[Stoves] Fwd: [geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects

Sat Apr 20 21:40:01 CDT 2013

List, Crispin, Paul 

I saw the stove list introduction of today's "downstream" thread after writing the following which started on the "geo list yesterday. 

To Paul (message on this topic not shown below), I would say that you are addressing a real problem for disappearance of char (floating away) - but that this article is talking only about dissolved black carbon (DBC) 

To Crispin (message on this topic not shown below either), I will write a separate response - pointing out how little our friend Watts understands of these topics - and that you should be looking for other authorities on future global temperatures. 

I will also send this below right away (as I had planned) to the "biochar-policy" and "biochar-soil" lists 

Ron 

----- Original Message -----
From: rongretlarson at comcast.net 
To: rau4 at llnl.gov 
Cc: geoengineering at googlegroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2013 6:39:40 PM 
Subject: Re: [geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects 

Greg and list: 

I have tried to figure out whether this paper by Jaffe et al is apt to harm or help the introduction of biochar. My perception is that Jaffe and co-authors see a fairly strong connection to biochar, but I am not so sure. There is so little biochar in place that what was being measured was almost entirely from forest fires, which char can be very different from what is now being tested . 

The persons at NSF who wrote up the press release (below) certainly tied this article in to biochar development. For those who don't subscribe to Science, here is what Jaffe etal said about biochar - 4 sentences in the last part of the last paragraph (with my comments on each in bold): 

"1. Bio-char applications to soils have been proposed as an effective means of carbon sequestration (30). 
RWL1: Certainly true and non controversial. (30) is J. Lehmann, J. Gaunt, M. Rondon, Mitig. Adapt. Strat. Gl. 11, 403 (2006) and is a good early background reference (at a time before biochar received its present name) . 

2. This activity may further enhance the translocation and export of DBC to marine systems. 
[RWL2: Also true - but equally true could be "may not". The key is whether the material now ending up as DBC is more apt to be used by microbes and fungus - ending up mostly as CO2. Biochar literature says almost nothing about DBC, except that it is small. Char is presently used to absorb (not release) the polyaromatic compounds that I gather are being measured to compute DBC. 

3. The environmental consequences of this are presently unknown but may be reflected in the reduction of DOC bioavailability and associated effects on microbial loop dynamics and aquatic food webs. 
[RWL3: Again, I think the key word is "may " . Biochar is being promoted to increase terrestrial biomass. In the Amazon, terra preta soils have double and triple the soil productivity - so maybe there will be also increased DOC bioavailability. It also seems likely that a world with much biochar will have fewer and smaller forest fires. Also char, being placed deep in soils, will generally not be found as much in surface runoff as will char from forest fires. 

4. Our data suggest that we apply our existing knowledge on DOC production, storage, and movement in soils to ensure that biochar applications are implemented sustainably and managed in ways to minimize riverine DBC fluxes. " 
[RWL4: This is a welcome offer to help investigate the biochar connection further. But I felt that DOC was being welcomed for ocean health reasons, and so if DOC and DBC are closely coupled, maybe there is a way for biochar to optimize both. Biochar is getting cre dit for preventing the release of excess fertilizers that are certainly harming ocean health, as well as wasting scarce farm-owner funds. Biochar's optimum temperature may be tunable to help in this tradeoff, if further research shows there is need for one. 

Part B 
Science magazine also has an introductory piece (p 287-288 ) in this same issue, by Rice University Prof. Caroline Massielo. Besides authoring five of the Jaffe etal cites, Dr. Masiello heads a biochar department at Rice and has authored numerous biochar papers. In her final four-sentence paragraph she says about the connection to biochar: 

5. "Jaffé et al. mention that biochar soil amendment may have unintended consequences through increased transport of DBC into aquatic and marine systems, with downstream impacts on aquatic food webs." 
[RWL5. It is not clear to me whether she is referencing positive or negative consequences/impacts. I am pretty sure that in most soils, the char is retaining, not releasing, dissolved carbon compounds. 

6. "These possibilities must be taken seriously." 
[RWL6: So perhaps the possibilities are mostly seen as negative - mostly thinking I guess of carcinogenic PAH compounds 

7. "The successful scaling-up of biochar soil amendment will require assessment of the fate of biochar carbon both in the solid and dissolved phases. 
[RWL7: Dr. Masiello is raising the additional topic of biochar proponents wanting long biochar lifetime - both solid and dissolved. Jaffe etal say in their first paragraph that charcoal ".... is ubiquitous in the environment, where it slowly decomposes, but part of it is preserved for thousands of years ." This long lifetime (clouded by the term " part of" ) is rarely acknowledged by biochar's (very few) critics. 

8. Jaffé et al.’s observation that the aromatic, dissolved fraction of BC behaves at least in part like bulk DOC may make tracking DBC that much easier. (Emphasis added) 
[RWL8: I think this similarity globally between BOC and BDC is the key new conclusion of the Jaffe paper and the Masiello introductory perspective. But we still have the word "may" re tracking. Presumably it will be many years before there is sufficient riverine DOC and DBC from biochar to even be detected. Perhaps insightful lab tests can be conducted sooner. 

[RWL9: My prior reading in this area says that biochar users are apt to lean towards lower temperature chars, where there is little production of PAH's - the clearly undesirable part of DBC. Neither paper is explicit on this PAH topic. 

So in sum, I remain confused as to what to expect for both a) future DBC release from biochar and b) the resultant DBC impacts - in rivers or the ocean. I would welcome other input on the significance of the Jaffe etal paper. I do not now think it raises any new hurdles for large-scale biochar introduction. 

RWL10 - see below 

Ron 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg Rau" <rau4 at llnl.gov> 
To: geoengineering at googlegroups.com 
Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 11:42:13 AM 
Subject: [geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects 

Here's the Science link: 
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6130/345.abstract 

________________________________________ 
From: geoengineering at googlegroups.com [geoengineering at googlegroups.com] on behalf of Rau, Greg [rau4 at llnl.gov] 
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 10:56 PM 
To: geoengineering at googlegroups.com 
Subject: [geo] Biochar: Downstream effects 

Press Release 13-069 
Where Does Charcoal, or Black Carbon, in Soils Go? 

Scientists find surprising new answers in wetlands such as the Everglades 
[Charred boreal forest after a fire] 

Charred boreal forest after a fire has raged: where does the "charcoal" go? 
Credit and Larger Version<http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=127577&org=NSF> 

April 18, 2013 

Scientists have uncovered one of nature's long-kept secrets--the true fate of charcoal in the world's soils. 

The ability to determine the fate of charcoal is critical to knowledge of the global carbon budget, which in turn can help understand and mitigate climate change. 

However, until now, researchers only had scientific guesses about what happens to charcoal once it's incorporated into soil. They believed it stayed there. 

Surprisingly, most of these researchers were wrong. 

The findings of a new study that examines the result of charcoal once it is deposited into the soil are outlined in a paper published this week in the journal Science. 

The international team of researchers was led by scientists Rudolf Jaffe of Florida International University and Thorsten Dittmar of the German Max Planck Society. 

"Most scientists thought charcoal was resistant," says Jaffe. "They believed that once it was incorporated into soils, it stayed there. But if that were the case, soils would be black." 

Charcoal, or black carbon, is a residue generated by combustion including wildfires and the burning of fossil fuels. 

When charcoal forms, it is usually deposited into the soil. 

"From a chemical perspective, no one really thought it dissolved, but it does," Jaffe says. 

"It doesn't accumulate for a long time. It's exported into wetlands and rivers, eventually making its way to the oceans." 

It all started with a strange finding in the Everglades. 

At the National Science Foundation (NSF) Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site--one of 26 such NSF LTER sites in ecosystems around the world<http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/goodbye?http://www.lternet.edu/sites/map>--Jaffe studied the glades' environmental chemistry. 

Dissolved organic carbon is known to be abundant in wetlands such as the Everglades and plays a critical role in the ecology of these systems. 

Jaffe wanted to learn more about what comprised the organic carbon in the Everglades. 

He and colleagues discovered that as much as 20 percent of the total dissolved organic carbon in the Everglades is charcoal. 

Surprised by the finding, the researchers shifted their focus to the origin of the dissolved charcoal. 

In an almost serendipitous scientific journey, Dittmar, head of the Max Planck Research Group for Marine Geochemistry at the University Oldenburg in Germany, was also tracing the paths of charcoal, but from an oceanographic perspective. 

To map out a more comprehensive picture, the researchers joined forces. Their conclusion is that charcoal in soils is making its way into the world's waters. 

"This study affirms the power of large-scale analyses made possible through international collaborations," says Saran Twombly, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research along with NSF's Directorate for Geosciences. 

"What started out as a puzzling result from the Florida Everglades engaged scientists at other LTER sites in the U.S., and eventually expanded worldwide," says Twombly. "The result is a major contribution to our understanding of the carbon cycle." 

Fire is probably an integral part of the global carbon cycle, says Dittmar, its effects seen from land to sea. 

The discovery carries significant implications for bioengineering, the scientists believe. 

The global carbon budget is a balancing act between sources that produce carbon and sources that remove it. 

The new findings show that the amount of dissolved charcoal transported to the oceans is keeping pace with the total charcoal generated by fires annually on a global scale. 

While the environmental consequences of the accumulation of black carbon in surface and ocean waters are currently unknown, Jaffe said the findings mean that greater consideration should be given to carbon sequestration techniques. 

Biochar addition to soils is one such technique. 

Biochar technology is based on vegetation-derived charcoal that is added to agricultural soils as a means of sequestering carbon. 

As more people implement biochar technology, says Jaffe, they should take into consideration the potential dissolution of the charcoal to ensure that these techniques are environmentally friendly. 

Jaffe and Dittmar agree that there are still many unknowns when it comes to the environmental fate of charcoal, and both plan to move on to the next phase of the research. 

They've proved where charcoal goes. 
[RWL10: I am not so sure of this. The Masiello perspective has a graph showing CO2 release, never mentioned by Jaffe etal. I have no other concerns about the NSF press release.] 

Now they'd like to answer how that happens, and what the environmental consequences are. 

The more scientists can understand the process and the environmental factors controlling it, says Jaffe, the better the chances of developing strategies for carbon sequestration and mitigating climate change. 

The research was also conducted at NSF's Bonanza Creek; Konza Prairie; Hubbard Brook; Coweeta; and Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER sites, and at other locations around the world. 

Other authors of the paper are: Yan Ding of Florida International University; Jutta Niggemann of the Max Planck Research Group for Marine Geochemistry; Anssi Vahatalo of the University of Helsinki; Aron Stubbins of the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in Savannah, Georgia; Robert Spencer of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts; and John Campbell of the USDA Forest Service. 

-NSF- 

Media Contacts 
Cheryl Dybas, NSF (703) 292-7734 cdybas at nsf.gov<mailto:cdybas at nsf.gov> 
JoAnn Adkins, FIU (305) 979-5276 jadkins at fiu.edu<mailto:jadkins at fiu.edu> 
McOwiti Thomas, LTER Network Office (505) 277-2638 tmcowiti at lternet.edu<mailto:tmcowiti at lternet.edu> 

Related Websites 
NSF Publication: Discoveries in Long-Term Ecological Research: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2013/nsf13083/nsf13083.pdf?WT.mc_id=USNSF_25&WT.mc_ev=click 
NSF Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network: http://www.lternet.edu<http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/good-bye?http://www.lternet.edu> 
NSF Florida Coastal Everglades LTER Site: http://fce.lternet.edu/<http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/good-bye?http://fce.lternet.edu/> 
NSF Bonanza Creek LTER Site: http://www.lternet.edu/sites/bnz<http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/good-bye?http://www.lternet.edu/sites/bnz> 
NSF Konza Prairie LTER Site: http://www.lternet.edu/sites/knz<http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/good-bye?http://www.lternet.edu/sites/knz> 
NSF Hubbard Brook LTER Site: http://www.lternet.edu/sites/hbr<http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/good-bye?http://www.lternet.edu/sites/hbr> 
NSF Coweeta LTER Site: http://www.lternet.edu/sites/cwt<http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/good-bye?http://www.lternet.edu/sites/cwt> 
NSF Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER Site: http://www.lternet.edu/sites/gce<http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/good-bye?http://www.lternet.edu/sites/gce> 

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2012, its budget was $7.0 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 50,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes about 11,500 new funding awards. NSF also awards about $593 million in professional and service contracts yearly. 

[http://www.nsf.gov/images/mail_icon.gif] Get News Updates by Email <http://service.govdelivery.com/service/subscribe.html?code=USNSF_51> 

Useful NSF Web Sites: 
NSF Home Page: http://www.nsf.gov 
NSF News: http://www.nsf.gov/news/ 
For the News Media: http://www.nsf.gov/news/newsroom.jsp 
Science and Engineering Statistics: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/ 
Awards Searches: http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/ 

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