I grew up being taught El Nino isn’t a big deal and it’s just the seasons going through their normal cycle. But with Super El Nino, I finally bothered to read about climate change, and now it’s a rabbit hole I can’t get out of. I calculated my own personal carbon footprint, and I feel disgusted with myself :(
I looked up all the ways to decrease my own footprint- but now I learned that’s not enough, we also need to capture and lockup all the extra carbon that’s in the air now too.
I read about all the ways to do that, and I learned about biochar and it’s relatively the quickest way we have right now that locks carbon up for at least a century if done right.
So I thought about ways to make biochar that’s actually impactful, and of course it has to be a collective action not just the individual.
Now I’m thinking, why don’t cities adopt a biochar bin for their residents just like Stockholm? Is this something I can advocate for my own community?
Because soils in and of themselves are generally productive. Aerating soils (tilling) boosts the microbial community, making it consume organic matter in the soil. Biochar is highly stable, so it wouldn’t be consumed, but instead the existing organic matter, which acts as the massive pool nutrients would then be consumed. So what you’d see, is a priming effect at least a few years, followed by a drop in soil productivity.
Biochar is useful as a soil amendment in the right conditions, but its effect is really situational and highly dependent on cooking temperatures and feedstock. I used stuff cooked around 380C in an attempt to allow for some of the feedstock’s more available carbon forms to be accessible to microbes. It didn’t really work like that, but I ended up with an N boost in my soils, which we suspected was due to proving more microbial habitat (due to char surface area).
It’s also really good at catching and holding onto leaching metals, and nitrogen too, in the right conditions
My dad makes it from twigs in a paint can, that he puts in his woodstove. He mixes it with leaf mulch and household compost to amend his garden. He’s been doing this for years, and his garden seems nice and productive. Any tips or things to watch out for? I have considered that there could be a point where he should stop adding biochar.
Just watch the pH. Hotter chars are more basic. The benefit you’re seeing is probably due to increased water holding capacity and the microbe habitat I mention earlier.