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We
Gather,
Celebrate
...
USBI 2012 Conference and 2013 Conference
Proposals
The Sonoma
Biochar Initiative and the
Sonoma Ecology Center will
host on July 29 - August 1,
2012.
 Let
the celebrating begin!
Hurry up and register, for
heaven's sake! The Sonoma
Biochar Initiative and the
Sonoma Ecology Center in
Sonoma County, California,
along with a number of other
partners, will host the 2012
national USBI Conference on
July 29 through August 1,
2012.
Sonoma
Biochar Initiative's Oren
Wool says, "The 2012
conference will bring
together growers,
entrepreneurs, investors,
scientists, policymakers,
policy analysts, engineers,
producers, users, and
students on the topic of
biochar."
Here
is the registration
page. SBI expects the
Conference to attract as
many as 400 attendees from
North America and
International destinations.
For additional information,
visit the SBI website at http://sonomabiocharinitiative.org/
Meanwhile,
because of the great
interest in these
conferences, we are going to
be doing this annually
instead of every two years.
Our plan is next year's 2013
host will be at this year's
conference to meet everyone
and see how this celebration
is done. To contact us
about being the 2013
conference host email us at
ask...@biochar-us.org.
The rfp can be found at RFP 2013
USBI Conference
__________
Interviewing
Biochar Pioneers
Three
of our pioneers are
spotlighted here: Kelpie
Wilson, Erich Knight and
Jeff Wallin.
KELPIE WILSON
Kelpie Wilson's
sustainability focus was set
in the 1970s. Challenged by
that decade's oil crisis,
her ambition was to develop
high mileage vehicles. She
started out as an auto
mechanic and then became a
mechanical engineer. But
her search for renewable
energy slammed into the
reality of the Reagan
administration. She was
soon running what she calls
"the 1990s best known
grassroots forest protection
group in the West," the
Siskiyou Regional Education
Project. Another brick
wall, the second Bush
administration, found her a
columnist for Truthout. As
a journalist, she went to
Australia to cover the first
IBI biochar conference, then
called agrichar.
It was May of 2007. She
says there was a lot of talk
about the ancient terra
preta soils of the Amazon
but "what convinced me early
on was the other soils I
knew about." Prairie fires
formed the rich black carbon
soils of the Midwest over
thousands of years. The
prairie grass smoldered deep
in the root zone without
oxygen, creating the same
effect used today in
pyrolyzers. A similar
result is found in the
Russian steppes in the
chernozem soils there, she
says. Her report on the conference
provides an introduction to
the excitement still
building around the world
about biochar.
Wilson says she tried making
biochar in "little
pyrolyzers and then I was
really hooked." She likes
the many different scales of
use for biochar and marvels
at the amount of waste in
our culture that can be used
to make biochar. She sees
more and more
decentralization ahead of us
and a better way of life.
Her motto is "small is
beautiful," but she wants
big business to get involved
in biochar too.
She now works for the
International Biochar
Initiative (IBI)
as Project Development
Director. IBI's current
work on establishing
guidelines for biochar as a
product will speed
development of biochar. She
invites everyone to join IBI
and experience the new
membership system with
social networking features
on IBI's home page.
Together, she says, we can
build a sustainable future.
ERICH KNIGHT
Erich Knight is the
connector of biochar
people. Kelpie calls Erich
the "poet laureate of
biochar."
Erich says Australian
atmospheric scientist Peter
Read coined the term
"biochar" about six years
ago when what Knight calls
the consilience began. By
that he means an agreement
between different academic
areas on approaches to
carbon. Biochar became the
center of scientific
disciplines working on
carbon sequestration, soil
remediation of contaminated
sites, soil rebuilding,
agricultural enhancement,
the microbiology of the
soil, modern pyrolysis,
thermal conversion, biofuels
and nano-level technology,
among others, he says.
For Knight, biochar brought
together "all the threads of
my life." He began
coordinating a network of
those interested in
biochar. The invaluable
aggregated news and
communication appears at http://groups.google.com/group/se-biochar.
It began as a once a week
service and is now hitting
10 to 20 times a day in
service level. He says
available peer reviewed
articles are growing
exponentially.
"Although Japan and
Australia are leaving us in
their dust," overall, he
says, he's happy with the
U.S. progress. He sees
Europe as the proving ground
for the growing industry.
The U.S., on the other hand,
has only three biochar
products approved by the
USDA and an EPA and USDA
carbon board working on
protocols, he adds.
Knight says he's happy that
"people at least are
beginning to get beyond
the idea that biochar is
just burning stuff." He
points out that he has Jeff
Wallin and Doug Guyer of
EcoTechnologies to thank for
funding his efforts from the
beginning.
JEFF WALLIN
Jeff Wallin is the
co-founder of The Biochar
Company, located outside
Philadelphia. His area of
expertise is finding money
to achieve success in this
start-up biochar industry.
He's had to do it twice. In
2008, like the rest of the
country, it became an
illiquid market, which means
assets became hard to
convert to cash and credit
froze.
Now, he has the third and
fourth iteration of
technology set up for his
second run for biochar's
future. His company has the
North American license for
the Australian company's
Black is Green (BIG)
pyrolysis system. It is a
continuous flow, mobile,
modular setup that can be
seen here.
Hawaii and Alberta each will
soon have a Biochar Company
commercial operation setup
of this system.
Also, The Biochar
Company has joined the
Whole Foods "Youth-Trade"
initiative as one of the
ten founding companies.
The Biochar Company's
trademarked product to be
carried by Whole Foods is
called Soil
Reef. That product
is an organic, farm-based
compost with worm castings
and sustainably-sourced
biochar. Those ingredients
are blended, aged and
packaged to introduce
people to the concept of a
nurturing soil reef.
Wallin says he's been
"opening up the gates
because so few others were
doing it and it needed to
be done." The Biochar
Company is doing a cutting
edge, sustainable whole
system approach to project
development. (To see
Wallin's co-founder Lopa
Brunjes do a youtube
presentation at
TEDxBerkeley go here.)
__________
World Ag
Expo
Biochar
was there
Several biochar
organizations and companies
attended the 45th annual
World Ag Expo in Tulare,
California February 14-16.
It was a solid square mile
of industrial agriculture
exhibits surrounding a 40 by
80 foot fabric dome (from
Fabra Dome) of biochar
activism. Red Garner of
Rugged Biochar in Idaho
started the biochar ball
rolling and Tom Miles
(thanks, Tom!) sponsored
USBI's attendance with
Gloria Flora and Amanda Joy
Ravenhill (Bay Area Biochar
Association) working the
crowd.
Inside the dome, visitors
faced an
attention-getting, massive
wood chipper and a 10 x 30
foot mural of the Instructional
Tech Center's (ITC)
pyrolysis unit. Tom
Grisson from ITC was there
to explain the unit.
Biochar chemist Frank
Shields' display was
there, featuring his Bay
Area soil control lab for
biochar analysis.
A description of his
testing for IBI is found here.
Jeff Wallin from The
Biochar Company was on
hand to answer questions
and energize the crowd.
Also present was Matt
Banchero from the Sonoma
Biochar Initiative. Matt
provided information on
the USBI Conference in
Sonoma, CA this summer,
July 29 - August 1. (See
first story above.)
Phoenix Energy, http://phoenixenergy.net/powerplan
, was next around the
dome. That company sells
biochar and designs and
builds small scale (.5 to
2 MW) gasification power
plants integrated with the
electrical grid. The
company pyrolyzers are
fueled by biomass (wood
waste, agricultural waste,
or other biological waste
products).
Blue Sky Biochar's Michael
Wittman (http://blueskybiochar.com/)
sold a biochar soil
supplement, organic and
pelletized.
Trip Allen of Biocharm
sold
trademarked pre-charged
biochar soil amendments.
Pre-charged means it has
nutrients added.
Valerio
Navarro of Living
Elements stopped
by for a day. She uses
biochar in her green
roofs and urban
landscaping projects.
Her low water use
plants, potted in wood
blocks enhanced our
exhibit space.
This event is billed as
the largest ag expo in the
world with more than 300
exhibitors and maybe
100,000 visitors for the
three-day event. Although
not a presence like the
monster John Deere
machines parked in a
several-block-square area,
biochar held its own.
We Study ...
Josiah
Hunt, a TEDx presentation
A
clear biochar explanation
from Hawaii
Here
is a recent video, an
outstanding presentation
from Josiah Hunt in Hawaii.
Thanks Josiah! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWbomZJn83U&list=PL2265233C053DA476&index=3&feature=plpp_video
__________
Hal
Collins at
the University of Washington
The
ARS/USDA focuses on
biochar.
Hal
Collins, a soil scientist
with the USDA Agriculture
Research Service, describes
himself as "inquisitive."
Mustachiosed, blond,
green-eyed, this West coast
scientist focuses on
below-ground productivity.
"Biochar, as a soil
resource, is handicapped
right now by a lack of
available product," says
Collins. He looks forward to
biochar becoming more
mainstream, so the
availability of biochar will
grow.
He anticipates climate
change will become more
discussed and biochar will
help with that because it is
a recalcitrant carbon, a
very stable way to sequester
carbon and will help the
world with dealing with
climate change.
Two areas of research have
captured his attention.
First of all, he says, one
study looks at how
herbicides are mediated by
biochar. Atrazine, for
instance, is retained and
immobilized by biochar.
This herbicide, widely used,
for instance, in central
Wisconsin where potatoes are
grown, has reached the
groundwater there. Biochar
would help protect that
groundwater. Secondly,
Collins describes the
research on manure lagoons.
One study has a 4000-cow
Washington state dairy farm
using its anaerobic digester
to obtain methane. It then
sells the electricity it
creates with the methane.
The remaining fiber in the
manure is pelletized, made
into biochar and put back in
the manure lagoons where it
removes 32% of the
phosphorous. That biochar
is then used as an
alternative for phosphorous
fertilizer.
Pretty slick, hey? Collins
points out that soil
activity is the most complex
interaction known. And
biochar provides a home for
the micorrhizal fungi that
form a major part of the
soil. A teaspoon of soil,
he says, has more than 4000
genomes, more than all of
the animals on the African
Serengeti.
__________
Jim
Amonette at the Department
of Energy
Climate
change and biochar are his
passions.
Jim
Amonette, one of the
earliest U.S. leaders in
biochar, works as a soil
chemist with the Department
of Energy at the Pacific
Northwest National
Laboratory in Washington
state. He has a passion for
biochar, calling it one of
the few things that will
help lower the carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere.
Climate change has his
attention.
He says today's public
opinion is definitely at a
tipping point, one that
needs attention in the next
ten years, hopefully, the
next five years. He draws
an analogy to the state of
American public opinion
before Pearl Harbor over
whether to join Europe and
Asia in a war against the
Fascist states. With the
attack at Pearl Harbor, the
great debate in America
ended and American public
opinion became focused on
winning WWII. The
mobilization was phenomenal.
That level of mobilization
needs to happen again to
fight climate change, he
says.
The insurance companies are
well aware of the problem as
they see the increase in
violent storms and the
changing world climate
conditions. The big banks
also know about this as a
tipping point, he says. It
is, he thinks, only a matter
of time before public
opinion and those interests
prevail over the fossil fuel
interests. But that will
that change come in time to
make a difference? "Here's
the deal," he says.
"There's a race between 1)
a sudden disaster involving
climate change that might,
for instance, involve
Greenland ice blocking the
Gulf Stream and freezing
Europe, and 2) a slower,
more sinister change that
involves the release of
methane stored in ice at the
bottom of the oceans." The
sudden disaster would likely
mobilize public opinion in
the same way that Pearl
Harbor did and give us some
chance of winning the
fight. Amonette is hoping
it doesn't get to the slow
change because with ocean
methane release, there is no
way to stop it and the
resulting 10 to 15 degree F
increase in earth
temperature would likely
persist for hundreds of
thousands of years.
For biochar's role, Amonette
visualizes setting up a
dozen field sites globally,
working to develop the best
pyrolysis processes and
biochars from local
feedstocks, and then testing
them for crop responses and
environmental impacts on the
soils located at each site.
In less than a decade, we
would know where and how to
implement biochar for
maximal effect, he says. He
thinks biochar will work
well to improve yields from
highly leached, acidic soils
in the Amazon, parts of
Africa, and the SE part of
the U.S., and is ideal for
high-value vegetable crops
in California, Australia and
parts of China. He will be
attending the IBI biochar
conference in Beijing and
considers understanding how
biochar interacts with soil
to be cutting edge work in
soil chemistry.
Sustainable biochar is the
goal, he says, using waste
materials as feedstocks. In
addition to improved soil
fertility and CO2
sequestration, biochar will
also prevent mass migrations
and support social
stability. The trick is to
change the productivity of
the soil so that there is a
more rapid payback in
productivity that will
encourage economic movement
toward biochar.
Amonette doesn't know what
it will take to focus
Americans. You can imagine
him scrunching his
six-foot-tall, thin body
towards you and squinting
his hazel eyes. Maybe it's
"a road to Damascus kind of
thing," he says. "It has to
hit Americans, like it hit
me in 2005; it's a
conversion of thinking."
Here's a link to a biochar
article by Amonette and his
co-workers Dominic Woolf,
Alayne Street-Perrott,
Johannes Lehmann, and
Stephen Joseph: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v1/n5/full/ncomms1053.html
We Test ...
Josh Kearns on
drinking water, pesticides and
biochar
The
University of
Colorado-Boulder has
research on pesticide
removal from drinking water
using biochar. This is a
follow-up, including a video
and a handbook.
In
response to the October 2011
newsletter, USBI got an
email from a PhD candidate
at the University of
Colorado-Boulder. Josh
Kearns is in Environmental
Engineering for Developing
Countries there and, in an
interview, reports that he
has been doing research on
biochar for household water
treatment.
The
resultant biochar reduced
the common pesticide 2,4D
levels in water to 3 or 5
micrograms per liter from a
100 micrograms starting
level. He makes the point
that U.S. levels of 70
micrograms and International
levels of 30 micrograms per
liter are the standards for
drinking water levels of
2,4D contamination. He
considers 3 or 5 micrograms
a highly successful result.
Kearns
says NGOs and missionary
groups in developing
countries are "generally
blind to chemical
contaminants in drinking
water," concentrating
instead on pathogens. He
says, after using the
biochar he proposes in the
simple filter system, it is
then buried as a soil
amendment.
He
has worked in Thailand in
the Burma border area since
2006. He says four thousand-year-old
Sanskrit documents describe
the use of charcoal for
purifying water for
religious purposes. He and
his colleagues like the
local, low-tech
environmental quality of
these simple filter
solutions to contaminated
drinking water.
Unlike his simple solutions,
he says the "activated
carbon" in commercial
drinking water purification
products usually uses
chemicals, lignite or
bituminous coal to create
"activation" on an
industrial scale.
He
shares a wonderfully clear
video on production of gasifier
biochar to be used for
water filters. He also
provides a link to a handbook
that is found on the Aqueous
Solutions website.
__________
Other
resources:
There
are a number of research
papers available from
Cornell University and other
scholarly sources on the
USBI website:
http://www.biochar-us.org/links.html
World-wide,
the interest in biochar is
heating up,
http://www.biochar-international.org/
USBI Newsletter
Archive:
June 2011
USBI Newsletter
August
2011 USBI Newsletter
October
2011 USBI Newsletter
December
2011 USBI Newsletter
February
2012 USBI Newsletter
YOUTUBE
Here are
youtube biochar
presentations by Gloria
Flora from March 2011
(Please consider sharing
your biochar photos/videos
on this new youtube channel;
use our website or this
contact email to talk with
us about that):
What is
biochar?
Who
thought of biochar?
Biochar
done sustainably
Also, there is
a EcoTechnologies Group
video on youtube from
September 2010 showing a
biochar trip to the Amazon
that includes climbing down
ladders into Terra Preta
pits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQqoIWyAwgk
Here's a
wonderful BBC video of Jason
Aramburu, CEO of re:char and
a member of USBI's advisory
board, in W. Kenya talking
about biochar:
http://www.horizonsbusiness.com/episode/show/episode/14#playlist/90
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