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Feb 13, 2010

Biochar South East Asia: Holy smoke (but within faithful emission limits)


"The Terra Preta Prayer

Our Carbon who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name
By kingdom come, thy will be done, IN the Earth to make it Heaven.
It will give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our atmospheric trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against the Kyoto protocols
And lead us not into fossil fuel temptation, but deliver us from it's evil
low as we walk through the valley of the shadow of Global Warming,
I will feel no evil, your Bio-fuels and fertile microbes will comfort me,
For thine is the fungal kingdom,
and the microbe power,
and the Sequestration Glory,
For ever and ever (well at least 2000 years)
AMEN"

Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon - Scitizen


The principal results from the experiment are as follows:

a) Adding biochar at the rate of 10 or 20 tonnes a hectare typically added about 85% to the weight of grain produced compared to the adjacent plot with no fertiliser.
b) This is about the same increase as would be gained by adding both organic and artificial fertiliser to the unfertilised soil. So biochar is as effective at increasing yields as heavy application of fertiliser.
c) If both biochar and two types of fertiliser are added, the yield rises to an average of about 140% of the level without any additions. Biochar therefore substantially increases the food production of land above what would be achieved either with or without added fertiliser.
d) It seems as though the most striking results are found on the poorer soils.
Full data analysis is here and in PDF form on the data page.

These results are preliminary but they show the powerful benefits that biochar might bring to food availability in many tropical soils. Getting heavy doses of char into the soil will be demanding but the great advantage of biochar may be that it only needs to be applied once and its effects persist for decades. The results from the second maize sowing of the year (to be harvested in the next few weeks) will show whether the yields improvements continue.

YouTube - Permaculture - Course


Permaculture philosophy - Yes
Monsanto philosophy - No

Feb 12, 2010

Local Energy Production and BioChar (Charcoal) Fertilizer Can Fix Our Environment!

Could chicken manure help curb climate change? - USATODAY.com
Here's a low-cost solution to global warming: chicken manure.


Widespread on farm adoption of this could provide the right answers to our present problems.
Energy and fertilizer produced locally.
Excess electricity could be fed back to the "grid".
Excess bio-oils and gas from pyrolysis could be sold to local bio-fuel facilities for further refinement and distribution.
Revive local farm communities with more profits staying local.
Decentralized power generation would be help our national security. Now terrorists attacks on large centralized power producing facilities could cause major disruption of service for 1000's of people.
This could BEGIN to STOP our present situation of TRANSPORTING foreign oil, TRANSPORTING fertilizers, TRANSPORTING fuels, TRANSPORTING oil products, ... GREAT DISTANCES from CENTRALIZED facilities 1000's OF MILES from end user.
This would help to RESTORE our AIR QUALITY and SUSTAIN OUR SOILS.