[Stoves] [biochar] Interesting video

[Jock Gill]

Dick,

Your question is way above my pay grade. Hugh Mclaughlin is better qualified to answer your question.  My understanding is that organic carbon is subject to microbial action which will convert it to CO2  within decades. I further understand that pyrolytic carbon is highly resistant to microbial action and thus will remain in the soil for centuries.

As for grass as a source of Biochar, four points:

• harvesting grass keeps fields open when they are no longer used for other purposes. Mixed use is generally a good idea.

• grass Biochar has physical properties that are quite different. Are these advantageous  in some applications?

• grass can be harvested every year. Wood not so often, esp if it has to grow to 4 inch diameter.

• harvesting energy provides an alternative source of income for farmers, esp. If they pelletize it and deliver it to local users.

The real challenge is to move beyond combustion to pyrolysis and carbon negative solutions.

Just a few thoughts.

Regards,

Jock

Jock Gill
P. O. Box 3
Peacham, VT 05862

google.com/+JockGill

Extract CO2 from the atmosphere!

> On Jul 19, 2015, at 11:40 PM, Dick Gallien <dickgallien at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Jock---enjoyed the video and have always been sentimental about Vt..  On charring materials, I always look at grass as one bite away from becoming meat and manure.  USDA, a product of Ag U's that preach chemical farming, speak of "ag waste", as the % of organic matter in farm fields declines; however, wood chips, especially from limbs over 4", which are dumped in ditches near here, would probably best be charred. 
> 
> I always think of biochar as an inert carbon that provides condos for micro organisms.  So how would you respond to the following question that is probably so elementary that I received no response from the biochar list?
> Last Fall, after spreading biochar,  I submitted a photo of spreading 4+" of compost followed by 4" of ramial wood chips on a new garden area that was hay field, with a 425 bu. manure spreader.  It almost totally eliminated weeds this Spring and is alive with fungi on top of the chips and earth worms below.  Somewhere in Giles Lemieau Laval Universite ramial wood chips, someone mentioned that the positives of ramial chips can last for 1000 years.  Does the small fraction of carbon in the chips last as long in the soil and have the same physical characteristics as carbon in biochar, or is pyrolysis essential to give the carbon the longevity and absorbent physical characteristics?  Thanks       
> 
>> stoves and Biochar Lists (with apologies for cross posting)
>> 
>> 
>> 	For those on these two lists interested in education,  I recommend this 28 minute video (can skip the first minute) with Jock Gill found at:
>> 		https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33acD-PHjK4
>> 
>> 	Jock - thanks for doing so much better than most of us on public education related to stoves and biochar (on pyrolysis here).
>> 
>> Ron
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