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Carbon hopes push case for charcoal
Carbon hopes push case for charcoal | The Australian
Scientists are optimistic about the potential of biochar, writes Jill Rowbotham | March 11, 2009
Article from: The Australian
MALCOLM Turnbull's name will be blessed forever by many scientists and bio-businesspeople after he thrust into the spotlight the technology that produces charcoal-based fertiliser.
As the Government battles to find acceptance for its emissions trading scheme, the Opposition Leader argues the Government's climate change effort came to a dead halt when it signed the Kyoto Protocol. Prominent among his initiatives to cut Australia's annual 570 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions is revisiting the merits of carbon sequestration's poor relative, charcoal, also called biochar.
Turnbull's most prominent pronouncements, which began in late January, have been greeted with jubilation by English geologist and naturalised Australian Chris Turney, who holds the chair of physical geography at the University of Exeter.
"We are seeing quite significant climate change already and the longer we wait (to act) the worse it will be," Turney says. "We need to get something out there that will suck carbon out of the atmosphere. Now is the time."
Biochar is plant material or waste that has been smouldered; that is, reduced to ash by cooking at low heat, a process called slow pyrolysis. The method minimises carbon emissions (those produced can be used to fuel the plant), and maximises the all-important carbon capture; that is, retention of carbon within the material being treated.
Applied to soil, biochar takes a staggeringly long time to degrade and release the carbon -- conservative estimates are hundreds of years and run to thousands -- and it enhances the ability of the soil to hang on to fertilisers applied with it.
In a world where biochar manufacture was widespread, for example
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Carbon hopes push case for charcoal
The Australian - 20 hours ago
MALCOLM Turnbull's name will be blessed forever by many scientists and bio-businesspeople after he thrust into the spotlight the technology that produces charcoal-based fertiliser. As the Government battles to find acceptance for its emissions trading ...
WAFF backs soil carbon research
ABC Online - Mar 8, 2009
The Western Australian Farmers Federation (WAFF) has welcomed the Federal Government's plans to spend millions of dollars on soil carbon research. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke, announced $20 million will go towards a ...
New Book Presents Key Concepts Into Understanding Soil Carbon ...
AZoCleantech - Mar 9, 2009
As the severity of climate change increases with each passing year, researchers continue to study the ways that greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere. Developing methods of sequestration for carbon emissions is essential to reducing this ...
Poor soil management could speed climate change, report warns
Environmental Data Interactive - 11 hours ago
Globally, soils contain around twice the amount of carbon in the atmosphere and three times the amount found in vegetation, so soil is both "a source and a sink of greenhouse gases", the report published last Thursday says. ...
Farming part of the carbon solution
The Canberra Times - Mar 10, 2009
Scientists worldwide recognise the very real opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere through storing carbon in biological systems. The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, Professor Ross Garnaut (in his report on ...
Biochar – a win win for jobs, agriculture and the environment
Webdiary - Mar 9, 2009
by John Pratt The technology we’ve just been looking at is innovative, it’s exciting, it’s Australian, it’s great for the environment, it will create thousands of jobs, but it has been completely neglected by the Rudd Government’s CPRS, ...
Climate change: The EU Commission dishes the dirt on the ...
The Guatemala Times - Mar 9, 2009
The European Commission (EC) has released a report that underlines the role that soils can play in mitigating climate change. The report "Review of existing information on the interrelations between soil and climate change," is a synthesis of the best ...
Well we can all go off and do something else now.
For those perspicacious people on the original thread thank you, we can all say "When I was a boy I was there at the beginning. . ."
Global Warming; solved, tick.
Now to solve the next problem -fresh water.
