BioEnergy Lists: Biochar Mailing Lists

The Soils Lab at UC Davis has put together an Online Biochar Database
http://biochar.ucdavis.edu/

he UCD Biochar Database has been established to present an online resource of biochar physical and chemical characterization data. The database exists only as resource, with the specific objectives to:

• provide an open-access tool for end users interested in biochar as a soil amendment to examine and compare data for a variety of biochar feedstocks;
• provide a reliable resource for academics and researchers by distinguishing between peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed data;
• provide a user friendly site for sharing biochar characterization data; and
• provide a mechanism for biochar manufacturers to present the characterization data of their biochar products to potential end users.

Find them on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/UCDavisBiochar

Kelpie Wilson has been playing with the Japanese Cone Kiln for Biochar see the latest on her site: http://www.greenyourhead.com/

She's finding that the Cone Kiln is easier to use than the alternatives and it produces more char too.

in her words:

I love my Japanese Cone Kiln. ... It is basically just a cone-shaped fire ring - a truncated cone. All you do is start a small fire in the bottom, and once that is all burned to glowing coals, you add small stick wood or branches on in layers. Each time the wood gets black and starts to ash, you add another layer. The layers underneath continue to cook out tar and gas, but they don't burn because air is excluded. When the cone is full you quench it with water. If you like, you can throw a grill on it and cook your dinner before you put it out.

Meghana Rao attends Jesuit High School and spoke to President Obama about Biochar in the 2013 White House Science Fair

From Tom Miles:
John Miedema and I have been mentoring her biochar projects for about three years. She did her basic research as a high school freshman at Oregon State University under Dr. Markus Kleber with a graduate student in soil science. She won regional competitions and went to the nationals in the Intel Science competitions as a Freshman. She presented that work in Kyoto in 2011 and at Sonoma 2012. That is also the work she described to the President.

http://2012.biochar.us.com/sites/2012.biochar.us.com/files/presentations...

Last summer she did an internship at the Joint Bioenergy Institute at Berkeley. http://www.jbei.org/

WHEN:
Monday, June 10, 2013
9:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

WHERE:
University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture
3501 NE 41st St., Seattle, 98195

For more information:
http://climatesolutions.org/programs/NBI

The Northwest Biocarbon Initiative is galvanizing the region’s top biocarbon innovators – farmers, foresters, community leaders, and thinkers – to demonstrate the essential role that natural systems can play in reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to ensure long-term climate stability.

Method One

From Kelpie's Web site: Green your Head
http://www.greenyourhead.com/2013/04/making-biochar-in-burn-piles.html

Since she wrote the article below, Kelpie discovered another way to make biochar from the brush pile, it's a little easier to do if like me, you get sprinkled on by rain while you're burning your pile.

There are some real Jewels in the Ithaka journal's article 55 uses for Biochar

http://www.ithaka-journal.net/55-anwendungenvon-pflanzenkohle?lang=en

Mr. Schmidt makes a good point that biochar provides more value when it's used for other purposes before it is worked into the soil, and then he does a nice job of laying out the pathways to do so.

One of my favorites

Cascading uses of biochar in farming with animals.

Perchigation is a means of creating a shallow aquifer using biochar for irrigation.
The advantages are:
It is highly suitable for semi-arid and arid areas to prevent evaporation of water.
Prevent water going deeper into the aquifers there by the ultimate water reaching the plants is limited.
Some of the advantages in this system.
Biochar would absorb the water and other soil nutrients from losses.
The harmful pesticides and chemicals from the soil are taken by biochar
The rainwater is harvested in the ‘biochar aquifer’ created.
The water can be recycled through recovery.
The water gets purified due to biochar in the areas where polluted water is used for irrigation.
Carbon sequestration.
Highly suitable for the cultivation of vegetables, tubers, cereals, chillies, cotton, etc.
Suitable for adoption in the fields, green houses, polyhouses, etc.
For details see: http://perchigation.blogspot.in/
____________
For any suggestions and comments contact: Design by Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy, saibhaskarnakka@gmail.com http://e-geo.org

Good straightforward video - small scale system for making biochar from pellets.

Also watch Biochar video 2 for improvements to the system:

Tips on the Korean farming techniques he mentions can be found on the web site: http://www.prokashi.com/videos/

The Soil Fertility Project is an interesting project that attempts to use biochar to address soil fertility and climate change both in Wales in weed eradication projects.

In the Indian project ( http://www.soilfertilityproject.com/Soil_Fertility/Indian_Project.html). The participants started by using the Anila stove to product biochar, but found that it was unworkable. Now they are using a digestor to process wet waste, get some energy, and use the slurry for fertilizer. They are also using a small BiG Char unit to process green waste into biochar.

James Cook University in Australia are working on a research project where biochar is specifically mixed in at an early stage of the composting project, COMBI-mix, to determine the impact on carbon sequestration and model the impacts on the agricultural impacts.

direct link:
https://plone.jcu.edu.au/researchatjcu/research/tess/Projects/australia/...

TESS project leader: Michael Bird

More information about the International Biochar Initiative Standards and Testing effort:
http://www.biochar-international.org/characterizationstandard

The pdf of the current standards:
http://www.biochar-international.org/sites/default/files/Guidelines_for_Biochar_That_Is_Used_in_Soil_Final.pdf

NW Biochar Producers Map in Google Maps

View NW Biochar Producers Map in a larger map

The European Biochar Research Network and Cost have put together a

Map of European Biochar Projects and Trials

View Biochar Research in Europe and COST network in a larger map

http://www.lrrd.org/public-lrrd/proofs/lrrd2411/leng24199.htm

In their study in Honduras, the authors carefully mixed rice hull char (made in a TLUD stove) with cassava chips and foliage and fed that to cattle, while doing a careful control, and measuring the health of the cattle as well as their methane emissions. The results are encouraging.

Twelve local “Yellow” cattle with initial live weight ranging from 80 to 100 kg were assigned in a completely randomized block design to a 2*2 factorial arrangement of four treatments with three replications. The factors were: biochar at 0.6% of diet DM or none; and potassium nitrate at 6% of diet DM or urea at 1.83% of diet DM. The basal diet was cassava root chips fed ad libitum and fresh cassava foliage at 1% of LW (DM basis). Sodium sulphate and sodium chloride were added to the diet at the rate of 0.4% and 0.5% in the DM. The trial lasted 98 days following a 21 day adaptation to the diets.

Antioch University's Seattle campus is hosting two more weekend workshops in making Biochar:

• November 17 and 18, 2012
• April 27 and 28, 2013

In the last workshop in August, AUS students and alumni made 6 biochar stoves out of 55 gallon drums.

They used himalayan blackberry and reed canary grass as feedstocks and made some biochar that they use dot amend the soil around several of the cherry trees on the farm. This would be a fun workshop to learn about making and using biochar.

For more information visit the Antioch University web site:
http://www.antiochseattle.edu/2012/09/workshops-make-biochar-as-part-of-...

Eric Debner for Iowa State Daily.com

In his article Biochar an Investment in Soil, Mr Debner briefly describes biochar, and describes it as in soil amendment that can help restore fertility and improve crop yields in damaged soils. That's a nice description, and the full article is a good introduction to the topic of biochar.

From the Ithaka journal, "Biochar in poultry farming "
http://www.ithaka-journal.net/pflanzenkohle-in-der-geflugelhaltung?lang=en

This is a practical article that provides simple advice for using biochar to help manage disease in commercial poultry operations. The authors point out that many birds end up spending time in direct contact with their manure and suggest blending 5-10% by volume biochar into the bedding or silage used to in the coops and poultry houses can help the birds resist diseases in addition to helping filter the ammonia and reducing the impacts of the bird wastes.

The primary article also gives specific recommendations for using biochar in feed to help prevent intestinal diseases, and they recommend the following studies:

Jason advocates for biochar, growing your own food, and buying locally manufactured goods as ways to reduce total carbon impact of our activities.

Kansai Corporation of Japan has developed an Automated Rice Husk Carbonizer to create biochar out of rice husks. Rice husk charcoal has been used in Japan to improve soil fertility, to improve plant products and filter and retain nutrients in the soil.

http://www.biwako.ne.jp/~kansai/e-pr-carbo0.html

MASS Laboratory has been working with Bartlet Tree Experts on an series of plot tests, and field tests to study the use of biochar in caring for trees, particularly urban street trees.

MASS Laboratory has a great description of the work here:
http://www.masslaboratory.org/arbochar---arboriculture-and-biochar.html