Biochar Evolutionaries
Let's network biochar enthusiasts from around the world! I know many of us are connected through the International Biochar Initiative and other regional groups but some of us may have smaller biochar projects and applications that are flying below traditional radar.
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Mar 15, 2009
Updated: May 01, 2009
Membership: Open
Semi-Private
Topic: Is biochar yet another false good idea?
Posts (1 - 4 of 4)
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Damn it. I wrote a long reply and it disappeared! I don't have time to rewrite it yet. But the article is in French and I can't read it so I am not much help in discussing it!
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Hi Gloria
Hope you will find the bandwidth to come back to this. Two things can help : For long replies, the best is to write them off-line in a notepad, and copy-paste them in WE interface. I went through the same situation a couple of times and know how frustrating it is ... As for the article, well there is indeed an english version which is the original one.
Now for the core discussion. The main point of this article is biochar technology following the same perverse business model as biofuels did. Looking as a nice green idea, get through active lobbying a lot of help from public money, with the known negative impact on the whole agriculture and food economy. Without a global assessment of the scaling of biochar technology, it seems prematurate to present it as the killer carbon sink. Presenting the technology in a too enthusiastic way seems indeed to try and sell the solution, and can be looked at as yet another "green opportunity".
Don't get me wrong. As said above, just discovering and trying to figure things out. But with a general analysis grid which is : there is no killer single solution to the complex situation we're into. Soils are very complex ecosystems and we barely begin to understand them in their variety. The success story of terra preta in pre-colombian Amazonia is not necessarily portable all over the planet. I would like this discussion on biochar to be crossed-link into a general exchange about both carbon sequestration and soil economy.
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If the the choice is between "false good idea" and "true good idea", "true " is the only reasonable choice for biochar, isn't it? Starting into the biochar discussion a few years ago I recall there certainly was a true vs false good idea debate raging on two fronts, and both have pretty much been put to rest.
The first debate is specific to whether biochar can have any beneficial effect on soil biology or soil chemistry relative to compost. The argument goes, charcoal is inert, ergo the net benefit of microbially degradeable carbon is lost when you put charcoal in the soil. You might as well be putting in rocks, or a more apt comparison, vermiculite or perlite. However it turns out that charcoal may mimic inertness, it is not inert from the perspective of soil (and compost) ecology.
The second debate is specific to releasing green house gasses during pyrolysis. There is a strong aversion to the idea that combustion, and the release of combustion byproducts, could ever accomplish any good for the planet. However, no objective analysis can deny that as a mechanism for building soil carbon levels from atmospheric CO2 that there is no more efficient mechanism. Certainly it is a moral imperitive to put the wasted heat energy and producer gases to beneficial use whenever practical.
Both debates have been put to rest, and as a result, from a soils perspective and from a carbon cycle perspective, biochar has been accepted by trusted experts as among the most exciting, potentially the most exciting, and powerful tools available to us. Great power comes with great responsibility. Using biochar irresponsibly is certainly evil, but that doesn't make biochar evil. Trying to combat that evil by relying on the failed debates of the past is a waste of effort, and makes opposition to biochar appear to be based on an unwillingness to grasp complex truths.
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Just discovering the stuff with its pro and con, stumbled on this discussion.
http://www.infosdelaplanete.org/5082/charcoal-disguised-as-biochar-sold-as-another-profitable-climate-tech-fix.html