Co-composting Manure with Biochar to Meet Global Methane Goals
This paper in Environmental Science and Technology journal found that biochar-composting reduces CH4 by 79%, compared tocomposting without biochar. ABSTRACT: Livestock are the largest source of anthropogenic methane (CH4) emissions, and in intensive dairy systems, manure management can contribute half of livestock CH4. Recent policies such as California’s short-lived climate pollutant reduction law (SB 1383) and the Global Methane Pledge call for cuts to livestock CH4 by 2030. However, investments in CH4 reduction strategies are primarily aimed at liquid dairy manure, whereas stockpiled solids remain a large source of CH4. Here, we measure the CH4 and net greenhouse gas reduction……
A Perspective on Terra Preta and Biochar
The Modern Discovery of Terra Preta, and a Brief Modern History of Biochar In the Amazon Basin, there exists thousands of hectares of cultivated plots consisting of unusually fertile black soil, termed Terra Preta de Indio — “dark earth of the Indians” — called Terra Preta for short. These soils are many hundreds if not thousands of years old, and have remained remarkably fertile in spite of the tropical rainfall, which accelerates the weathering of soil and the leaching of water soluble nutrients. Modern scientific interest in this material began with a Dutch scientist named Wim Sombroek, whose book Amazon Soils, published in 1966, began the……
Biochar Usage in Dairy Manure Composting
Co-composting dairy manure with SkyCarbon biochar In the Local Carbon Network, we convert available green waste into value-added ‘climate products’ such as electricity, heat, water and biochar through a carbon negative process that combats climate change on multiple fronts. The Local Carbon Network uses biomass gasifiers from All Power Labs in Berkeley, California, to produce SkyCarbon Biochar, a clean, porous, high-temperature char certified by the International Biochar Institute and officially listed by the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI). When used as a soil amendment, SkyCarbon Biochar can offer a range of powerful agronomic benefits to plant productivity, soil biological activity,……
Co-composting with Biochar for Agronomic & Climate Benefit
Our monthly Open House events continue this Friday with a talk and demonstration of the agronomic and climate benefits of co-composting with biochar. We’re convinced we’ve stumbled across a highly significant optimization for biochar usage and deployment with this co-composting scenario. The solution is uniquely high performance in soil, easy to do, leverages the already existing infrastructure of compost operations globally (personal, commercial, and municipal), and achieves carbon impacts far beyond the raw biochar entered into the system. We’ve spun off the Local Carbon Network to help promulgate the solution. Resident biochar expert, Austin Liu, will be giving……
June 17-19 Workshop Projects and Schedule
Father’s Day Gasification and Biochar Workshop: June 17-19, 2011 Opening Intro & Lecture: Friday, June 17, 7:30 – 9:30PM Weekend Build, Run and Test: Saturday and Sunday, June 17-19, 11am – 7pm Location: ALL Power Labs, 1010 Murray Street, Berkeley CA 94710 Cost: Free if you are a GEK or BEK owner, either through self build or purchase. Otherwise, $100 for weekend. Our summer workshop is fast approaching- June 17th – 19th. Many of you have already RSVP’ed and are flying in from the 4 corners, but there is still room for more. So come join us for a quality……
Next Workshop Weekend: June 17-19. Update on BEK production
*** FATHER’S DAY GASIFY WITH DAD WORKSHOP *** Join us at ALL Power Labs June 17th through 19th for our next Gasification and Biochar Workshop in Berkeley CA. This is Father’s Day weekend so we hope you will consider planning a father-and-son/daughter trip to All Power Labs for our workshop. It has been too long since our last workshop. Our first quarter 2011 workshop in the Ivory Coast was canceled due to political unrest. Then we found ourselves too busy building in-house to have one in the spring. So we’re now giving you lots of notice for our summer workshop. ……
Powering the Future: Gasification, Biochar & the Kubota Engine
Gasification and Biochar Workshop- October 8-11 The next quarterly workshop at ALL Power Labs is coming up in less than two weeks. We hope you will join us for what is always a very enjoyable descent into (and back out of) the deep recesses of biomass thermal conversion. The workshop offers education, research reports and hands-on experience to bring more people to successful operation of small scale gasification and pyrolysis units. The event is open everyone, not just GEK or BEK users/owners. So come and join us while we progressively make small-scale gasification and pyrolysis a reasonable proposition, adequately advanced……
CNC Laser and Stainless GEKs. BEK at Iowa Biochar conference.
CNC Laser Cut Parts and Stainless Steel GEKs We’ve recently moved to a CNC laser cutter solution for sourcing the raw gek metal parts. For the last two years we’ve been making these in house with a CNC plasma cutter, but our throughput has outgrown the reasonableness of the plasma cutter solution. Fortunately we can use the same files to outsource to a CNC laser cutting house, and have everything show up done, clean and nicely taped together in bunches on a pallet. The locals find this MUCH superior and do not miss the de-slagging, re-drilling and general fussing with……
APL releases “BEK” Biochar Experimenter’s Kit, +new videos
Hi everyone, It’s been another exciting, breakthrough week at All Power Labs and we wanted to make sure you’ve heard the latest: 1-APL unveils new, low cost “BEK” or Biochar Experimenter’s Kit” at International Biochar Conference in Boulder, CO. Jim Mason and Jay Hasty are in Boulder, showing off the TOTTI architecture, and more importantly unveiling APL’s new, low cost design for a Biochar Experimenters Kit, aka the BEK, naturally. The BEK is completely compatible with the standard GEK cowling. It supports multiple pyrolysis modes in direct combustion, indirectly heated retorts, and hot gas recycle through bed architectures. Temperature, residence……