Rocket scientist, Paul Taylor makes a case for biochar industry in Australia (ABC radio, 11Mar14, 13min).
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-03/rural-tas-biochar-revolution/5312920
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Kelpie is on fire with this new website…
http://greenyourhead.typepad.com/backyard_biochar/
This is a great followup to previous posts here on biochar production…
Presentations from the NZBRC July 2013 are available from the following link…
http://seat.massey.ac.nz/conferences/biochar/2013%20CD/index.html
You may be aware that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released new assessment reports described as…
- Working Group II – Impacts, Adaptation & Vulnerability
- Working Group III – Mitigation
Today, the NZ Royal Society hosted a stakeholder workshop to help disseminate this information. This day long workshop was broadcast live via the web and can be reviewed in full from here.
Of particular interest to me was the Working Group III assessment report, Chapter 11 Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses which was presented by Dr Harry Clark from the NZ Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Center. This was covered in the 1st afternoon session (from about the 1hr mark in the video presentation). I managed to slip in a question on biochar at ~1:28:00. This was responded to by both Ralph Sims and Harry Clark (1:29:13 to 30:50).
It would be great to get some response to their comments by the biochar advocacy folk in NZ. Also, I’m posting the key biochar text from Chapter 11 for comment from the biochar community at the Biochar Policy discussion group.
Here is a rough transcript of the comments on biochar from Harry and Ralph…
My posted Q was… “I’m hoping to hear some comment on biochar potential in NZ for sequestration” (introduced 1:28:27)
Ralph Sims (1:29:13): “Biochar is an area that’s covered by AFOLU. I would say we have got a biochar research center at Massey…. Sarah’s [McLaren?] involved, I’m involved and we have been looking at not only producing the biochar but integrating it into the soil and how long it stays there. So quite a lot of information is available for …… Harry should maybe comment based on IPCC basis.”
Harry Clark: “Biochar does get a mention in the Chapter [12]. I think it does emphasis that, although there are strong advocates of biochar, there is probably not strong enough evidence base at the moment to make too many assumptions around the potential mitigation potential of biochar. But it does include it for the 1st time and comments on biochar. With regard to NZ, I’m not fully au fait with the work that is going on in biochar. It is my understanding that there is considerable difficulty in the use of biochar in pastoral situations … its a low bulk density material and that transporting it is somewhat difficult. But there does seem to be a little more potential perhaps in cropland. Because the evidence would seem to be…. we all know there are advantages in water holding capacity etc with biochar and there is some evidence that it can help reduce Nox emissions as well. I’m not aware that there are any good studies on looking at the mitigation potential for biochar across NZ agriculture.”
Ralph: “One very quick point… there is biochar and there is biochar… its not a single material. It depends on what its feedstock is, how it’s processed and then there’s soils and soil and there’s crops and pasture… and these interactions we’re trying to get a handle on. We have just had a PhD who looked at life cycle analysis of the whole process… carbon value and how you can trade it but ‘watch this space’ I suppose is the best way to describe it.” (fin 1:30:50)
I’m a bit late finding this… it has a large biochar component. A search on ‘biochar’ here, http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2014/meetingprogramme pulls 60 results. A couple of familiar NZ researcher names in the author listings. It seems there will be a big bump in the biochar bibliography listings in May.
European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014
Vienna | Austria | 27 April – 02 May 2014
Aims & Scope
“The EGU General Assembly 2014 will bring together geoscientists from all over the world to one meeting covering all disciplines of the Earth, planetary and space sciences. The EGU aims to provide a forum where scientists, especially early career researchers, can present their work and discuss their ideas with experts in all fields of geosciences. For the first time, in 2014, the EGU General Assembly will have a theme!”
Kathleen Draper, US CHARector at Ithaka Institute for Carbon Intelligence, has provided this link on the Biochar Farms & Gardens site to a study that should be of interest to the NZ dairy farming industry. This is further reinforcement of the role biochar could and should be playing in future nutrient management in NZ.
Biochar can be used to recapture essential nutrients from dairy wastewater and improve soil quality
Abstract
“Recently, the potential for biochar use to recapture excess nutrients from dairy wastewater has been a focus of a growing number of studies. It is suggested that biochar produced from locally available waste biomass can be important in reducing release of excess nutrient elements from agricultural runoff, improving soil productivity, and long-term carbon (C) sequestration. Here we present a review of a new approach that is showing promise for the use of biochar for nutrient capture. Using batch sorption experiments, it has been shown that biochar can adsorb up to 20 to 43 % of ammonium and 19–65 % of the phosphate in flushed dairy manure in 24 h. These results suggest a potential of biochar for recovering essential nutrients from dairy wastewater and improving soil fertility if the enriched biochar is returned to soil. Also, learn how to manage regular waste material from Dumposaurus Dumpsters & Rolloff Rental website. Based on the sorption capacity of 2.86 and 0.23 mg ammonium and phosphate, respectively, per gram of biochar and 10–50 % utilization of available excess biomass, in the state of California (US) alone, 11 440 to 57 200 t of ammonium-N and 920–4600 t of phosphate can be captured from dairy waste each year while at the same time disposing up to 8–40 million tons of waste biomass.”
Effective waste management is crucial for a sustainable future, and dumpster rentals can play a significant role in this regard. They provide an easy and convenient way for individuals and businesses to dispose of their waste responsibly. By partnering with reliable dumpster rental companies such as Grissman Dumpster Rental, one can ensure that their waste is properly collected, transported, and disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner. Furthermore, to learn more about waste reduction and recycling, one can make more informed decisions about waste management practices and contribute to a healthier planet.
ABE has been posting frequently about dairy, nutrient management and water quality. Try clicking on the following tags to the left of this post: nutrient management; dairy farming; water quality; phosphorus; nitrogen. With this type of research continually being released, its hard to imagine that the biochar story can remain in the NZ media wilderness for much longer.
The NZ Society of Soil Science has advised that they would be interested in receiving participation from the biochar community in their next annual conference. Details here: http://www.nzsssconference.co.nz/
“The conference welcomes participants with all soil-related interests. If there are a sufficient number of abstracts related to biochar we would try to put them together in one session. You are welcome to send information related to the NZSSS conference to your contacts and encourage them to participate.”
And to keep up to date on other national events, the OrganicNZ event calender may be of interest (but I note they have not got NZSSS conference listed yet). Note the Organic Sector Forum at Taupo in June. It would be great to get a few biochar events on their calender.
A new biochar research literature database by Jacob Jeffers has been getting a lot of kudos in the biochar community. I’ve added a link to the Links page.
One of our group members has supplied the following report…
“After consulting with a few international experts and a few knowledgeable local people, we took their cautions seriously and decided to start with a small “open burn” rather than a trench burn which we originally intended. Recently we tried this for the first time on a small scale. The idea was to build a pyramid of wood (the base of ours was about 1 meter square) and light it from the top (rather than the bottom as in a more normal bonfire type burn.) This is called a pyrolysis pyramid, and it is the way charcoal has been made by Jack Daniels for a very long time (they filter their whiskey though charcoal.) As well as lighting from the top there is a need to hose the pile with water in places that it are burning too hot and forming ash rather than charcoal. The trial was successful in that we did end up with a nice pile of good quality charcoal. However to do this on a larger scale is daunting because of the amount of water that would be required to control the burn. Our next plan is to do an open trench burn (rather than covering the trench which is when the risk of explosions apparently increases.) Small cautious steps, and lots of learning along the way. (Photos below).
We’d like to come up with something simple that works on a large scale, and encourage foresters and horticulturists in our area to deal with their waste wood in this way and then enrich depleted soils with the biochar produced. …. a long term goal but one very worth pursuing, especially in light of the latest IPCC report. As you know, there is an urgency not just to cut global emissions, but to actually take carbon out of the atmosphere and lock it away safely for a very long time. Biochar is coming to be seen worldwide as one of the”solutions” to mitigate climate change.
I did watch the video Biochar – The Next Stage In Climate Action on your website and found it inspiring.
Comments on our project very welcome, cheers,
Katerina Seligman, on behalf of “The Renewables, Motueka” “
Opinion: Where is agriculture’s place in a low-carbon economy?
One important focus area for biochar in NZ is water quality butting up against intensive dairy. Maybe this could be addressed in the future with more research on riparian margin biochar applications for P & N management.
Urine patching is another issue that has a biochar solution but how to solve economic issues?
This article has some comment on biochar.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
“Lincoln University Professor of Biogeochemistry Leo Condron has been studying soil chemistry for three decades. He believes there’s “incredible potential” to use land management to alter CO2 and nitrous oxide emissions in New Zealand. Some farm management techniques are now well-proven. Only use as much fertiliser as you need and target it well. Don’t send animals onto wet paddocks. Others seem to have potential. One of Condron’s studies involved applying biochar – charcoal made from waste biomass – to the kind of soil that’s found under dairy land. The result? A “massive” reduction, both in the lab and in the field, in nitrous oxide loss.Biochar doubles as a waste management and carbon sequestration tool as it stabilises and stores the carbon from the materials such as sawdust used to make it. The catch, Condron says, is that the best results in the test came from applying the equivalent of 30 tonnes of biochar per hectare, which isn’t currently practical.“At the end of the day, it has to be economic,” he says. “For individual farmers, it’s never going to be economic for a single farmer to make biochar. How do they make it?””
I think farmers or farmer co-op’s could make their own biochar in the future using farm biomass as & when available. So, if 30 T/ha of biochar is a reasonable number to solve the urine patch / nitrous oxide issue then how do we get there? Some thoughts…
- add slowly, over a number of years
- animal feed supplement
- biogas catalyst for dairy shed wash water recycling
- reseeding mix
- fertilizer mix (organic, biological, NPK-C)
- carbon farming payments
- urea tax (N-tax)
- P&N stripping at sewage treatment plants using biochar for water polishing (‘subsidized’ and pre-charged with P&N for return to the land),
On the first item only: Lets assume supplementary feeding of biochar to dairy cows proves to be good pathway. Ignoring the potential methane reduction and animal health benefits… How long would it take to get 30T/ha thru cows & into the pasture? NZ averages just under 3 cows /Ha so you could say how long to pass 10T biochar thru a cow. Herd homes and feed pads are becoming more common in NZ to reduce pasture impact but the biochar would still end up on/in the soil (some losses). Assuming the herd had access to supplementary feed (& biochar) for 250 D/yr…. If they were feed 100gms /day = 400yrs. Even a 1kg/day = 40yrs and this excludes losses in the system. So what sort of animal feed rates are being considered by the scientists?
My thinking is that this pathway to the soil can only be complimentary to other systems.
But 30T/ha may be more than is needed in many scenarios, anyway?
See also: