Biochar and climate change

[Jonti]

No, I mean you, sorry if that wasn't clear enough.

You continue to argue with straw men of your own imagining; and you couldn't even be bothered to read links. I had to repost stuff for you in the face of your jeering.

I've come to the conclusion you've made your mind up and are interested in pushing your own agenda, not in exploring the possibility space. That's up to you, but I'm not interested in silly games, so I will not be engaging with you anymore.

 

[contadino]

On that Lehmann quote. One of the classic examples of a side-effect in this domain is indigenous peoples losing their traditional sources of fuel wood and instead burning crop residues and animal dung that would be better used as mulch, increasing soil degradation.

The point being, there may well be other competing uses for these items and the decision about how much of that stuff is best turned into charcoal or used as mulch, in order to achieve sustainability needs to take them into account.

Maybe if poorer countries concentrated on feeding themselves, rather than exporting huge portions of their harvests and leaving themselves hungry, they'd find that they could sustain themselves much better. There wouldn't be such high demand for the waste products, and those climate campaigners would be happy as less stuff would need to be transported thousands of miles.

Of course, people in richer countries would have to then pay much more for their food, but that's what's needed. Rich countries have been exporting their pollution and agricultural problems for far too long.

 

[free spirit]

... and this, which I linked to this piece in post #2 of this thread source

“It would only require a 1pc increase in soil carbon on 15 million hectares of land to sequester 8GT of carbon dioxide in the soil, which is equivalent to the greenhouse emissions for the entire planet,” Dr Jones said.

“To pay farmers to sequester this carbon at the rate of $25/t of carbon dioxide would cost $200 billion.

“That might sound like a lot of money but in the corporate world, it is peanuts.

“With a mere $200b, we could reverse global warming in a matter of years and markedly improve soil productivity at the same time.

“It’s not about money — it’s about managing money to manage the carbon cycle — for the future of us all.”

took me a while to figure out what was wrong with these figures.

It's talking about a 1% increase as a percentage of the total volume of the soil, ie in a 100 years the amount of carbon in the soil wouldn't be double what it was at the start, it would be the equivalent of the entire volume of the rest of soil at the start, or basically it'd be 15 million hectares of 1:1 ratio charcoal and soil.

for comparison purposes the terra pretta soils in the amazon have a maximum of 9% biochar.


so you can't just keep on ploughing more and more charcoal into the same 15 million hectares of land, after 9 years you'd reach the peak level of biochar found in the amazonian soils, which would presumably mean that was around the peak desirable level of biochar in the soil so you'd then have to stop adding biochar to that soil and find new land to use.

over a hundred year period then, even taking these figures, you'd need to use 165 million hectares of land, turning all that land into terra preta soil type at the peak level of biochar found in the amazonian soils.

Taking figures from the biochar-pbwiki that sus linked to earlier recommends 5kg per m2 as the optimum level for soil improvement with biochar, which works out at 50tonnes per hectare. The figures in the article you quote talk about a 0.15% increase in biochar content being equivalent to 23.1 tonnes per hectare of carbon... so it'd only take just over 0.3% increase to achieve the optimum levels given for soil improvement in sus's link... or a third of the amount proposed to be added per year in the article yuu quoted.

So using these figures you'd actually need 45 million hectares per year, with a new 45 million hectares being used every year to offset global co2 emissions while using biochar at the optimum level given in sus's link. so 450 million hectares to offset 10 years anthropogenic co2 emissions, 4.5 billion hectares to offset 100 years anthropogenic co2 emissions... as only 1.5 billion hectares is currently under plough, I'd say that using these figures, it's entirely unrealistic to state that biochar alone could offset total anthropogenic Co2 emissions, or anything even vaguely close to it.


from this it should be clear that the amount of CO2 it's realistic to offset in this way really does depend on the optimum and maximum levels of biochar that are beneficial to the soil, which I believe is an area that's currently being researched. However, the 2% figure I quoted earlier from the newcastle university researcher looks much more realistic than any notion of being able to offset anything close to 100% of total anthropogenic co2 emissions.

 

[free spirit]

No, I mean you, sorry if that wasn't clear enough.

You continue to argue with straw men of your own imagining; and you couldn't even be bothered to read links. I had to repost stuff for you in the face of your jeering.

I've come to the conclusion you've made your mind up and are interested in pushing your own agenda, not in exploring the possibility space. That's up to you, but I'm not interested in silly games, so I will not be engaging with you anymore.

sorry, but what agenda would that be?

you come onto this thread pushing bullshit notions of how biochar can be used to offset 100% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, all I've done is challenge those notions and subject them to some fairly basic scrutiny that you'd have done well to have done yourself before making a tit of yourself.

I had actually read your links, but was trying to see which bits of them in particular had brought you to the conclusion that "biochar sequestration is considered capable of removing CO2 at the rate of current emissions", as I'd only seen some highly dubious looking figures, and a statement where the guy had specifically stated he was talking purely theoretically.

eta I'm sorry you don't feel able to engage with me anymore, I'll continue to challenge your statements and links where I see problems with them. If you choose to not read, or ignore what I'm saying that's your decision, but I can't see how it's going to help you to develop your understanding of an area that you plainly have some interest in.

 

[free spirit]

This is true as long as conventional farming methods are followed. Permaculture woodland gardening techniques can double the yield of conventional monoculture farming. A programme of reforestation/afforestation based on biochar and woodland gardening would provide massive and increasing carbon sequestration without compromising food production.

I'd be genuinely interested to see where you get the figures about the doubling of the yield of permaculture based woodland gardening techniques vs conventional monoculture. That's entirely in tune with my way of thinking on this, but I've not seen figures that high before (not looked for a while though)

other than that, I agree with you, with the proviso that 'massive' in terms of carbon sequestration is in the order of 2% or so of current CO2 emissions. This is still a massive amount, equivalent to the entire contribution from aviation, and a totally worthwhile contribution to both the aims of combating climate change, and preventing and reversing soil degradation, I just think the figures Junti's been quoting are at least an order of magnitude, possibly 2, away from reality.

 

[Jonti]

... biochar could actually be detremental to soil fertility.

Well, yeah.

... we clearly see that there is absolutely the need for optimisation to biochar products. Not all biochar products are efficient to the same extent, and there might be even be some biochar products that are detrimental to plant growth, similar to any fertiliser. You can apply too much of a fertiliser and kill your crop. You need to have the right dosage and the right composition of fertiliser. And the same applies to compost or manures, and of course the same applies to biochars.

source

If it has the power to cure, it's likely also to have the power to harm. That's just the way things are

 

[free spirit]

took me a while to figure out what was wrong with these figures.<snip>

actually, I've just been looking through the actual document about the soil carbon accreditation scheme - the scheme that article is about, and the documents written by the author quoted in the article, and linked to at the end of the article.

nowhere in that document, or in fact in any of the papers the author has on her site that I've just skimmed can I see any mention of biochar.

She's talking about carbon sequestration in the soil via better soil management techniques, which is an entirely different thing.

 

[sus]

I'd be genuinely interested to see where you get the figures about the doubling of the yield of permaculture based woodland gardening techniques vs conventional monoculture. That's entirely in tune with my way of thinking on this, but I've not seen figures that high before (not looked for a while though)

other than that, I agree with you, with the proviso that 'massive' in terms of carbon sequestration is in the order of 2% or so of current CO2 emissions. This is still a massive amount, equivalent to the entire contribution from aviation, and a totally worthwhile contribution to both the aims of combating climate change, and preventing and reversing soil degradation, I just think the figures Junti's been quoting are at least an order of magnitude, possibly 2, away from reality.

I've been checking out out woodland gardening a fair bit over the last few weeks and all the sources I've seen have made that claim.

http://pfaf.org/leaflets/woodgard.php

 

[free spirit]

I've been checking out out woodland gardening a fair bit over the last few weeks and all the sources I've seen have made that claim.

http://pfaf.org/leaflets/woodgard.php

ah, right, I see what you're talking about.

interesting concept, but unlikely to be anything other than a minor component of the overall global food market for a long time as it'll take decades to establish the woodland, get the tree based crops to fruit / produce nuts etc. so any change over to it would necessarily be a gradual one. It'd also require a major change of diet, which may not be a bad thing, but would also reduce the scope for a rapid change over to it.

I'm all for the greater use of woodlands for food, and developing / bringing back more orchards and the like, and I guess woodland gardening is a logical extension of these ideas. I don't understand how biochar wouldn't conflict with woodland gardening though, as you'd not want to be turning any trees that take decades to establish themselves as fruit bearing trees into biochar.

Also a woodland garden would be a net carbon sink already without any use of biochar, so I'm not convinced there'd be any particular benefit from that side either

 

[sus]

ah, right, I see what you're talking about.

interesting concept, but unlikely to be anything other than a minor component of the overall global food market for a long time as it'll take decades to establish the woodland, get the tree based crops to fruit / produce nuts etc. so any change over to it would necessarily be a gradual one. It'd also require a major change of diet, which may not be a bad thing, but would also reduce the scope for a rapid change over to it.

I'm all for the greater use of woodlands for food, and developing / bringing back more orchards and the like, and I guess woodland gardening is a logical extension of these ideas. I don't understand how biochar wouldn't conflict with woodland gardening though, as you'd not want to be turning any trees that take decades to establish themselves as fruit bearing trees into biochar.

Also a woodland garden would be a net carbon sink already without any use of biochar, so I'm not convinced there'd be any particular benefit from that side either

The arboreal produce is only a very small part of the overall produce which can include many crops which are currently available. Biochar needn't conflict with this method as the feedstocks for biochar can include any biomass, although some of the feedstock could include coppiced alder for example, which is useful as a green fertiliser(fixes nitrogen from the air into soil). New woodland would be a net carbon sink, but the benefit of adding biochar to the soil would be firstly in the sequestration of the biochar itself, secondly in the fact that growth can be doubled with biochar, thus locking up more carbon in greater biomass, and thirdly in increased soil production.

Land/planning reform to allow rural low impact housing would enable new highly productive woodland to be developed. These aren't badhttp://www.simondale.net/house/.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Maybe if poorer countries concentrated on feeding themselves, rather than exporting huge portions of their harvests and leaving themselves hungry, they'd find that they could sustain themselves much better. There wouldn't be such high demand for the waste products, and those climate campaigners would be happy as less stuff would need to be transported thousands of miles.

Of course, people in richer countries would have to then pay much more for their food, but that's what's needed. Rich countries have been exporting their pollution and agricultural problems for far too long.

Sure, which is why the biggest environmental problem is actually capitalism

 

[free spirit]

The arboreal produce is only a very small part of the overall produce which can include many crops which are currently available. Biochar needn't conflict with this method as the feedstocks for biochar can include any biomass, although some of the feedstock could include coppiced alder for example, which is useful as a green fertiliser(fixes nitrogen from the air into soil). New woodland would be a net carbon sink, but the benefit of adding biochar to the soil would be firstly in the sequestration of the biochar itself, secondly in the fact that growth can be doubled with biochar, thus locking up more carbon in greater biomass, and thirdly in increased soil production.

Land/planning reform to allow rural low impact housing would enable new highly productive woodland to be developed. These aren't badhttp://www.simondale.net/house/.

I like the woodland garden idea as a niche sustainable food production and countyside management method, but can't see any way that it could possibly be switched to in a big way in anything under a couple of generations.

re the biochar addition, firstly, if you're coppicing wood to produce biochar, then that reduces the amount of land available to produce food within the wood. Done at a relatively low level though I'm sure it could be possible that the increased production from the other crops due to the addition of biochar will offset the loss of production from the land used for coppicing.

I'm also not entirely sure how you intend to add the biochar to the soil? I guess you could just spread it on the surface, and it'd gradually get worked into the new layers of topsoil formed from the leaf matter etc. The woodland environment's not particularly suited for digging stuff in as you'll damage the roots / bulbs of the largely perennial plants that are growing in it.

Also as I mentioned above, I don't particularly see it as being of much use in carbon terms as the carbon would already largely be being stored long term in the wood and soil for as long as the land continues to be properly managed.

essentially I don't see how forest gardening would particularly work with biochar though, at least not on any scale likely to make a noticable impact on climate change. Nothing wrong with adding some biochar to the soil prior to initial planting / gradually adding some more as you go along from a bit of coppiced would as you suggest, but we're talking about relatively minor amounts of carbon sequestration, which goes back to the idea of 2% being a realistic sort of figure for the amount of manmade co2 emissions that could realistically be sequestered in this way.

am I missing something, or are we actually pretty much saying the same thing?

 

[free spirit]

Sure, which is why the biggest environmental problem is actually capitalism

yep.

also worth remembering that it was the IMF and world bank that were responsible for exporting the badly named 'green revolution' to africa and beyond, forcing them away from their traditional, largely sustainable farming methods and into high intensity, unsustainable farming methods which have led to the soil degradation (and loss of soil carbon) we've been discussing.

amongst other things

 

[free spirit]

am I missing something, or are we actually pretty much saying the same thing?

actually I've just realised I'm missing the obvious point that you were probably trying to make, which is that if woodland gardening is twice as productive as standard intensive farming methods, then presumably we'd only need half as much land to produce the same amount of food, and could therefore spare the other half of the land for coppicing to make biochar... not that it would need to be split down like that, it could all be grown together...

was this what you meant?

 

[WouldBe]

For example ...

Johannes Lehmann
I'm thinking for instance Africa where there you have a lot of energy use from biomass individually from households, and in small villages. If these households and these villages could be equipped with pyrolysis bioenergy rather than complete burning of their biomass, they could get the same amount of energy out of the biomass that their using, cook the same amount of food per day that they were cooking with their identical amount of biomass and still retain about half of their carbon to be returned to their ever degrading soils. This could mean a tremendous change that would be largely driven by the need to restore soil fertility but by the same token possibly make a significant contribution to mitigating climate change.

source

That doesn't make sence either. Charcoal contains energy which is why you can burn it on BBQ's. So if you are leaving energy in the charcoal then you haven't extracted all the energy from the biomass so can't get the same heating effect for cooking as if you simply burnt the biomass in the first place.

 

[Jonti]

I thought that too!

I guess the pyrolysis gadgets are more efficient, compared to the present stoves. That, combined with the fact that the energy content of the biomass is more than its carbon alone.

 

[WouldBe]

I thought that too!

I guess the pyrolysis gadgets are more efficient, compared to the present stoves. That, combined with the fact that the energy content of the biomass is more than its carbon alone.

In the situation that was refered to in that article it's talking about biomass being used for cooking in small African villages which tends to be done over an open fire. How are the small African villagers supposed to afford a modern 'pyrolysis gadget' to make their cooking more efficient?

 

[Jonti]

I think the plan is that they get paid for carbon sequestration

I've no more idea than you, really. But I guess it's the sort of kit that can be distributed by government or other aid programs.

 

[david dissadent]

The dash for ash.
One more hit of carbon into the mainline, just this time we all promise it will be our last one. We really promise this time. Just this one more hit of that sweet hydrocarbon energy into our lifestyles and then with this new food to ash program we will be on the wagon, being the good citizens we promised everyone else we would be.

Just

. . .one

. . . . . more

. . . . . . . . hit

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . please




god
then we will be good. Turning the primary productivity of the surface of earth from sunlight and long chain organic chemicals into pure carbon and some side effects. I mean no one uses the unused vegetative matter for anything like fertiliser or food. We can replace inefficient old growth forests with modern fast growing pines. Actualy we can improve on nature. Less of those nasty funguses and decomposing ligin and barks. More energy and carbon sequestration. We will even enhance biodiversity by bringing norwegian pine into woodland formerly composd of ash, beach or maple.

A structured ordered mechanical biosphere: a true machine for living.
A design for life.

....... a vulture stalks white piped lie forever...... click click click click click




click himself under.