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Biochar. It lasts for at least a couple thousand years, and is considered a long-lasting soil amendment. The presence of biochar creates habitats for those mi

by hosh 5y ago

Biochar. It lasts for at least a couple thousand years, and is considered a long-lasting soil amendment. The presence of biochar creates habitats for those microbes and conserves nutrients, making the soil fertile, even in areas like the Amazon where rainfall normally washes away nutrient accumulations. It can be made with processes that sequesters carbon, both in the charring stage (via gassifier designs optimized towards sequestering) and during the inoculation stage where it can capture greenhouse gases emitted by a compost pile.

throwaway894345 5y ago
This sounds really interesting. Do you have any reading recommendations (links or books)?
- Jenkins2000 5y ago
  I found these videos very interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svNg5w7WY0k&t=5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svNg5w7WY0k&t=5s This is on my to-do list: http://climatechangeacademy.com/courses/carbon-removal/4 http://climatechangeacademy.com/courses/carbon-removal/4 https://bootup.airminers.org/ https://bootup.airminers.org/ I found a lot of information from comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27822694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27822694
- kaybe 5y ago
  I can also recommend this wikipedia article and its surroundings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
- hosh 5y ago
  As others have noted, the wikipedia entry is a great resource. I was introduced to it on this podcast episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/permaculture-for-the-future/id1494403834?i=1000466849140 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/permaculture-for-the-f...
- Jedd 5y ago
  Burn, by Albert Bates and Kathleen Draper (2019) - goes into the multitude of ways biochar can be utilised. It's a bit heavy, but in a good (here's the research that backs us up) way. https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/burn/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/burn/
- brandmeyer 5y ago
  Some studies are quite skeptical. For example, https://asi.ucdavis.edu/news/new-study-biochar-helps-yields-only-short-term https://asi.ucdavis.edu/news/new-study-biochar-helps-yields-... https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0075932 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Some studies even show that biochar soil amendments accelerate the breakdown of humus and release net positive CO2 to the atmosphere: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcbb.12376 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcbb.12376
  - hosh 5y ago
    > However, soil CO2 fluxes were suppressed when biochar was added to fertilized soils, indicating that biochar application is unlikely to stimulate CO2 fluxes in the agriculture sector, in which N fertilizer inputs are common. > Our results showed that biochar application increased soil CO2 fluxes by 43.33% in unfertilized soils, but decreased by 8.61% in N-fertilized soils, consistent with the meta-analysis of Liu et al. (2016). The metastudy did go into detail about N2O and CH4 as well in both fertilized and unfertilized soil.

by hosh 5y ago

throwaway894345 5y ago

This sounds really interesting. Do you have any reading recommendations (links or books)?

Jenkins2000 5y ago
I found these videos very interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svNg5w7WY0k&t=5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svNg5w7WY0k&t=5s This is on my to-do list: http://climatechangeacademy.com/courses/carbon-removal/4 http://climatechangeacademy.com/courses/carbon-removal/4 https://bootup.airminers.org/ https://bootup.airminers.org/ I found a lot of information from comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27822694 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27822694
kaybe 5y ago
I can also recommend this wikipedia article and its surroundings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
hosh 5y ago
As others have noted, the wikipedia entry is a great resource. I was introduced to it on this podcast episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/permaculture-for-the-future/id1494403834?i=1000466849140 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/permaculture-for-the-f...
Jedd 5y ago
Burn, by Albert Bates and Kathleen Draper (2019) - goes into the multitude of ways biochar can be utilised. It's a bit heavy, but in a good (here's the research that backs us up) way. https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/burn/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/burn/
brandmeyer 5y ago
Some studies are quite skeptical. For example, https://asi.ucdavis.edu/news/new-study-biochar-helps-yields-only-short-term https://asi.ucdavis.edu/news/new-study-biochar-helps-yields-... https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0075932 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... Some studies even show that biochar soil amendments accelerate the breakdown of humus and release net positive CO2 to the atmosphere: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcbb.12376 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcbb.12376
- hosh 5y ago
  > However, soil CO2 fluxes were suppressed when biochar was added to fertilized soils, indicating that biochar application is unlikely to stimulate CO2 fluxes in the agriculture sector, in which N fertilizer inputs are common. > Our results showed that biochar application increased soil CO2 fluxes by 43.33% in unfertilized soils, but decreased by 8.61% in N-fertilized soils, consistent with the meta-analysis of Liu et al. (2016). The metastudy did go into detail about N2O and CH4 as well in both fertilized and unfertilized soil.