Joe, you might find it of interest to look up John
D. Hamaker on the net. He was an American
Mechanical Engineer who turned his mind (and
subsequently devoted his life) to improving soil
by the addition of rock dust. He saw global
warming as a precursor to the next ice age. He
saw an ice age as essential refurbishment of the
earth's resources. His argument has a lot of
good solid logioc to it and it's worth adding to
your store of knowledge on the general topic.
If he's proven right, then we're in a lot of
trouble ! If you want to study it further I
have a DVD I made from a tape he produced I could
let you have.
Rock dust is a storehouse of minerals, all of
which are essential to growth. First to plants
and then to the animals which eat them - including
us humans. Rock dust is insoluble to water but
not to enzymes which are produced by soil
benevolent bacteria - bacteria which are present
in soil with good OM and in compost. Many
readers of this string will be aware of it's
benefits when used as fertiliser.
Seeking to remedy climate change purported to be
caused by anthropomorphic global warming is an
extraordinarily complex question. And seeking to
make a contribution by sequestering carbon as
charcoal is in itself another complex range of
issues. The charcoal must be first ligneos
carbon - wood - and it is probably almost as good
to lock up some of that carbon in timber for
building houses or making furniture.
I'd promote the first step by making the
sequestration of the carbon as part of a broader
program of building building soil organic matter
OM. This includes animate carbon as well as
vegetative. At least get it up to 5% to plough
depth, say 10 inches (250mm) as a minimum, aiming
at 20%. That in itself locks away a lot of
carbon, but of a different nature, in that it's
available to contribute to plant growth, growth
without the need for chemical or artificial
fertilisers.
Every 1% increase in soil OM (world wide) would be
a lockup of around 30 billion tonnes of carbon in
a world which generates now (probably) 20 million
tonnes annually. Just for the record, the
biggest emitter of CO2, bigger than every other
agency combined - every factory, airplane, car
truck tractor etc and so on - is the soil of the
earth as it respires. So, the more land we put
down under crop to feed the increasing billions,
the more CO2 we produce and put into the atmosphere.
So, it's a race against a proven runner - so
called mother Nature - and she's a proven stayer.
On the other hand, some of the wise owls are now
saying it's not CO2 at all, but PCB's causing the
damage. Maybe they're right - who knows _for
sure ?_ Nobody I'm aware of despite what they
say. It's all conjecture, some of it soundly
based, but still conjecture relying on historical
info compiled over a geological blink.
Using charcoal and zeolite together is a bit like
wearing belt & braces with self-supporting
trousers. It certainly works !
The easy and less costly way is to just get the OM
into the soil and plant stuff to grow and suck up
all the CO2 and N.
But whatever you do, don't stop the good work.
David Murphy.
On 08/12/2013 12:33 PM, Joe Barnas wrote:
DAVID,
Thankyou for the insightful overview of biochar
and comparative functionality of Zeolite, of
which I was not familiar.
However one thing I am focused on is how to
address catastrophic global climate change and
for that having billions of gardeners
sequestering carbon, while building healthy soil
and hence healthy food is not something that
Zeolite can provide. It is another tool in
growing food, yes, but let's not lose sight of
the long term benefit of promoting biochar. I
might even try mixing some with biochar just to
gain the N adsorption benefits.
On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 2:00 PM, David Murphy
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Greetings Biochar/Gasifier people !
Everybody & his dog seems to have something
to say about
charcoal/biochar/biochar-compost mix and so
on.Well, here's another dog to bark his piece !
Biochar is often seen as the great
agricultural panacea, but _it is
not_.Biochar is a name given to plain
ordinary charcoal to indicate that it is
destined for use in soil improvement, but
basically it is still plain ordinary
charcoal, just crushed into smaller
particles. In some circumstances it is a
very beneficial tool but it is not magical
as some proponents seem to think. Just
remember, all charcoal has a bio-origin - wood.
In some Ag. trials in Australiait
significantly improved crop volume (treble
in one case) but in other instances, nothing
worth writing home about.It depends on what
the soil is like to start with.
Charcoal is stable.That means it does not
take part in any composting system (which is
one primarily of bacterial digestion) and it
is indigestible so that when offered as a
dietary supplement (in poultry food for
example) it passes through the digestive
system physically unchanged but will adsorb
a high proportion of the gases and some
toxins produced in the process of digestion,
because that is what charcoal does. For this
reason, it's adsorption capability, poultry
will generally do better on a little charcoal.
Quite a few pages could be filled on the
beneficial services provided by charcoal as
it travels through the digestive system, but
it does it as charcoal only and as nothing
else. By all means use a little in the
feed, you can only benefit.
The only physical way to change the nature
of charcoal is to burn it. That is why it
lasts in soil (or wherever it is) for
thousands of years.
It has an incredibly high surface area of
360 m^2 (varies) and is a mass of minute
tunnels which in turn means a very high
volume and gases become trapped in these
tunnels.It does not _ab_sorb, it _ad_sorbs
and traps only.The difference between absorb
and adsorb is the same as the difference in
liquids of suspension and solution.Clay
particles will be in suspension, sugar and
salt go into solution.
Charcoal is useful in an aerobic composting
system because again of the entrapment of
air in the tunnels.A composting system goes
well if there is enough oxygen bearing air
available to the bacteria which are a
significant part of the system.The more air,
the higher the population of bacteria (other
factors being OK). The charcoal itself is
inoperative, and doesn't change, nor is it a
catalyst, it simply provides a service. It
will only provide a haven for soil
benevolent bacteria if there is something
trapped in the tunnels which the bacteria
can eat.
Charcoal is a good adsorber of gas and
liquid simply because that is what it
does.Zeolite on the other hand, can have an
even higher surface are per gram and has a
propensity to entrap gases, most
particularly nitrogen in it's various forms
-- as gas -- ammonium for example -- and in
liquids as a salt of NO_3 .It actually draws
them in (like a magnet attracts ferric
objects) where charcoal just takes it as it
comes. It is easy to see also why
charcoal is so effective as a filter, but if
you have a solution rich in nitrogen, run it
through Zeolite and the N will be removed.
Add some to the litter in poultry grower
sheds, there will be fewer mortalities
because the ammonia which sometimes will
asphixiate small birds will be absorbed.
Zeolite will take N out of solution,
charcoal will not. There's 40 natural
forms of Zeolite and more than another 150
can be synthesised, so choose carefully for
the one most appropriate to your problem.
Zeolite can perform an amazing range of
actions. Once used and applied as
fertiliser, Zeolite subsequently will
release the N slowly and remain in the soil
as a balancer of N. Too much, it will take
it in (so that the soil pH is not lowered)
and release it as required.
Charcoal's great stuff though, it's easy to
make and holds answers to a lot of problems
- but not all !
David Murphy.
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--
Joe Barnas
Portland, OR
541-525-1665
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