Benefits, Pitfalls of Biochar

It is sometimes coined "black gold agriculture." In reality, it is nothing more than organic waste that is being burned without the presence of oxygen, converted into charcoal, and then buried in the soil. But what makes biochar precious enough to be considered gold is its gargantuan benefits to our environment, and the earth as a whole. Individual farmers, gardeners, and energy companies have seen what biochar can do for their plant production. However, there are still scientists who doubt that biochar does anything useful at all.

BENEFITS OF BIOCHAR

Who would have thought that the decaying leaves and wood chips from forests, gardens, farms, and backyards could actually be converted into something almost like a free organic fertilizer? Even though it does cost money to enable the process of pyrolysis to produce biochar, the benefits are still tremendous and cannot be ignored.

For the earth, sequestration of harmful greenhouse gases with the promise of keeping it trapped in the soil for years.

In places such as the Gulf of Mexico where nitrogen- and phosphorus-rich agricultural runoff has killed the marine environment, biochar helps combat further deterioration. Not only will the soil be able to absorb the runoff better, it will also help prevent the dead organic matter and manure from polluting the water.

Individual farmers could actually benefit from biochar by "using corn stover-the leaves, stalks and cobs that remain after harvest", to help fuel pyrolysis itself. Instead of getting rid of corn remains, they can easily convert it to something useful and double their income.

For those tending gardens, the quality of the soil is such an important factor that choosing the right fertilizer can be a difficult and expensive task. Pbworks.com, considers the following as biochar's benefits to the soil:

* Enhanced plant growth
* Suppressed methane emission
* Reduced nitrous oxide emission (estimate 50%) (see 5.10 below)
* Reduced fertilizer requirement (estimate 10%)
* Reduced leaching of nutrients
* Stored carbon in a long term stable sink
* Reduces soil acidity: raises soil pH (see 5.01 below)
* Reduces aluminum toxicity
* Increased soil aggregation due to increased fungal hyphae
* Improved soil water handling characteristics
* Increased soil levels of available Ca, Mg, P, and K
* Increased soil microbial respiration
* Increased soil microbial biomass
* Stimulated symbiotic nitrogen fixation in legumes
* Increased arbuscular mycorrhyzal fungi
* Increased cation exchange capacity

PITFALLS OF BIOCHAR

Despite all the brouhaha concerning the wonderful advantages of biochar, there are still downsides. There is still a lot of research being pursued to understand how biochar works. Or which organic material is truly best to fertilize the soil. Also, skeptics argue that there is no way to duplicate the "terra preta" or the dark fertile soil of the Amazons.

Biochar is not very expensive to produce, but because biochar plants use electricity to burn all those tons of organic matter, it is still taking a toll on non-renewable sources of energy.

Transportation of the bulk mass of decaying organic matter is also another problem. You do need a whole lot of these plant and tree waste to burn to be able to create a sizable amount of biochar. Also, since it's a growing technology, equipment to distribute and bury biochar in large tracts of farmland have not yet been developed.