This is from the American Chemical Society journal via a press release. After making a bunch of this, I’d be tempted to have a “BBQ summer”.
From the ancient Amazonian Indians: A modern weapon against global warming
Scientists are reporting that “biochar” — a material that the Amazonian Indians used to enhance soil fertility centuries ago — has potential in the modern world to help slow global climate change. Mass production of biochar could capture and sock away carbon that otherwise would wind up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Their report appears in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology, a bi-weekly journal.
Kelli Roberts and colleagues note that biochar is charcoal produced by heating wood, grass, cornstalks or other organic matter in the absence of oxygen. The heat drives off gases that can be collected and burned to produce energy. It leaves behind charcoal rich in carbon. Amazonian Indians mixed a combination of charcoal and organic matter into the soil to improve soil fertility, a fact that got the scientists interested in studying biochar’s modern potential.
The study involved a “life-cycle analysis” of biochar production, a comprehensive cradle-to-grave look at its potential in fighting global climate change and all the possible consequences of using the material. It concludes that several biochar production systems have the potential for being an economically viable way of sequestering carbon — permanently storing it — while producing renewable energy and enhancing soil fertility.
DOWNLOAD FULL TEXT ARTICLE
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es902266r
More clarity on Trerra Preta do Indios here.
It seems to have been powdered before use in the soil which would have greatly increased its surface area.
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Talking about barbecues and their fossilised fuels doesn’t help the giddy state of the climax-fetes.
I guess it’s just me — a bad cold, and hardly the wee, wee drams of Glen Breton.
But why does the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file get funnier every time I go through it? This time it was the falsified WMO values.
Could this stuff be (re)published? Sans exact incriminating effluence, of course.
Probably, somebody’s beat me to it — hardened copy.
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“From Probe International:
Who is cashing in on carbon credits? Probe International unveils its interactive carbon credit database: To help keep track of dealings and hold accountable parties that are buying and selling these carbon credits, Probe International has created an interactive Carbon Credits Database. The database provides a comprehensive list and associated documentation of all the projects around the globe that have received carbon credits through the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). ”
Backgrounder: A Roundup up of Carbon Fraud Reports
http://www.probeinternational.org/carbon-credit-watch/backgrounder-roundup-carbon-fraud-reports
Terra Preta is totally different from charcoal briquettes and slash and burn approaches. Slash and burn doesn’t have a lasting effect. Terra Preta actually is incredibly more fertile and deep and has remained so for hundreds of years, so far. This stuff has been dug up and exported from South America. They only recently realized that it was actually man-made and shockingly, a good thing. There are vast swaths of it around formerly settled area where, otherwise the soil is the typical poor tropical soil. They really don’t know how it was made, especially on the large scale it is found but it is unanimously ubersoil. Google it and be informed.
That previous link did not seem to work. It is good essay, just bypass the ‘saving the planet’ part http://www.bidstrup.com/carbon.htm .
The landmark book on terra preta is:
William I. Woods, Wenceslau G. Teixeira, Johannes Lehmann, Christoph Steiner, Antoinette M.G.A. WinklerPrins, Lilian Rebellato (eds.) 2009. Amazonian Dark Earths: Wim Sombroek’s Vision. Springer; 1st edition (December 1, 2008). 504 pages.
http://westinstenv.org/histwl/2009/02/21/amazonian-dark-earths-wim-sombroek%e2%80%99s-vision/
Amazonian dark earths are carbon-rich soils developed by ancient civilizations in what was once thought to be a pristine wilderness. Dedicated to Dutch soil scientist Wim Sombroek (1934-2003) who was the first modern investigator of terra preta, Amazonian Dark Earths: Wim Sombroek’s Vision is a compilation of the latest, cutting-edge studies in this fascinating and important multi-disciplinary field.
Biochar is not the solution to global warming. The globe is not warming, CO2 is not a significant driver of global temperatures, and biochar is not made from fossil fuels. Biochar is a part of the natural, organic, carbon cycle. There will never be enough man-made biochar produced to make a detectable difference in atmospheric CO2.
Terra preta has other charms, though. The most significant finding from terra preta research is the reconstruction of human history. Historical human influences over millennia have dramatically altered the distribution, frequency and configurations of biological communities and ecological settings in Amazonia and on every continent save Antarctica.
Rather than a pristine, untrammeled, unoccupied wilderness, Amazonia has been home to people for thousands of years. The residents were agriculturalists who modified soils in order to grow corn (maize), squash, beans, fruiting palms, gourds, pineapples, cotton, arrowroot, and many other cultivated fruits, nuts, tubers, and fibers.
There is no such thing as pristine wilderness. “Wilderness” is a modern conceit, a Euro-centric myth without foundation in the real world, grounded in ignorance and cultural bigotry. Wilderness designation leads to abandonment of stewardship and the subsequent destruction of history and heritage as well as natural resources.
The wilderness myth is rooted in conquest and genocide, reinforced by nineteenth-century romanticism. The only thing wilderness designation protects is cultural delusion.
A far better approach to our heritage landscapes would be realization and study of the ancient human-environment relationships and a renewed commitment to stewardship. Instead of abandonment of our landscapes to ignorance and holocaust, perhaps we could begin to intelligently care for our forests, savannas, and prairies once again. After all, human beings have been the caretakers of this planet for thousands of years. We need to understand and accept our heritage and concomitant responsibilities.
Two of the three lead authors are at Cornell, which is all fine and dandy because so much great work is done there to improve agriculture around the world. Such a shame, however, that AGW and carbon panic has infiltrated useful disciplines such as soil sciences. Of course, research always in part about following the money.
Somewhat OT: But I am not surprised. Ithaca is a veritable haven for eco-wackadoos. Cars are sin (in theory, unless it’s a 1985 Volvo and it runs on vegetable oil), and Gaia forbid a tree or shrub be pruned, let alone cut down without an emergency meeting of the city’s Communist Council and dozens of letters in protest to the newspapers. And damn if they didn’t stop Wal-Mart, at least for a few years, by suing to prevent “viewshed pollution”.
I am 100% in favor of conservation of natural resources, for clean air, water and soil. These things benefit humankind right now, in the real world. Enriching soils with natural, non-toxic substances is a Good Thing, but must everything good for Mother Gaia be done in the name of preventing the scary-tale land of CAGW?
/rant
“biochar” … {groan}
So I guess that means that Pennsylvania is in line for AGW mitigation funding for converting all that evil coal in Centralia into biochar.
The charcoal particles are porous so they retain water and nutrients which would otherwise run off. The carbon and such increase the soil diversity which seems to help control pathogens. Watering less often and using less fertilizer and fewer pesticides could save a lot of energy and money if it works. I don’t think that over sequestering of CO2 would be a problem as there are lots of places where carbon gets locked away over time and we seem to get by. We could always start burning much more coal if things get too icy.
It needs more study but it sounds promising.
It is interesting to note that some of the first Spanish explorers of the Amazon reported a huge, rich native population. Only a few years later other explorers brought this report into doubt, as few natives could be found.
Although the Spaniards carefully lifted their horses over the ship’s sides and into the water, where they swam to shore, they just tossed the pigs overboard to fend for themselves. The pigs followed the horses, and tended to follow the explorers as they dumped trash from campsite to campsite. The pigs dumped pig manure, diseases, and were killed and eaten by the natives. In all, European diseases are credited with something in excess of an 85% kill ratio.
The Amazon replanted itself, and global warming went away. Or at least, the Little Ice Age started soon thereafter.
IF (big if) Terra Preta was the agricultural soil of preference in the Mississippi Valley -instead of drenching the soil with ammonia and DAP, it is very likely that the huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico would dissipate. Then, thank you Dr Lehmann, CO2 would be adsorbed by the active gulf waters and plankton, and you would be vindicated. Cargill (Mosaic) would be pissed.
I agree with Sharon and also with Lucy. This is very interesting material. To have it spattered all over by including the global climate change connection is a shame. I hate it when that happens.
I want to pump as much CO2 into the air as possible. But if you must make me go on a CO2 diet, then let me sequester tons of the stuff BY LETTING ME USE PLASTIC BAGS. Now theres lots of carbon we used to sequester. Handy little buggers too plastic bags. PET bottles come a close second.
So according to this article, we are going to sink carbon by burning this carbon first. So if we sink as much as we dig up (as coal), we should be ok? Gluck with that.
We know that the Amazons were not as primitive as they are now. They traded with the Inca, made pottery and clothing. The naked savages beloved of the greens are poverty stricken survivors of plague, slavery raids and civil war. The conquest of the Inca destroyed their major trading partners cutting them of from supply’s of cotton, medicinal herbs and markets for their pottery and plant products. The Spanish intentionally cut off the trade routes to force dependency on Europe and to stop surviving Inca nobles from recruiting in the low lands.
The Amazonians seem to have refined slash and burn to produce biochar based agriculture. You can’t farm smoke. However the practice seems to have been very difficult to do under stress from war, slaver raids and economic isolation.
Green house may be a bust making biochar much less significant. However anything that enhances soil will sell and any technology that makes tropical soils leach nutrients slower will be very significant. They need to lower the cost further and make their machines mobile.
I’ve studied human ecology and biofuels. We will see a rationalisation in that field because of the demise of AGW but these industries will not disappear. There’s also peak oil to consider.
The Terra Preta civilizations are not welcome in current worldviews. They imply wholesale human manipulation of the Amazon basin and lead to the conclusion that the Amazon is just an overgrown garden abandoned not long ago.
I understand volcanic scoria typically makes a good source of time-release fertilizer after it has been crushed to -1/4 inch and mixed into the soil. The natural minerals it contains dissolve slowly over time, releasing critical nutrients to nearby plant. Since scoria is highly porous, maybe this beneficial form of carbon, biochar, could be injected into the pore spaces of scoria upon formation, thereby using the scoria as a binder or delivery mechanism that would give a double benefit to the soil. The biochar might even help retain critical elements in the soil as the scoria breaks down through natural weathering and root action.
Several folks have puzzled over what makes charcoal different from char and from coal. It’s really pretty simple: It is part of each.
Kingsford charcoal began as part of Ford Motors, IIRC, and they take some powdered coal and some wood (sawdust) and press it together then char the whole thing.
Yup, Ford. It was a way to use up the wood scraps from making Model T’s:
http://www.kingsford.com/about/index.htm
And:
http://old.cbbqa.org/wood/Kingsford.html
Lists “mineral char” and “mineral carbon” but further down translates that part of the ingredient list to antracite coal …
Sharon (18:14:43) : Cars are sin (in theory, unless it’s a 1985 Volvo and it runs on vegetable oil),
What about my 1980 Mercedes Diesel running on vegetable oil? Does this mean that when I over rev it while floored and leave a trail of soot I’m improving the health of our soils? (I often run on bioDiesel, so it then ought to be, technically, “bioChar”… then again, oil is supposed to come from living things, so is regular Diesel soot also bioChar? The possibilities here are endless. “Save the Soil, drive a Mac Truck”. “Don’t deplete your dirt, get a new Peterbuilt!” …
FWIW, in the Central Valley of California up where Anthony lives they grow a lot of rice. For decades THE best treatement for rice stubble, by far, was to burn it off in the field (kills several diseases and pathogens and accellerated the minerals back into the soil). Then they would plow in the char and ash prior to re-planting. Then that process was banned (open burning) and they went to towing large propane burners behind tractors (less smoke / smog but a lot less char too). Don’t know what they do now. At the same time / era they would prune the peach trees and burn the trimmings in the field, then plow in the resultant char / ash. That, too, was banned due to smoke.
Hmmphf. Hundreds or thousands of year old, apparently wise, farming practices forbidden due to non-farmers not liking it. Go figure… Oh well, we can import peaches from Mexico or South America I guess…
(No, I’m not a farmer. Yes, I grew up in farm country with farmers. Yes, I am an avid gardener. And I attended an “Ag College”. No, I didn’t like the smoke much – but it did give the place “character” along with a funny smell 😉
If you want to know how to farm, grow food, improve soils, and generally run a managed ecosystem: Ask a farmer.
If you want to know how to destroy productivity and soils, damage an ecosystem, reduce food availability and raise prices: Ask a politician for help with “an environmental issue”.
Sorry, but that is what I’ve observed in over 50 years of watching farm country. (One of the nuttiest ones I ever saw was the poisoning of a lake to kill of an introduced game fish because it threatened the bass population. Said bass being itself an introduced species in California… I forget if it was White Bass or Stripped Bass, but one of them…)
I’d be burning my yard waste and adding it to my garden, but the common practice of “leaf burning” from when I was a kid now gets you a large fine and /or trip to jail. Oh, and the fireplace can only be used on… on… well, on some limited days when somebody or other decides it’s ok, maybe. Oh, fond memories of the days when Mum introduced the California neighbors to the joys of a Guy Fawkes day bonfire in the back yard. Had darned near a 4 foot high pile of wood and stuff… bigger than that around by a lot. Such fun 😉
The post by Mike D. is most enlightening. On an historical note, the discovery of terra preta occurred by William Denevan in the 1960s and was studied in detail by archaeologist Clark Erickson in the 1970s. Erickson found evidence of Amazonian agriculture (and civilization) in the 1970s, and the reaction to his findings is another example of ‘noble cause corruption’ in science that I give in my 2007 book, Science and Public Policy: The Virtuous Corruption of Virtual Environmental Science (which also covers the Hockey Stick controversy and the existence of a small clique of scientists in it). Erickson’s findings did not fit the accepted mythlogy of a ‘pristine Amazon’ and was dismissed as being politically inconvenient. Some irony here, if biochar turns out to be useful for managing climate change risks!
The relevant passage (referring to those who supported the old ‘climax community’ view of ecology) is:
What is even more surprising is the extent to which their myths of nature were put forward as science, especially the view that nature consisted of a long-term, harmonious balance. Take for example, this statement by Wilson in The Diversity of Life (1992: 205-6): ‘The historical circumstance of interest is that the [tropical rain] forests have persisted over broad parts of the continents since their origins as stronghold of the flowering plants 150 million years ago.’ The persistence of tropical rainforests is an assumption for which there was little enough strong evidence at the time, but it has since been found to be mythical in nature. Rather than having been tropical rainforest for 150 million years, for example, parts of the Amazonian rainforest appear to be perhaps 1,000 years old, and to have grown over a system of raised fields, irrigation canals, fish weirs, settlement mounds, roads and causeways and other anthropogenic features constructed between about 100 BC and 1100 AD, first described in the 1960s by geographer William Denevan and studied in detail by archaeologist Clark Erickson from the 1970s (Erickson, 1988).
The conventional wisdom was that the alternating scorching sun and annual inundation in the Amazon rendered the region incapable of sustaining large civilisations, and farming is certainly difficult even with modern agricultural technology. But the past civilisation has clearly been underestimated, and used a system of mounds and canals to provide irrigation in the dry season and drainage in the wet season. Yet despite the evidence provided by Erickson and his colleagues, there was resistance to the idea of a once-populous Amazon, with environmentalists pushing the ‘pristine myth’ and natural scientists ‘literally yelling’ at him when he gives talks at the Field Museum in Chicago. Worse still for the catastrophists, it appears that the rich black soil (‘terra preta’ to locals, or terra preta de índio— anthropogenic dark soils – to soil scientists) regenerates even when mined and might be the result of deliberate human inoculation with a bacterium (though this much is speculative). What is widely accepted, however, is that the soil is anthropogenic in origin.
As is often the case with science, this view was dismissed as ‘revisionist’ by a senior established scholar, Betty J. Meggers of the Smithsonian Institution. It was slightly worrying that Meggers, relied on outdated sources in defending the old view in relation to findings by Heckengerber et al (2003) supporting Erickson. In arguing that ‘Other observers deny the possibility of intensive agriculture in the region,’ (Meggers, 2003), Meggers cited publications from 1977 and 1983, predating the revolution which has followed Erickson’s work, which was not triggered until he completed his doctoral dissertation in 1988. But Meggers provides an insight into what motivates her adhering tenaciously to her view in a paper in Latin American Antiquity, where she states that not only is the revisionist assessment in conflict with the evidence (a valid argument, though not one now widely shared), but that it ‘provides support for the unconstrained deforestation of the region’ (Meggers, 2001).
Many years ago, I read a book on swithen agriculture in the upper amazon basin and the eastern woodlands of the US. The main point of the book was that these ecosystems supported many more times the current populations before european agricultural and land tenure patterns were established. The vast majority of land cleared in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s in the eastern woodlands has now reverted back to forest. The thin forest soils were quickly depleted after clearing and burning, forcing families to move West for better opportunities.
Swithen agriculture used a strictly managed rotation system that maximized the resources of the forest ecosystem, giving the native populations a sustained abundance of agricultural goods, forest products and wild game. (It is theorised that the devastating epidemics that followed the first european explorers left remaining populations unable to maintain forest management, which may explain why Hernando De Soto’s descriptions of the american south differed substantially from what later explorers and settlers found.)
I have not read much of the terra preta literature but the description of the charcoal being found in thin layers would seem to support the idea that the native inhabitants used a rotating swithen agriculture that could still be found in some areas of the amazon basin thirty years ago. Nothing magic or mysterious.
Now, I wonder if terra preta soils can be found in the eastern US?
kadaka (15:38:01) : your description of making charcoal in earth pits/mounds is exactly how the Amazonian made it and the pits have been found in the Terra preta areas.
What interested me in the documentary I saw on this soil was not the charcoal. They showed a man who was taking soil from a terra preta area to the depth of 2 feet leaving 6″ of the soil above the base of normal clay soil. The soil he removed would grow anything you planted into it as he sold it to local farmers.
But he would the wait for 10 years and return to the same plot where he could remove another 2 feet of terra preta soil. In other words this soil was so alive it grew down into the plain clay soil.
That is the significance of this soil and it didn’t have this property entirely through the addition of charcoal even though it must play some role. There must be some powerful bacterial processes going on and in my opinion this charcoal in agriculture is a distraction from the actual mystery of this soil!!
Some one must have the bacterial properties of this soil but they don’t appear to have any thoughts of sharing it with us even though it could regenerate all the top soils throughout the world!! Yes – I’m suggesting there’s a conspiracy going on!
E.M.Smith:
As you well know by now, we are likely entering a Dalton Minimum, if not even a Maunder Minimum repeat. There will many more citrus freezes in Florida, and I am sure even Brazilian oranges will suffer. I propose we go back to grove heaters, and even the old smudge pots.
It was not unusual in the 60s to pile up old tires to dose with fuel oil and burn during freezes. The huge thermoclines of black smoke kept the groves from cooling off at night.
Cancer wasn’t a problem, because there weren’t so many people around. Maybe if we did this again it would drive a few people back out of the state!
As an Engineer who has worked in Nuclear, fossil power (coal/gas) and refinery work…I’ve seen this sort of stuff OVER AND OVER AND OVER again.
I wish we could track down these people and move them all, to say, SOUTH DAKOTA and let them live there for say, 100 years.
Plenty of sun. Plenty of WIND, plenty of BIOMASS.
I’m sure, when we investigated their remains after about, say, 5 years, we’d know just how “realistic” these proposals are. Wait, stop, the plains “Indians” DID exist on these means. Ah, yes, silly me…I forgot about the remains of their “great civilization” left in the Dakotas.
Slap me silly with a dried buffalo chip!
Max
janama:
See http://www.amazon.com/Bacterial-diversity-pristine-forest-Western/dp/B000PC0KDU/ref=pd_cp_b_2 This small $4.95 book apparently discusses the rich microbiological mix responsible for dissolving the char and the bone matter (source of phosphorus.)
I don’t know anything about these bacteria, but it is interesting that the plant acids expressed by root hairs are the strongest acids known to man, and can actually dissolve silica and quartz.
thanks for that Engiiner 😉
Engiiner – Amazon wouldn’t sell it me because I’m in Australia but I found it here
http://www.ambientenet.eng.br/TEXTOS/SOILBIOLOGY20073.PDF
This coking process also has a great deal of promise as a means of dealing with the massive amounts of manure from hog and chicken confinement setups. Instead of breeding plagues of flies, and presumably avian flu someday, it would become a profitable commodity for the producers, and might help reduce the drainage of the Oglalla aquifer by holding more moisture in the soil.