The benefits of improving their soil should be enough to persuade some farmers to make and bury biochar.
ECONOMIST: Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well
And if sequestration by biochar is deemed sensible, there remains the question of how, exactly, to go about it.
ECONOMIST: Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well
Indeed, Kelli Roberts, another researcher at Cornell, told the meeting that, taking all factors into account, growing switchgrass for biochar may do more harm than good.
ECONOMIST: Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well
That would mean working out how much of what kind of biochar counts as a tonne of CO2 sequestered, and would also need a lot of policing.
ECONOMIST: Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well
Christoph Steiner, of the University of Georgia, reported that biochar produced from chicken litter could do the same in the sandy soil of Tifton in that state.
ECONOMIST: Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well
And the process of making biochar also creates beneficial by-products.
ECONOMIST: Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well
The claims for biochar are not supported by all, however.
ECONOMIST: Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well
Moreover, soil containing biochar releases less methane and less nitrous oxide than its untreated counterparts, probably because the charcoal acts as a catalyst for the destruction of these gases.
ECONOMIST: Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well
This would include advanced land use management strategies to protect or enhance land carbon sinks, and the use of biomass for both carbon sequestration (including biochar) and as a carbon neutral energy source.
But it is the idea of using biochar to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere on a semi-permanent basis that has caused people outside the field of agriculture to take notice of the stuff.
ECONOMIST: Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well
And David Laird, of America's Department of Agriculture, showed that biochar even helped the rich soil of America's Midwest by reducing the leaching from it of a number of nutrients, including nitrate, phosphate and potassium.
ECONOMIST: Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well
According to Julie Major, of the International Biochar Initiative, a lobby group based in Maine, infusing savannah in Colombia with biochar made from corn stover (the waste left over when maize is harvested) caused crops there to tower over their char-less peers.
ECONOMIST: Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well
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