How Biochar Can Help Haiti

We are all aware of the massive amount of suffering Haiti last month during it’s massive earthquake. The images from the destructions were saddening and I hope all of you took the time to donate something to the relief efforts. I thought I’d bring attention to one way in which bio-char stoves are being used to help the people in Haiti. This is a long-term plan but the short-term part is beginning now and lets hope everything runs smoothly so that International Lifeline Fund can help the people of Haiti. Read about here, Lifeline Haiti.

New Website!

Our new website is up and running!!!!!!!! Visit Biochar Gardener to answer all your questions about biochar, how to produce it and how it can help your garden and the world! Information will be continually added so check back often and as always the blog will be here. The site is awesome so explore it and enjoy it!

Europe’s Supergrid

This post doesn’t have anything to do with biochar but I think its a cool (crazy) idea and I hope it works. Nine European countries Germany, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxemborg, Denmark, and Sweden have signed on to create an electricity grid generated by renewable resources in the countries. It sounds difficult but very futuristic and green. I lived in Sweden for a year and found that they get things done with three times the efficiency Americans do when it comes to public works projects. In my mind Europeans tend to be a bit more functional than Americans because they don’t believe in excess. I don’t know if everything will be done by the finish date but they will get this done at least to some extent. More importantly, kudos to them for actually making an effort to reduce climate change.  It’s more than we can say for our country. Check out the article here.

Seattle Biochar Working Group

I came across this blog the other day and found this amazing group working to promote biochar. Read their blog and find out about all their great projects and just over all interesting stuff. Trust me you’ll learn a few things. Happy Friday Everyone!

Biochar Work in Cameroon

This is really good and exciting news about biochar and its possibilities. The Biochar Fund has been working in Southwest Cameroon to increase crop growth through the use of biochar. It is a country that relies on agriculture for food and to see successful results is very promising. Here is a full article detailing the methods and results of the study so far.

Scicitizen article Cameroon article.

Awesome Blog To Check Out!

There is this blog called The Deliberate Agrarian and while it is not as active as it once was there was this awesome post from the blogger about harvesting biochar from his wood-burning stove. Check it out here…

Biochar

I love that he is not only going to use his biochar for gardening but also for other ideas he has. His ideas in general are awesome and its just an overall uplifting blog to read. Maybe he’ll inspire you to start using biochar and help the world.

Keeping up with Biochar

While biochar has been around for thousands of years, (the Amazonians used terra preta for farming) it has only been gaining international recognition in recent years. Companies are creating mechanical pyrolyzers for farmers to create bio-fuel and organizations are testing the success of biochar in developing countries. People are devoting time and money to biochar in the hopes that this could be one of the great solutions to the climate change problem society started. Biochar experimentations are only in their beginning stages, and as these plans grow it becomes more difficult to keep up with the great innovations. Luckily there is a phenomenal website, BioEnergy Lists, where people can post their latest biochar experiments and update people on the conclusion. This helps people decide what methods of creating biochar may work for them and inspire each other to search for a solution.

Have a great day and if your on the west coast stay dry it’s raining cats and dogs here!

From the ancient Amazonian Indians: ‘Biochar’ as a modern weapon against global warming

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Here is a great little article about biochar’s history and its benefits! Enjoy and have a good three day weekend!

via From the ancient Amazonian Indians: ‘Biochar’ as a modern weapon against global warming.

Equitable Mitigation

With the results of Copenhagen (COP15) less than thrilling, there has been much conversation about what should have been done. 

Yasir Assam, a biochar supporter posed this question to Paul Taylor, of Project 540: 

What I’d like to know is this: if we agree that 350ppm is a good target, and taking accumulated past emissions into account, what should Australia’s national annual emissions reductions be from 2010 onwards, on a per-capita basis, using a sensible contract & converge method? What about all the other nations?

Paul’s response was this and feel free to comment on make corrections:

Of view of current and future emissions, but not much from point of view accumulated emissions, which is what the climate is responding to.  As you know, I tend to think things through for myself, so here goes.  This also constitutes a collection of basic facts, and shows in simple conceptual terms the validity of the scientific targets (although the expert science is done at a 1000 times more sophisticated level).  Obvioulsy I would simplify it for public consumption.  I encourage people to follow this through, as it provides a basic conceptual quantified background of how we created this mess, who created it, how we can equitably share the load of getting out of it, and what we need to ask our gov to make happen. Once we embrace an equitable, scientifically relevent plan like this, it will be the most exciting work humans have ever undertaken.

Preamble: ppm=ppmv=parts per million by volume. 

1 ppmv = 2.13 billion metric ton(bt) of C= 7.8 bt CO2

(Conversely 1 bt of C added to atmosphere = 0.5 ppmv 

C02 concentration in 1850 =  288 ppm.   2000 = 369.5 ppm.   2009  = 387 ppm. Current rate of increase = 17.5/9 yrs = 2 ppm/year. Increase of C in atmosphere from 1850 to 2000 = 81.5 ppm x 2.13 = 174 bt of C

From 1850 to 2000 humans emitted 154 bt C from land clearing + 282 bt from fossil fuel + 5.5 bt from cement= 441.5 bt. http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html

Therefore 40% stayed in the atmosphere, 60% transferred to the oceans (where it is doing a LOT of harm) and land biosphere. Currently closer to 50% stays in the atmosphere, and this percentage will increase as the biosphere becomes more stressed.  (We are emitting about 8 bt of C a year, and adding 2ppm/yr = 4.26 bt of C per year to the atmosphere.)

Climate sensitivity is defined as the equilibrium change in temperature for a doubling of CO2.  The IPCC (AR4) best estimate is 3°C (2.6-4.1°C) = 3 deg/280ppm = 1.1 deg/100ppm.  (We have already increased CO2 by 100 ppm, and have already raised temperature by 0.8 deg with at least 0.4 deg more in the pipeline to reach equilibrium – takes a long time to heat a big pot – so I won’t be surprised if the sensitivity is bigger than 1.1 deg /100 ppm).  Therefore if we want to hold the temperature to 2 deg to avoid risk of runaway climate we must keep the concentration increase to 180 ppm, or concentration below 280+180 = 460 ppm.

Depending on where we want to hold the temperature increase, policy makers have gravitated to a 450 ppm CO2 cap (or more), and scientists and environmentalists to a 350 ppm (or less).  For me a safe climate 350ppm = about 1980 level when arctic had not melted much (or less). Excess C in atmosphere = 387-350 = 37 ppm = 37 x 2.13 bt = 79 bt of C

If we want to limit CO2 to 450 ppm then we can only add another 63 x 2.13 bt = 134 bt, so we can only emit another 268 bt.  Recently I saw the figure that we can only burn another  192 bt of fossil fuel to keep to 450ppm. This may be in alignment because it does not include the cement production, land use changes, fires etc which are also adding CO2, and as well there are other ghg which are increasing.

Lets be fair and share the 192 bt amongst the 7 b souls on earth = 27 tons of C per person.  Annual per capita emissions for Australians is 18.7 tons of CO2 or 5 t of C. This means Australians can carry on their party for 5 more years, then they should full stop. Similarly for US, Canada and NZ. Europeans can play for 10 years. Chinese have per capita emissions of 4.18 t of CO2 or 1.1 t of C, so they can play for 25 years, much more time for them to get their house in order than Australians.   Of course a better scenario, and much fairer to the rest of the world, is for the big per capita emitters to put the brakes on now, so everybody has longer time, and more fossil fuel flexibility, to restore the earth and rebuild our energy, housing, transport and food systems.

Do you see how serious this is?  Well its a lot more serious than that, because modeling shows 450 ppm gives us a 50% chance (but I think 100% due to feedbacks) of exceeding 2 deg and entering runaway climate change, and mass calamity.  If the nations that put the existing excess CO2 in the atmosphere would agree to put it back in the ground, then that would give everybody more time.  There are also serious consequences and actions needed re other ghg’s, and I think policy makers are quite confused and naïve about the Russian Roulette, with all barrels loaded, we are playing.

If we are serious about a safe climate we must limit CO2 to 350ppm, so we have to REMOVE 79 bt of C.  One way we could do this would be to cut emissions to sustainable levels, so we have no more increase, and then all nations to remove 79 bt in proportion to their accumulated contribution to present concentration.  Since the US put up 82 bt (1/3 of the global total), they ought to be pulling the lion’s share down.

Lets look first at the sustainable emissions.  If the earth can absorb 3.5 bt per year (I don’t think it is as much as 4 bt, and it will get less) then the allowed emissions per person is 3.5 bt /7 bp = 0.5 t/person = 500kg/person per year.

Australians emit 5 t of C so must reduce 90% or to 1/10. Ditto Americans, Canadians & NZ.

Europeans must reduce by 80% or to 1/5.

Chinese must reduce by 50% or to half

Indians essentially maintain their present per capita, and get more done with it more equitably.

How fast must we reduce emissions?  We have already overshot 350 ppm – the safe climate concentration.  Many scientists think we ought to minimize the time of overshoot, to maximize out chance of pulling back before tipping.  We may only have a couple of decades to get this done.  The more the arctic melts the bigger the forcing due to sunlight absorbed by the dark ocean, and the forcing from this will soon be bigger than anything we can do to compensate for it such as painting roofs white, or C capture etc.  So 90% in 20 years = about 5% per year for Australians, and so on for other countries.  I really think we must reduce emissions 5% per year on a global average.  This means we cut emissions in half in 14 years and we would be sustainable in 20 years, allowing for some mishaps.  Lester Brown’s Plan B calls for this and shows how this can be done.

Unfortunately during those 20 years, starting at 8 bt emissions in 2010 and reducing 5% per year, we will emit another 100 bt of which 50 bt will stick in the atmosphere, so now we will have to pull down 79+50 = 129 bt. We want to do this also in 20 years = 6.5 bt/yr.  The later we start, the bigger the annual emissions cuts we will have to make, and the bigger the drawer down will need to be as well – dramatically so at this point.

How to apportion the draw down? I propose it be proportional to responsibility for the accumulated emissions, but some of those were put there by past generations.  However, we agree that the developed nations had the science to know they were causing climate change by 1990 (nearly half of all emissions occurred since then), signed on then to do something about it, and as well their citizens on the average have the benefit of the wealth built up by their ancestors use of resources.  So the current generation of wage earners largely have the responsibility for, and privilege from, the mess.  Therefore I propose a robust first order approximation is to make the individual responsibility proportional to the accumulated emissions divided by current population of the country they live in, which brings us back to the national responsibility being proportional to the national accumulated emissions.

In the below table, accumulated emissions are listed in billion tons of CO2.  Populations are in millions of souls. The global accumulated emissions is rounded to 1000 bt CO2 (in industrial times) or 272 bt C.  The national share is share of the 129 bt C which must be pulled down, leading to the individual share.

COuntry  bt CO2  Pop in m    National share      Indiv share in t C and t/yr for 20 years

US            303      308          30.3% = 39 bt C     127 t C    6.3 t/yr

UK             54        62            5.4% =  7.0 bt      112 t       5.6

Canada      22        34             2.2% = 2.8 bt        83 t       4.2

Australia    11        22             1.1% = 1.4 bt        65 t       3.3

China         81     1334            8.1% = 7.8 bt       7.8 t       0.4

India          23     1174            2.3% = 3.0 bt       2.5 t       0.12

Global     1000     7000           100% = 129 bt      18.4 t     1 t/yr

On average everyone on earth needs to sequester 1 ton of CA per year! But the individual Australian has a significant responsibility to pull back 3.3 t/yr, about half the US and UK, but 8 times the individual Chinese.  Australians should be thinking of how they can either do this themselves, invest in projects that do it, or demand their gov invest in such projects.  In a previous slide show I showed practises that, combined globally, could pull down 10 bt /yr, including tree planting, land remediation, and biochar.  We need to make them happen at 6 bt per year to keep the climate safe.  Obviously large countries like US, Canada and Australia can meet their obligations more easily. Example Australia has 425 m ha under agriculture. So we would need to sequester 1.4 bt /425m ha or 3 tons / ha of C.  This could be a manageable rate of biochar application, spread out over 20 years, that would improve soil fertility.

If you read this carefully, I think you will see a rational and equitable approach, and actually physically achievable – but time is running out.  There are a few wrinkles to work out such as how the other ghg’s fit in. I rarely see anyone do a comprehensive analysis, but you can see its quite manageable if a team would come from the point of view of embracing solutions rather than inventing excuses and delays. Let me know what you think.

 Links for data:http://timeforchange.org/CO2-emissions-by-country

http://timeforchange.org/cumulative-co2-emissions-by-country

http://www.strom.clemson.edu/becker/prtm320/commons/carbon3.html

International Biochar Initiative E-mail

Here is a copy of the e-mail I received yesterday from the International Biochar Initiative. It was inspirational and tried to provide hope to all of us biochar supporters after Copenhagen turned out to be a failure. I’m sharing it here so that those of you that aren’t members of the International Biochar Initiative will change that now. 

*Biochar Brings Us Hope*

The failure of Copenhagen to produce a strong, binding agreement on climate action is heartbreaking. And yet the thousands of civil society participants who stood in long lines outside the Bella Center, the thousands who demonstrated their passion and commitment outside, and the millions around the globe who followed news of the event, have been mobilized like never before to save our precious planet from climate catastrophe.

A mobilized public can do a lot to combat climate change and sustainable biochar is one of the few technologies that is relatively inexpensive, widely applicable and quickly scalable. Biochar is one of the technologies that gives us hope.

*Help turn hope into reality**.

 *Please click here to join the International Biochar Initiative as a > member and support sustainable biochar.<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=yjxxQACFPM0yzgu68xFt%2Fa84E%2F10XhbF*

 More and more people, at the Copenhagen talks and elsewhere, are > recognizing the promise of biochar and realizing that we can’t afford not to pursue it. IBI Executive Director, Debbie Reed, saw ample evidence of this  increased interest in biochar at the Copenhagen talks where biochar side events were filled to overflowing with enthusiastic participants.

 Many leading climate visionaries have gone on record with their > convictions that biochar gives us hope. Here is what some of them are saying:

AL GORE – *”One of the most exciting new strategies for restoring carbon to depleted soils, and sequestering significant amounts of CO2 for 1,000 years and more, is the use of biochar.”*

 BILL MCKIBBEN – *”If you could continually turn a lot of organic > material into biochar, you could, over time, reverse the history of the last two hundred years…”*

 DR. TIM FLANNERY – *”Biochar may represent the single most important > initiative for humanity’s environmental future….”*  

DR. JAMES LOVELOCK – *”There is one way we could save ourselves and that > is through the massive burial of charcoal.”*

The International Biochar Initiative is committed to nurturing the shoots of hope that biochar promises. Through our programs in research, education, policy and technical support, we will continue to support deployment of sustainable biochar systems around the world that draw carbon from the  atmosphere while improving soils.

 2010 will be another exciting year for biochar.

*Please **click here<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=tMqSPT4enVH1rSWgBysPolTr7nm8fNpX> to join IBI as a member and be part of the adventure and part of the hope!*

Learn more about IBI’s work at www.biochar-international.org<http://org2.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=dkmUKr9U6FqTSUXM28rNDq84E%2F10XhbF>

Many thanks from the IBI Team. Together we can help* Put the Earth Back  in the Black!*