"WECHAR" Bill to Develop Biochar Technology
Karl Frogner
090925
Kahalu’u, Hawaii
Aloha kakou-
This from the current IBI news letter may be of interest:
US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Introduces "WECHAR" Bill to Develop Biochar Technology
On Thursday, September 24, 2009, US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, and four cosponsors (Senators Max Baucus and John Tester of Montana, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, and Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico), introduced the "Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration (WECHAR) Act of 2009." The bill establishes a loan guarantee program to develop biochar technology, initiates a program of biochar landscape restoration projects on public land, and authorizes a competitive grant program to fund research on biochar characteristics, impacts and economics.
In the face of climate change, drought is an ever growing problem in the Western US, exacerbated by water-sucking weeds like tamarisk (salt cedar), which can consume 200 gallons of water a day, per plant. These invasive weeds, along with other excess biomass in the form of beetle-killed trees, forests with dangerous fuel loading, and dense pinyon-juniper thickets that have invaded native sagebrush ecosystems, are ideal feedstocks for biochar. For more information see www.biochar-international.org/policy/unitedstates.
Also you might be interested in the revised UBI web page listed below.
Me ke aloha,
-frog
Karl J. Frogner, PhD, OZP
President & Head, Project Development; UB International (UBI)
Project Development Head; Mongolian Biochar Initiative (MoBI)
President, Mu I
47-481 Ho'opala St.,
Kane'ohe HI 96744 USA
Hawaii: 1-808 234-3486