[Stoves] Edinburgh biochar

[Ron Larson]

Andrew ( adding "Biochar-soils" because of your comments.)

   See inserts below

On May 27, 2011, at 2:25 AM, sylva at iname.com wrote:

> 
>>    So far I have only been able to listen to the Lehmann tape (no questioning) and the follow-up panel (all questions).   I was surprised mainly by the arguments/questions by quite a few seemingly favoring compost, or combustion or tree burial.  This is a new non-biochar-enthusiast group perhaps.  Too little time for adequate rebuttals/discussions.
> 
> AJH I don't understand some of the terms the soil scientists and chemists use, It was mostly technical papers and the gist was there have been few negative effects, only one mention of ethylene which Alex flagged up as a problem.

    [RWL -  This last (few negatives) is very good news.  (Alex means Alex English?)  I understand the issue with 'soil-speak'. I have looked up a lot of strange words.]
> 
> Things like reduction of N2O emission seem only to happen if the soil is saturated. Many features of the initial behaviour of biochar ( such as "priming" of the release of CO2 from soil organic carbon are put down to abiotic causes, I.e. they are straight chemical effects of putting a high pH carbonate containing substance into an acid environment.
> 
> There was a misleading presentation about life of logs in soil as it only studued first 30cms of soil rather than deep burial, deep burial is likely to persist for hundreds of years.

       [RWL-  I believe Biochar to be superior to burial, though, because of the out year benefits possible.  Same comment re last sentence re lost energy in next paragraph.  Sorry to lose energy value when you create Biochar - but we get more energy back in out-years (if done right).  Too few get this.
> 
> The interesting points were the life of the labile or non fixed carbon portions of the char ( tars etc) this varied for 2-500 years but the fixed char potentially thousands of years. There will be interesting studies to do with how their labile portions contribute to the biochar effect ( they are touted as food for bugs) compared with the long term benefit of fixed carbon. Also the business of how high a temperature to char at, essentially the fixed carbon of a woodchar sample is always ~15% no matter what the pyrolysis temperature and it will be less for feedstocks with low lignin.

    [RWL -  This last sentence doesn't sound right.  Can you clarify fixed?]

> As you rightly point out one eminent person did question the use of biochar when its energy value was lost as an opportunity cost.   IMO in a society that still digs up fossil fuels he is right.
> 
> Now here is the nub for me, all talk of rewarding the subsistance farmers over the whole globe for sequestrating the emissions of us rich few are gone. Talks of offsets and carbon trading was missing, chiefly because this was a gathering of soil scientists.  

      [RWL -  And maybe no abstracts sent in.  And it's been said before, largely.  But agreed we have to keep talking about the ethics/morals and urgency and the validity and need for funding.]
> 
> The closing message from Lehmann is pertinent, he now says biochar must have proven agronomic benefits to be successful, the implication is then sequestration will be the net result. I still see photosynthesis as being the only viable means of fixing CO2 and biochar the means of intervening in the carbon cycle and storing it.

      [RWL -  Agreed - the only way.  And too many assume there is some other approach.]
> 
> The delegate who stated that we would reach a global population of 9 billion and a temperature rise of 4C was not doubted.
> 
> There was a talk on hydrothermal carbonisation and it is apparent that the results ( the lady coined the term hydrochar)  are quite differnt from biochar and probably not a means to sequestration.
> 
      [RWL - Sorry to hear this.  I'll listen closely.]

> There was little at the conference to upset my friend Kevin C and nothing to worry people that don't see a problem with anthropologically enhanced CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

   [RWL - Hmm.  That's OK, as long as they believe and act differently.]
> 
> Steve, I shall travel back after an appointment on Scheihallion shortly so will probably be too late and will not pick up mail again till Saturday.
> 
> Please forgive the typos, I am not used to this small screen

    [RWL  -  I fixed most, I hope.  Thanks a lot for picking out some items to look for in the video tapes (which are better done than a lot  - and can be found by googling "UKBRC").  Ron

> AJH