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 … Continue reading
Recommended viewing. A few missed opportunities in the first half for incorporating biochar applications but about 30min in, Dr Todd starts discussing soil formation and biochar. … Continue reading
I’ve been exploring the NZRS website, searching their history on biochar reporting. A search on ‘biochar’ on their website pulls information back to 2007. I list and link some of this below… Oct-2013 – 10. Branch event: ‘Biochar in New Zealand’, … Continue reading
Here is another well made demonstration video on simple biochar production. This relates to another ‘managed combustion’ system – providing much better environmental outcomes than just burning biomass but still wasteful on the energy front. See also: https://soilcarbon.org.nz/biochar-burn-school/ http://biocharproject.org/ … Continue reading
Kelpie Wilson from www.wilsonbiochar.com has led this initiative… “A quick summary of results of experiments in open burn techniques to minimize smoke and maximize charcoal production. Experiments were conducted by volunteers over a 3 day period, November 15-17, 2013, outside … Continue reading
David Yarrow has put out this for comment… http://www.dyarrow.org/adsorb/ If some of this is still too much for your rusty organic chemistry, I recommend checking out this… https://www.khanacademy.org/science/organic-chemistry … Continue reading
This biochar workshop delves deep into the many aspects of biochar production and application. Part 1 focuses on practical production techniques using ‘drum within drum’ retort. There may be some advantages for this over the TLUD system (ie, reduced supervision). … Continue reading
Don Graves’ second article on biochar has just been published in the Nelson Mail… http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/features/lifestyle/going-green/9271729/Biochar-and-soil-carbon-sinks-encourage-soil-first-farming This report was pushed to me via the google search engine so I guess that’s good news for biochar profiling in NZ. Here’s a link … Continue reading
My disagreement with Albert Bates at the Permaculture Convergence last year was his contention that biochar could be a solution to global warming if we just planted enough trees and cut them for biochar. That disagreement touched a range of … Continue reading
I’m not too sure about the title that the Nelson Mail came up with, but its great to see this article in the media. Lets hope its the start of many more. Thanks Don. “In the first of a two-part … Continue reading