Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
9:30 am – 3:30 pm
Stephen J. Warner Conference Room
Illinois Sustainable Technology Center
This symposium is an opportunity to learn about the latest biochar research in the Midwest, exchange ideas, and discuss ways to collaborate on future projects. The symposium will feature presentations on biochar production, properties, and use in agricultural environments.
This event is sponsored by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, a division of the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It is free and open to the public.
However, registration is required. There will be a cost of $12 for the catered luncheon, or you may bring your own lunch. For those wishing to join us for the catered sandwich/salad buffet luncheon (includes beverage and dessert), please fill in the appropriate box on the registration form. All registrations are due by Wed. August 25, 2010.
Please e-mail Nancy Holm (nholm@istc.illinois.edu) with any questions
Global climate change and uncertain fossil oil reserves are two major energy, economic, and environmental challenges of our time. Fossil fuels as non-renewable energy resources will eventually be exhausted in the foreseeable future due to finite reserves and rapidly increasing energy demands of modern societies. Also, there is growing scientific consensus that the current climate change is attributed to the large emissions of greenhouse gases associated with the extensive use of fossil fuels.
Scientists at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) are exploring an innovative way to off-set fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions: using pyrolysis at low temperatures to convert waste biomass into valuable products.
Biochar can be used as a fuel or as a soil amendment. When used as a soil amendment, biochar can boost soil fertility, prevent soil erosion, and improve soil quality by raising soil pH, trapping moisture, attracting more beneficial fungi and microbes, improving cation exchange capacity, and helping the soil hold nutrient. Moreover, biochar is a more stable nutrient source than compost and manure.
This event is sponsored by the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center, a division of the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It is free and open to the public. However, registration is required. There will be a cost of $12 for the catered luncheon, or you may bring your own lunch. For those wishing to join us for the catered sandwich/salad buffet luncheon (includes beverage and dessert), please fill in the appropriate box on the registration form. All registrations are due by Wed. August 25, 2010.
Please e-mail Nancy Holm (nholm@istc.illinois.edu) with any questions
ISTC’s biochar studies include: production of biochar from a variety of waste biomass, characteristics of biochar, biochar for sustainable agriculture, and potential environmental implication associated with biochar use. For more information on ISTC’s biochar research, or if you are interested in exploring biochar production at your facility or establishing collaboration on biochar research, please contact Dr. Wei Zheng.
Please e-mail Nancy Holm (nholm@istc.illinois.edu) with any questions
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Pingback by Illinois Sustainable Technology Center Biochar Symposium « Chicago … college university — August 20, 2010 @ 2:07 pm
For those looking for an overview of biochar and its benefits, These authors have done a very nice job of distilling a great deal of information about biochar and applying it to the US context:
US Focused Biochar report: Assessment of Biochar’s Benefits for the USA
http://www.biochar-us.org/pdf%20files/biochar_report_lowres.pdf
NASA’s Space Archaeology; $364K Terra Preta Program
http://archaeologyexcavations.blogspot.com/2010/08/time-traveling-via-satellite.html
This is the finest explanation I have read on the process of biochar testing. Hugh lays it out like medical triage to extract the data most needed for soil carbon sequestration. A triage for all levels of competence, the Para-Medic Gardener to the Surgeon Chem-Engineer.
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/Characterizing_Biochars
To me, in the long run, the final arbiter / accountancy / measure of sustainability will be
soil carbon content. Once this royal road is constructed, traffic cops ( Carbon Board ) in place, the truth of land-management and Biochar systems will be self-evident.
A dream I’ve had for years is to base the coming carbon economy firmly on the foundation of top soils. My read of the agronomic history of civilization shows that the Kayopo Amazon Indians and the Egyptians were the only ones to maintain fertility for the long haul, millennium scales. Egypt has now forsaken their geologic advantage by building the Aswan dam, and are stuck, with the rest of us, in the soil C mining, NPK rat race to the bottom. The meta-analysis of Syn-N and soil Carbon content show our dilemma;
https://www.agronomy.org/publications/jeq/articles/38/6/2295
The Ag Soil Carbon standard is in final review by the AMS branch at USDA.
Read over the work so far;
http://www.novecta.com/documents/Carbon-Standard.pdf
In my efforts to have Biochar’s potential included, I have recruited several to join the list, briefed the entire committee about char when issues concerning N2O & CH4 soil GHG emissions were raised, fully briefed a couple of the 100 members when they replied individually to my “Reply all” briefs. The members cover the full spectrum of Ag interest.
With the Obama administration funding an inter-departmental climate effort of NASA, NOAA, USDA, & EPA, and now even the CIA is opening the data coffers, then soil carbon sensors may be less than 5 years away. I’m told by the Jet Propulsion Lab mission specialists responsible for the suite of earth sensing satellites, that they will be reading soil carbon using multiple proxy measurements in 5 years. Reading soil moisture to 3 foot dept in two year with SMAP, Reading GHG emissions and biomass from the tree tops down next year when the Orbital Carbon Observer (OCO, get it:) is rebooted, to 1 Ha resolution.
Then, any farmer can click “Google Carbon maps” to see the soil carbon accounted to his good work, a level playing field to be a soil sink banker.
The Moon Pie in the sky funding should be served to JPL
Sowing Seeds With New Agricultural Carbon Accounting Tool Carbon dioxide emissions from agricultural activity in the United States can now be tracked with unprecedented resolution because of a method developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory team led by Tristram West.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100602131436.htm
Since we have filled the air , filling the seas to full, Soil is the Only Beneficial place left.
Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
WorldStoves in Haiti ; http://www.charcoalproject.org/2010/05/a-man-a-stove-a-mission/ and
The Biochar Fund http://biocharfund.org/ deserves your attention and support.
Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon
NSF Awards $600K to BREAD: Biochar Inoculants for Enabling Smallholder Agriculture
http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward.do?AwardNumber=0965336
Thanks for your efforts.
Erich
Erich J. Knight
Chairman; Markets and Business Review Committee
US BiocharConference, at Iowa State University, June 27-30
http://www.biorenew.iastate.edu/events/biochar2010/conference-agenda/agenda-overview.html
Comment by Erich J. Knight — September 1, 2010 @ 10:04 am