Char-B-Que: Carbon Negative Backyard Cooking
What is this picture all about? Read the whole Char-B-Que story and find out.
Author: Jock Gill
0 comments permalink | Jock Gill | Agriculture, Climate Change, Culture, Energy, Technology
What is this picture all about? Read the whole Char-B-Que story and find out.
Author: Jock Gill
0 comments permalink | Jock Gill | Agriculture, Climate Change, Culture, Energy, Technology
On the path to a Carbon Negative Future –
Marissa, a newly minted 2canologist at Shelburne Farms, has just lit about 4 pounds of softwood pellets in the TLUD [Top Lit Up Draft] stove she has just built. In about 75 minutes, this will turn into about 1 pound of biochar suitable for experimenting with.
For [...]
1 comment permalink | Jock Gill | Agriculture, Climate Change, Empowerment, Energy, Technology, Vermont
John Gray’s current essay in The New Statesman is a strong argument for inventing Modern Era 2.0.
“… The reality, which is that western power is in retreat nearly everywhere, is insistently denied. Yet the rise of China means more than the emergence of a new great power. Its deeper import is that the ideologies [...]
0 comments permalink | Jock Gill | Climate Change, Culture, Politics
On November 14th, I was able to run a batch of year old grass tablets
made in a BHS Energy Slugger through a TLUD stove designed by Paul S.
Anderson [Dr. TLUD] and assembled in India.
This shows that we can extend the range of options for the carbon in
grass biomass to include carbon negative solutions such as [...]
0 comments permalink | Jock Gill | Agriculture, Climate Change, Energy, Technology
Trees and grasses are approximately 50% carbon.
The critical question at hand is simply this: Can the carbon captured by photosynthesis and converted by pyrolysis to stable agricultural charcoal, Biochar, properly inoculated with minerals, microbes, fungi, etc, be used today to:
1. improve soil quality & crop yields? Are our soils at an optimum carbon content level [...]
2 comments permalink | Jock Gill | Agriculture, Climate Change, Energy, Politics, Technology
Dear Friends,
After much expansion and refinement, the final copy (Version 2) of the “All Biochars…” paper has been released back to the NABC (NorthAmerica Biochars Conference, Boulder Colorado, August 2009) for inclusion in their proceedings.
As such, the final version of this document, provided in two formats. One is in MS Word ( .doc ) and [...]
1 comment permalink | Jock Gill | Agriculture, Climate Change, Economy, Energy, Technology
1. What Is Biochar
2. Biochar Can Be Carbon-Negative
3. Environmental Benefits of Biochar
4. Leading Climate Scientists Talk About the Biochar Solution
5. Biochar Production
6. International Biochar Initiative [IBI]
These PDFs print very well in either color or B&W and make excellent 8.5 x 11 hand-out “posters”.
Note: I would like to thank Lopa Brunjes for sending me [...]
0 comments permalink | Jock Gill | Agriculture, Climate Change, Energy, Technology
2 comments permalink | Jock Gill | Agriculture, Climate Change, Community, Empowerment, Energy
Biomass solutions should be clean, affordable, feasible, practical and simultaneously provide as many of these benefits as possible:
1. improve soil health & create compounding increases in annual food production by sequestering in the soil carbon extracted from the atmosphere by photosynthesis then captured in stable form by pyrolysis.
2. improve the conditions and viability of [...]
1 comment permalink | Jock Gill | Agriculture, Climate Change, Community, Energy
What I would at like to see are Community Supported Energy projects, CSEs, modeled after Community Supported Agriculture [CSAs]. A CSE, operating within about a 5 mile radius, would convert locally sourced biomass into fuel for carbon negative heat for local buildings. The biochar produced by the heating systems would then [...]
2 comments permalink | Jock Gill | Agriculture, Climate Change, Community, Economy, Energy