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 [...]

On Tuesday, the Obama administration issued its Open Government Directive. It calls on Federal Agencies to publish data that had not been previously available and to use open formats that can be more easily downloaded, searched and analyzed.
It also called on Federal Agencies to create portals, in the form, http://www.agency.gov/open and http://www.whitehouse.gov/open [...]

People who delve into the world of biochar pretty soon find themselves learning a whole lot about soil. Soil, contrary to the Industrial view of the world, is not, it turns out, a simple dirt substrate we act on. To get a glimpse of the biological view of soil as a dynamic living organism [...]

Grown in Cape Cod’s Sandy Soil, Amended with Biochar

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 [...]

Friends,
What do you think of adding Google’s Friend Connect to this site?
Also, for those readers who have Google Wave accounts, should we start a Greater Democracy Wave as well? How would that compliment the blog?
Lastly, what role, if any, does Google Voice have to play on Greater Democracy? Could all three find a [...]

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 [...]

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. 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 [...]

As we develop near zero net energy houses with no furnaces, can we start replacing strongly carbon positive fossil fuel powered thermal energy systems with carbon negative alternatives?
Here is one possible path.
We can convert biomass, such as:

Wood chips from beetle killed trees in Colorado.
and turn them into this:

Biochar
In a system such as:

Biochar 1000 prototype [...]