Carbon Negative Biofuels also Increase Crop Production
by zogger Fri, 01 Jun 2007 16:00:30 PDT Chemistry
Quote:
# This comes pretty close to fulfilling that old saying, "having your cake and eating it, too". Agrichar, or biochar, is the left over stabilized charcoal-like product from the pyrolysis of biofeedstock matter in the production of alternative fuels. This agrichar has been shown to vastly increase soil fertility, meaning a lot more crops starting with the first season, and to remain stable and remain in the soil for years to decades or beyond, effectively trapping more carbon that what was used to produce it and the fuels. Better than mulch or compost actually, as those break down quickly. It is carbon negative in other words, even better than the pushed goal of "carbon neutral".
# ..."Trials of agrichar - a product hailed as a saviour of Australia’s carbon-depleted soils and the environment - have doubled and, in one case, tripled crop growth when applied at the rate of 10 tonnes per hectare."..more there
ed: I was doing something very similar to this in the mid 70s, with a woodstove integrated with a woodstove. The lower chamber burned normally, while the upper chamber was a lot more airtight and burned the released methane much more efficiently, and that is where I got most of the heat. The lower heated the upper in other words. And I did turn the left over charcoal like stuff into the garden soil(the lower made normal looking ashes, the upper looked like charcoal), and did get some amazing crops there. I had no name for the process or the "agrichar", just thought I could heat my little abode better and save on back breaking firewood harvesting with handsaw and ax....oh well, glad to see this! This is some *neat tech*. Good biofuel plus improved soil fertility with a "waste" product at the same time while sucking more carbon out of the air is a fantastic good innovation.
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Some of the claims in the
underlying source article seem a tad too encouraging to be realistic - It would be nice to have open access to the data itself, so one could develop their own informed conclusion.
I thought the ed: note was particularly interesting in that it mentioned a charcoal producing wood burning stove, and personal experience with the boost in productivity.
