Biochar -- Putting the carbon Genie back in the bottle: Rob Lerner at TEDxSanMiguelDeAllende (2013)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ต.ค. 2013
- Biochar: Putting The Carbon Genie Back in the Bottle
Rob Lerner is a biologist, environmentalist, and entrepreneur. A veteran of several start-ups, his business experience spans renewable energy, technology development, and other areas. He is a practicing sustainability advocate, green homebuilder, and biochar philanthropreneur, engaged in biochar project development in chosen hometown of San Miguel de Allende, and in sustainable agroforestry enterprises in Latin America.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
Thank you very much for this presentation. I am now 150% inspired to finally find the steel drums to make this in Chiapas where the forest was logged 30 years ago. It seems to be an essential addition to the soil for the tree nursery as the soil I have available from the high country is devoid of fertility. Maybe inoculate it with manure tea. Biochar is also useful for water purification which is how I ended up here. Bravo.
Bravo! Well spoken. Sequestering carbon while increasing crop yields and keeping waste biomass out of landfills. Mixing biochar with compost is a plus!
The problem is...elevated level of CO2 will increase yield far more than biochar.
I make biochar everytime. I use my little BBQ burning sticks and branches I store over a few months in my shed. I also throw these in my worm farm to be charged before adding it to my garden or pot plants.
Building stuff and burning things! That's what got my foot in the door.
The promise of biochar technologies gets richer and more divers every day. Studies underway in Japan and Alabama US using biochar to remove radiation from soil and ground water.
biochar, invented or perhaps discovered by the people of the Amazon rainforest, and used extensively by them in the clearings they made in the forest to grow root crops. First seen by europeans when portuguese explorers and soldiers mapped the river, and noted that the natives cultivated areas where they deliberately created and prized a special soil they called 'black earth'. The portuguese found settlements every few hundred yards all the way along both sides of the river in the 16th century and reckoned the population of the amazon basin at that time to be more than 10millions. Unfortunately, they brought with them diseases such as cholera, diphtheria, measles, influenza and the common cold. Just 100 years later, the amazonian population had been reduced to just a few tens of thousands, mainly those living in isolated settlements in less accessible reaches of the river, most of their settlements had fallen into ruin and been swallowed up by the encroaching forest, and 'the black earth' had been largely forgotten.
That is what he said so why repeat it? He also said it was the biochar that made it so fertile but that is not true. Biochar contains no nutrients but it absorbs nutrients from its surroundings. The biochar was in nutrient rich biomass. It is the absorbed nutrients not the other nutrients in Terra Petra that provide the fertility not the biochar itself. Biochar acts as a container to hold nutrients but has no nutrients itself. it is like putting a plastic container with fertilizer in the garden with holes so the fertilizer can leak out. Is it the fertilizer or the container that provides the fertility?
Dusty appreciate your reply, all except for your example of BioChar being like a plastic bag with holes.
Brilliant talk! I had never even heard of Bichar before! Hope to see it grow in awareness.
Be careful what you hope for. There is much more to it than these propaganda vids show. There is way more negative than positive and the motive is insidious.
@@dustystahn3855 can you expound upon this? What is bad about it other than one needs to charge it with ferts before using?
I have been watching about biochar all day today. When will these biochar containers or ways to cook be for sale? People are teaching how to make them. There is the caveat that the biochar containers do not last very long. Not out of paint cans or barrels. I would like to know where to buy one.
We shalimar Biotech industries is the first Biochar plant in MidleEast
Rob missed several boats in this presentation 1. Mass agriculture spoils the land with chemical fertilizers40 % goes into the atmosphere and water ways 2. Mass ag. promotes glysophates which further deplete all life. It is commonly used as a desicant for all crops currently. 3. Terrre prete was a sanitation system. The nutrients in human waste ( chemical free waste ) used the minerals in a closed loop system we hardly could replicate - but he ommitted the fact. Small scale backyard biochar and gardens are a survival stradegy today. The climate will always keep changing regardless of sequestration. Read the carbon connection by Leonard Rizdon and dig deep into soil science.
Great, but can someone show the best way to apply bio char to the soil and how much?
Why destroy all the good nutrients in the biomass and all the beneficial living organisms on it to make biochar and then leach the nutrients out of more biomass. Why not put both batches if biomass on the soil and let the living organisms build your soil like Nature and good soil builders do? This act as a slow release fertilizer. You could compost the biomass for easter release. There is nothing biochar can do that biomass can't do better.
Those crops with and without biochar added are in poor soil. If fertilizer had been applied to the plots without biochar, the crops would have been the same. This has been proven in other tests. Also demonstrated is plots with good soil with lots of organic matter and abundant soil life produce more than any biochar plots.
Biochar is an inert substance and does nothing to feed the soil life or to build soil. Biochar acts like a battery. It is a storage container for a charge and has to be charged and as the charge is used it has to be recharged? What are you going to recharge it with? You could use synthetic fertilizer but that kills soil life and harms the ecosystem. That leaves biomass. All you have achieved is destroying the nutrients in the biomass you made the biochar from and lowered the nutrients all the biomass used to charge and recharge the biochar.
Don't believe me or anyone else and test it yourself.
@@dustystahn3855 Biochar lasts 100s or 1000s years in the soil giving microbes a safe place to live at
@@dustystahn3855 it keeps nutrients from washing away with rains, like the issues one has in the rainforest. The cation exchange ability of biochar is higher than activated charcoal, and far higher than what one can get from using years and years of compost. Biochar isn't a one solution miracle, but it definitely has some good pros for nutrient retention.
First, inoculate it so it's full of nutrients. Best to grind it up, but it will break down over time. Opinions vary on thickness but 5-10% is a good start. Just spread it like compost ... which it is, sort of.
Biochar is made from waste wood, not compostables. When you put compost in the soil, it's carbohydrate and burns up in a matter of years. I've done it and keep doing it, and can't keep up. I just turned a big pile of tree branches into biochar and got 40 gallons of it in a few hours' work. We'll see how the garden does next year. I didn't get paid for sequestering the carbon, unfortunately.
Hello fellow Intro to HLT classmates :)
What's with the video title? What genie? What bottle?
Lots of science in this presentation. BUT, I haven't seen a single scientically-controlled field study that show biochar increases crop production or plant health in a normally healthy soil. I've seen some that show biochar improves production in barren soils (but then, wouldn't any amendment to a barren soil improve production)? The scientific hypothesis about biochar is appealing but remains unproven.
There are scientifically controlled field studies but you won't see them in these biochar propagation videos because they show biochar is not needed. In normally healthy soil with abundant soil life out produce biochar amended soil. In any less fertile soil adding fertilizer gets the same results as adding biochar.
Hello Dusty Stahn, could you please share some of these papers that disprove biochar? (just the titles)
I just found out about biochar and I am fascinated (and a bit skeptical). But so far I couldn't find any paper that shows the inefficacy of biochar in the long run.
Thanks.
@@AdairGalloJunior It's been a year and no reply from "Dusty Stahn"...maybe HE works for Monsanto LOL!
Doug H. Nuts Hi Albert Bates’s book BURN has interesting uses for BioChar beyond agricultural uses; more ways to benefit life. I learned a lot reading the book, first was the use and depletion of building sand...
Having worked on and off in the Orchid Industry for nearly 50 years, many of us Orchid Growers have used BioChar in hundreds of different types of Orchids and I have to say, whether added to Epiphytic plants, like Cattleyas and Phaeleonopsis that grow primarily in Bark or Ceramics, or, in Terrestrial Orchids that use a mix similar to Soil, like Cymbidiums, the BioChar almost always gets a response in the first growing season! Orchid growing conditions in potting usually cause Nutrients to leach out quickly; the use of BioChar Moderates the conditions in the growing medium used. Because of this, you can usually cut down on the amount of Fertilizer used, generally in Half or more, and cut down on the Number of Applications in a Growing or Blooming Season. Plants also seem to produce more Flower Spikes, more Blooms per Flower Spike, Flowers Last longer, and the overall Vitality of the Plant is Increased! Why, because the Roots that are generally Tender and Burn are now growing quite Robust! I have personally witnessed this effect on Orchid Varieties that were grown Outside (Southern California Coast), in a Hot Humid Hothouse, Hot Dry Dessert Hothouse, Wet and Dry Greenhouses, all growing conditions benefited! Fun fact: when Orchids are Cross-Polinated to create a Hybrid, the tiny seeds are grown in Aseptic Conditions in Flasks, sometimes for several years, in a Mix of Agar, Extremely Picky Nutrients for the plants, and yes you got it, quite a bit of Extremely Pure BioChar, it is that important! Also, at the end of 3 to 5 years of Growth, when it is time to Repot the plant, the Old Broken Down Orchid Media, containing BioChar, is thown into the Vegetable and Fruit Tree Gardens, and turned into the soil, there is more of an effect on the Garden Plants when BioChar IS in the Old Media than Not! Remember, in Plant Science, you're trying to create an 'Ecosystem' that is in 'Balance' producing what that Plant Needs! If you do Everything Correctly, BioChar will help. The Caveat: If You Do Things Correctly! Agriculturalists are like Surgeons: some are Artists, while some are Butchers...
cool talk, but as with TED talks, be careful
what happens if charcoal absorbs nuclear radiation? anti-radiation or even keep radiation longer?
which if a disaster occurs all farmers must dispose of their charcoal that has been planted for decades at a very high cost.
Biochar gets buried in the soil. Fallout lies on a thin layer on top. If it's that bad, we've got bigger problems.
"carbon negative is plant positive" - what a joke. Plants love CO2 as well as carbon in the soil. The reason biochar is good is because it can help you make good soil out of poor soil
lost me at "global warming" ..... LIBERALS!!!!!