extremely unlikely that carbon market revenue would be applicable - the emissions released in the destruction of the forest would wipe out any possibility of project acceptance or credit. $10,000 divided by $250 indicates it would take 40 years for a farmer to recoup his investment in biochar.

40 years! This obviously won’t work. A bank will give a farmer money for a tractor for some 6 to 8 years, but a tractor only costs $50,000 (only 5 hectares worth of biochar at these rates!) and the bank has the title to the tractor for collateral. A bank has no collateral for a loan used to purchase biochar, well, except for the farm, whose value would be far less than $10,000 per hectare. Change the productivity assumptions however you like, the glaring question remains - how indeed is a farmer going to get financing to pay for such expensive biochar?

In your tabloid fantasy world, financing for biochar produced from distant trees is assumed to fall from the sky. But out here in the real world, those of us who are actually working with biochar cannot afford to produce it that way, nor are we able to obtain financing for such a crazy scheme. We have to use waste streams near at hand, produce the biochar on-farm and sell or utilize the excess energy produced by the pyrolysis unit, and we have to integrate all the soil fertility knowledge at our disposal into the biochar strategy.

And yes, it can work. But it takes a lot more intelligence, and a much greater capacity to separate fact from fiction than you exhibit in your articles.

Nando

Eminent experts on climate science and carbon cycling, the likes of James Lovelock (originator of the Gaia hypothesis) and James Hansen (NOAA scientist muzzled by the Bush Administration for his warnings about climate change) have endorsed biochar as a promising carbon sequestration measure. Biochar is a byproduct of pyrolysis which yields bio-oil as the main product, an alternative biofuel which can either be burned in stationary applications or upgraded to synfuels via gasification. Virtually any organic material can be used as a feedstock in pyrolysis including waste materials. The incorporation of biochar into soil represents a carbon negative strategy which can sustainably produce bio-based fuels and enhance soil fertility. The arguments against biochar presented here seem rather specious.

Dear Dr. Smolker,
I worship nothing but science, empiricism, causality and parsimony.

I Have posted the many years & decades of critical research in Asia & Australia , from the USDA & American Chemical Society (ACS, peer reviewed) presentations back to 07, not to mention 4 years at Virginia Tech, Cornell & University of Georgia. I can only assume by your article that you have not read them.

My personal "crusade" is sustainability, my research tells me that Soil carbon is it's measure, biochar is just the Big tool in the box. Your "crusade" seems more a jihad of the worst sort, against Char systems.

The field studies, from 45 degrees North latitude to 40 degrees south latitude, show that the local soil food web has an affinity for char. I will continue providing the "Extraordinary" solid academic and industry links from which questions and informed discussion can arise, I hope to hear your voice in these discussions in order to gain a more comprehensive wisdom.

I some times fall into evangelizing , but only because Carbon is the Center of Life, which allows these para-phrasings of religious & Policy icons to write themselves;

Soil Carbon Commandments:

1) Thou shalt not have any other Molecule before Me

2) Thou shall not make wrongful use of the name of Biochar, It will not acquit anyone who mis-charactorizes it's name

3) Observe the Fallow days and keep them, as Sustainability commands thou

4) Honor your Micro Flora & Fauna , as the Soil Carbon commands you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that High Soil Carbon has given you.

5) Thou shall not murder the Soil Food Web

6) Neither shall thou adulterate the Soils with Toxicity

7) Neither shall thou steal Biomass from the Soil Food Web

8) Neither shall thou bear false witness against your neighbors Biochar, or about Thy own

9) Neither shall thou covet your neighbor's Fertility

10) Neither shall thou desire your neighbor's house, or field, or Pyrolysis Reactor, or farm implements, or anything that belongs to your neighbor, as thou may Create thy Own

Soil Carbon Dream

I have a dream that one day we live in a nation where progress will not be judged by the production yields of our fields, but by the color of their soils and by the Carbon content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, a suite of earth sensing satellites will level the playing field, giving every farmer a full account of carbon he sequesters. That Soil Carbon is given as the final arbiter, the common currency, accountant and Judge of Stewardship on our lands.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made forest, the rough soils will be made fertile, and the crooked Carbon Marketeers will be made straight, and the glory of Soil Sequestration shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see a Mutually assured Sustainability.

This is our hope.

My apologies to Dr. King, but I think he would understand my passion

I wonder that the false information by Rachel Smolker still finds space to be published.

Quoted from the author “ Nor is there any proof that it performs as well as compost, let alone better!”

Certainly, there is proof that the stability of biochar is much greater than that of compost and thus remains and stores the carbon much longer than compost would do! Further there is biomass to make good compost but compost made from woody waste biomass with low nutrient (nitrogen) and low moisture content makes bad quality compost and needs nitrogen fertilization. Such fertilizers are fossil energy based.

Quoted from the author “Nor is it by any means clear that the overall effects of biochar are good for the climate, especially if we account for the emissions from growing, harvesting collecting, transporting and pyrolyzing all that plant material.”

There are life cycle analyzes published in peer reviewed journals!

Quoted from the author “There are no peer-reviewed comprehensive field studies of modern biochar lasting more than a year yet published!”

Of cause there are! Even the article Rachel Smolker refers to in this paragraph assessed 4 harvests over a period of two years and is titled “Long term effects of charcoal, ....”, published in Plant and Soil. There is lots of experience with biochar in Japan and as a result it is formaly authorized as soil amendment. The book "A Brief compend of American Agriculture" published in 1847 describes many beneficial agricultural charcoal uses. http://books.google.com/books?id=Fz_vOUHcR7kC&lpg=PP1&ots=WzSLJGwKI-&dq=Alan%20a%20brief%20compend%20of%20american%20agriculture&hl=de&pg=PP1
The agricultural use of charcoal or biochar is by far not as uncommon as Rachel Smolker wants her readers to believe.

Quoted from the author “In another study in Central Amazonia, biochar was compared with chicken manure. Manure worked better.”

Certainly, manure contains much more nutrients than biochar made from wood. A direct comparison in terms of nutrient supply is impossible. However equal amounts of carbon were applied and there was more carbon in the biochar fields than in the manure fertilized fields. Further, the combination of biochar and manures can be very beneficial (published in the Journal of Environmental Quality).

Quoted from the author “Such claims should cause us to wonder: how much biomass would it take, and where will it all come from?”

Lots of biomass is either decomposing or is burned only to get rid of it. Burning of agricultural fields is common worldwide! There is no need for dedicated plantations. Decomposing and otherwise burned biomass is a huge source of carbon.

I'm pretty sure that burning stuff got us into our climate trouble and I don't think that burning stuff is going to get us out of it.

Whatever technologies are proposed, even zero-waste, zero-emission renewable energy such as solar, wind, small hydro, wave power, etc ignore a simple fact: no combination of renewable energy will power the American way of life.

Those who are in favor of a techno-fix--any techno-fix--really need to address the reality of our overconsumptive way of life that was only made possible by the abundance of cheap fossil fuels.

Any "solution" that doesn't admit that we need to transition to a "power down" way of life, is nothing but a distraction.

I do not pretend to understand why we think an unproven techno-fix is preferable to the power of our forests to handle the climate crisis. Even more befuddling is why we would implement a techno-fix that involves chopping down trees to "solve" global warming. Intact forests are our best bet for mitigating the impacts of our industrial society. Study after study has shown that leaving our forests in place or better yet, restoring degraded forests is a much more beneficial solution to handling the impacts of our GHG spewing industries. As someone living in the largest paper producing region in the world, the Southern US, I can tell you we are not interested in bio-char, knowing that it will be created at the expense of our forests. Let's use some common sense here and see this for what it is at best an unproven technology that will have not net positive impact and at worst a false solution which will lead to more clear-cutting and loss of endangered forests turning our forests from carbon sequesterers to carbon emitters.

Having listened to the flip-floppin Smokey the Bear all my life, I hear his offspring in debates like these. First Smokey wanted to Prevent Forest Fires, then found that prescribed burns were preferable, then thinning abused forests, and now burning those forests in biomass incineration schemes to save those woods.

It's truly amazing that the Earth survived, thrived and sequestered so much carbon in a perfect balance of life before the advent of man with machines and chainsaws. Now after a brief human extreme dominance endeavor of a few hundred years, the indicators of all things point to a massive crash of life on Earth at our hands. Continued deforestation, thinning, depleted soils, desertification, drained aquifers and toxic waters, most species threatened with extinction, should serve to instill a bit of humility in how little we know about the difference between the way the Earth really works and the way humans think.

But alas, new schemers, Char-latans, with their geo-engineering dreams emerge to cut down the woods and place them into the soil to save us, turn food into fuel for cars and planes, introduce genetically modify trees, algae, microbes, and other franken-life forms to spread into the natural world, and provide an even greater potential for a far faster crash than we have engineered thus far. Bio-char "specialists" and other biofuels schemers are no different than the proverbial blind men describing the elephant. Only now, the elephant is about to die, roll over and squish em all.

yes, oregon is overlogged, then leftover slash is burned. two wrongs don't make a right. i am a farmer and forestland owner in oregon, and think people better understand the biology of the natural world. biochar is just another attempt to tinker with nature, and seems rather hysterical. go back and read THE CLOSING CIRCLE by Barry Commoner.

In my garden, compost rules. It stores lots of carbon while helping the soil retain moisture and allowing soil microroganisms to thrive and aid in the growth of the plants I grow. There is no need to foist a wholly new and untried system of burning madness upon us. I can't speak for the Forest Service... they've always been twenty bubbles skewed toward the busniness community. In nature, there is no waste. It always occurs, or so my high school chemistry told me so that when anything is burned, two of the results are always carbon dioxide and water. In a carbon dioxide rixh environment, why would we want to add more??? The sun warms us every day and provides the great engine for all life processes on earth. It was safely placed 93 million miles from us but yet has enough zoop to take care of us if we learn its secrets, work within its limitations and get real inventive. Fire was something that prehistoric man found. This is the 21st century. We should be able to put our ingenuity together and we should begin to work WITH nature instead of trying to conquer or amend it to our liking. All the proof I need is spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the minds of greedy men and fools.

My Reply to Ms Smolker's latest unfounded attack on our efforts to help the lives of people in developing nations can be found here.

http://worldstove.com/wp-content/uploads/download/reply_smolker.pdf

Thank you to all who have used science and calm reason to reply to Ms Smolker. The fact that she did not refer to the last two replies would mean she either does not read replies, or that she may have more compelling reasons for continuing to repeat accusations which have been shown to be false and in so doing limit our ability to bring help to those who most need it.

All the best,

Nathaniel Mulcahy
www.WorldStove.com