[SustainableTompkins] more on the bio-char story

[GayNicholson at aol.com]

More on the bio-char story from Scientific 
American based on recent  Agri-Char Conference in 
Australia. I couldn't get the link to work properly.  FYI. Steve

from  ScientificAmerican.com
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa028&articleID=5670236C-E7F2  
-99DF-3E2163B9FB144E40&pageNumber=1&catID=4      

May 15, 2007

Special Report:  Inspired by Ancient Amazonians, a Plan to Convert Trash
into Environmental  Treasure

New bill in U.S. Senate will  advocate adoption of "agrichar" method
that could lessen our dependence on  fossil fuel and help avert global
warming

By Anne Casselman

When Desmond Radlein  heard about Richard Branson and Al Gore's Virgin
Earth Challenge, a contest  in which the first person who can sequester
one billion tons of carbon  dioxide a year wins $25 million, he got out
his pencil and began figuring  whether or not his company was up to the
task.

Radlein is on the board  of directors at Dynamotive Energy Systems, an
energy solutions provider based  in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is
one of several companies pioneering  the use of pyrolysis, a process in
which biomass is burned at a high  temperature in the absence of oxygen.
The process yields both a charcoal  by-product that can be used as a
fertilizer, and bio-oil, which is a mix of  oxygenated hydrocarbons that
can be used to generate heat or  electricity.

Because the charcoal by-product, or "agrichar," does not  readily break
down, it could sequester for thousands of years nearly all the  carbon
it contains, rather than releasing it into the atmosphere as  the
greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Along the way, it would  boost
agricultural productivity through its ability to retain nutrients  and
moisture.

"I developed this rough back-of-the-envelope calculation  of what it
would require if one were to [attempt the Virgin Earth Challenge]  with
the agrichar concept," Radlein explains. "One would need about  7,000
plants each processing 500 tons of biomass per day, which is a  large
number, but it's not outside the bounds of possibility."  Such
facilities would produce four parts bio-oil to one part  carbon
sequestered, so it would rake in money as well as carbon.

An  International Movement

Radlein is not alone in his belief in this  technology?last week in
Terrigal, New South Wales, Australia, the newly  formed International
Agrichar Initiative held its first ever conference,  which included 135
attendees from every corner of the globe. According to  Debbie Reed, an
environmental policy expert who organized the conference,  keynote
speaker Mike Mason of the carbon offset company Climate Care  urged
attendees to unify in an effort to apply for the Virgin  Earth
Challenge. He also encouraged them to submit their method to the  United
Nations's Clean Development Mechanism program, which is designed  to
transfer clean technology from the developed to the developing  world.

Although no officials from the U.S. government attended the  conference,
there is a nascent stateside movement pushing for adoption of  agrichar.
"[Democratic Senator] Ken Salazar of Colorado is drafting a  stand-alone
bill on this, and he may also promote it as part of the Farm  Bill,"
notes Reed. The Farm Bill, whose terms are decided every  year,
determines what agricultural initiatives can be funded by the  U.S.
government. Inclusion in the Farm Bill would virtually  guarantee
subsidies for research and application of the agrichar  process.

A Technology with a (Potentially) Huge Upside

In 2100, if  pyrolysis met the entire projected demand for renewable
fuels, the process  would sequester enough carbon (9.5 billion tons a
year) to offset current  fossil fuel emissions, which stand at 5.4
billion tons a year, and then some.  "Even if only a third of the
bioenergy in 2100 uses pyrolysis, we still would  make a huge splash
with this technology," remarks Johannes Lehmann, a soil  biogeochemist
at Cornell University and one of the organizers of the  agrichar
conference.

There are other perks: Increasing production of  bio-oil could decrease
a country's dependence on foreign oil. In the tropics,  boosting soil
productivity increases the number of growing seasons per year,  which
could help alleviate the pressure to deforest biodiversity hot  spots.
The new markets for agricultural crops, which would in effect  become
sources of fuel, could boost rural economies worldwide, just as  the
demand for ethanol has bolstered the price of corn.

One  calculation by Robert Brown, director of the Office of
Biorenewables Programs  at Iowa State University, revealed that if the
U.S. adopted a cap and trade  program in CO2 emissions like the one
already in place in the European Union,  farmers in the Midwest could
almost double their income by using corn  stover?the leaves, stalks and
cobs that remain after harvest?to fuel  pyrolysis.

The use of char also promises to combat marine dead zones,  like that in
the Gulf of Mexico caused by nitrogen- and phosphorus-rich  agricultural
runoff. Char reduces the need for man-made fertilizers by  helping the
soil retain nutrients. In addition, it can be made out of the  very same
manure and sewage that would otherwise pollute the  oceans.

Amazonian Origins

Agrichar is not a recent invention.  Rather, it is a modern-day attempt
to re-create the terra preta, or dark  soils that cover some areas of
the Brazilian Amazon. These soils were created  over thousands of years
by pre-Columbian Indians, who covered their fields  with the charred
remains of domestic and agricultural trash. This practice  boosted the
carbon content of the soils from a meager 0.5 percent to 9  percent.

"This is actually slash-and-char agriculture," Brown notes,  contrasting
it with the modern day slash-and-burn variety. "Instead of  biomass
being burnt down to a fine ash, charcoal remains, just like after  a
campfire." In addition to retaining nutrients, the porous charcoal
helps  microorganisms colonize and build up the soil. Charcoal is known
for  remaining stable over long periods of time, and alternating rainy
and dry  seasons preserve it even more. "You basically are drying out a
steak,"  explains Danny Day, president of Eprida, a renewable energy
development  company based in Athens, Ga. "So you get beef jerky, which
will last you for  years." Even today, the Amazonian dark earths are so
fertile that farmers  continue to till them.

"What we're looking at is producing those kinds of  charcoals in a
modern pyrolysis reactor," notes Brown, who received a $1.8  million
grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to attempt  to
recreate terra preta using corn stalks. He plans to have enough  char
generated by this spring to run field trials this year. By  his
calculations each square mile of corn farm that uses this "fiber  to
fertilizer" pyrolysis process can offset the emissions of  330
automobiles.

But is it Viable?

As with all new  technologies, many questions about the ultimate utility
of agrichar have yet  to be answered. "As of now agrichar is not a
uniform product," explains John  Kimble, a retired USDA soil scientist.
"And there's no easy way for farmers  to apply it with existing
equipment. They also need to know there is a large  enough source of the
material. Farmers are driven by profit, as is everyone,  and they need
to be shown that it will improve their bottom  line."

Complicating debates about the costs of agrichar is the paucity of  data
on the subject. "No one is sure what types of biomass should be used  as
raw material," Kimble notes, "or exactly what production methods  work
best, so calculating the costs is really an exercise in  speculation."

In addition, scientists are finding it hard to replicate  the original
terra preta soils. "The secret of the terra preta is not only  applying
charcoal and chicken manure?there must be something else," says  Bruno
Glaser, a soil scientist at Bayreuth University in Germany.  Field
trials in Amazonia using charcoal with compost or chicken manure  find
that crop yields decline after the third or fourth harvest. "If you  use
terra preta you have sustaining yields more or less constantly  year
after year," he says.

"I'm skeptical about adding just a pure  carbon source," says Stanley
Buol, a professor emeritus from the Department  of Soil Science at North
Carolina State University's College of Agriculture  and Life Sciences
who spent 35 years studying Amazonian soils. "It will be  black and look
good," but will it contain enough inorganic ions, such as  phosphorus
and nitrogen, essential to plant growth?"

Many of the  interactions between the char, the soil and the
microorganisms that develop  with time and lend the soil its richness
and stability are still poorly  understood. Glaser believes that the key
to making agrichar behave like terra  preta lies in the biological
behavior of the original Amazonian dark earths?a  difference he
attributes to their age. "You would need 50 or 100 years to get  a
similar combination between the stable charcoal and the ingredients,"
he  cautions.

"I think [research into the biological behavior of terra preta]  is
where the new frontier will be," Lehmann counters. If he is right,  and
scientists can perfect a modern-day recipe for agrichar, then its  fans
will not need Richard Branson's $25 million to jump-start  their
initiative?the annual demand for fertilizers exceeds 150 million  tons
worldwide.

Additional reporting by Coco Ballantyne and  Christopher Mims




----------------------------------------------------
Gay  Nicholson, Ph.D. 

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607-279-6618  (cell)

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gaynicholson at aol.com

Sustainable Tompkins 
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Southern Tier Energy$mart Communities
Regional  Coordinator
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County
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agn1 at cornell.edu




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