BBC Energy Science — Green guru James Lovelock claims that the only hope of mitigating catastrophic climate change is through biochar - biomass “cooked” by pyrolysis. It produces gas for energy generation, and charcoal - a stable form of carbon. The charcoal is then buried in the ground, making the process “carbon negative”.

Researchers say biochar can also improve farm productivity and cut demand for carbon-intensive fertilisers. There’s a flurry of worldwide interest in the technology, but is the hype justified?

A ripe whiff of sludge drifts across the sewage works in Bingen, Germany, as a conveyor belt feeds a stream of semi-dried effluent into a steel container. Behind the container, the treated effluent emerges in the form of glittering black granules. In a flash of eco-alchemy, they are turning sewage into charcoal.

The charcoal is then buried to lock the carbon into the ground and prevent it entering the atmosphere. Proponents of the technology say it is so effective at storing carbon that it should be included in the next global climate agreement.

Burying the biochar can also improve soil fertility, say experts. Field trials are about to begin at Rothamsted, south-east England, to assess the benefits to soil structure and water retention. Experiments in Australia, US and Germany are already showing some remarkable results - especially on otherwise poor soils where the honeycomb granules of biochar act as a reservoir for moisture and fertilisers.

A growing worldwide movement is now bringing together the soil scientists fascinated by the benefits of biochar, which was first discovered in Pre-Columbian Amazonia, and the engineers devising new ways of making the char. They are being backed by activists who are concerned about climate change. (03/16/09)
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James Howard Kunstler
writes: While evermore appalling shenanigans within the AIG corporation
preoccupied the US media last week, I made a side trip to the Republic
of South Africa. …

I was there to give some talks at the
invitation of an architecture firm, Osmand Lange, who had designed an
outstanding New Urbanist project of some 35 acres in the otherwise Los
Angeles-style illegible suburban sprawl north of the old central
business district. The project, called Melrose Arch,
was an ensemble of five-story buildings in a set of mixed-use, dense
blocks rich with good public space — a rare thing in this otherwise
ultra-fortified security state of gated estate houses, malls, business
“parks,” and freeways.

In fact, in the car coming off the very
long flight from North America, with what felt like a brain-pan full of
screaming weevils produced by jet-lag, I kept on wondering if I had
somehow landed in LA by mistake, so similar was the palm-studded
terrain and most of the objects deployed on it. After a day or so of
brain rehab, the differences became more apparent. …

With the
population of about 50 million at roughly 80 percent black African,
nine percent white, and the rest mostly Indian and Malay, South
Africa’s first full-suffrage national election in 1994 yielded
government to the African National Congress party (ANC) led by the
long-time political prisoner Nelson Mandela. The casual observer must
assume that the choice for white South Africa at that time was between
accommodation and suicide.

A state of rather tense provisional
accommodation has reigned since then. The most conspicuous feature
visible to someone from the US was the huge numbers of black Africans
everywhere, but especially those traipsing or waiting along the the
secondary highways in a country with very poor public transit. It
looked like some kind of refugee stream from a distant war zone, but I
was assured that it was just the normal flow of daily life.

Along
the same lines, the numbers of black Africans employed in service jobs
absolutely everywhere is also impressive. Every cafe, restaurant, and
commercial venue was bursting with redundant labor. Where in the US,
you might see ten employees in a given bistro, in South Africa there
were thirty. Caretakers, maids, yard-men, pool-men, door-men, parking
valets, waiters, cooks, attendants of every kind worked constantly in
the background of the still-economically dominant white culture. Laws
require the redundant hiring, and it must function as a safety valve of
income. Among these black service workers were huge numbers of security
guards posted everywhere, overseeing the non-human security apparatus
of gates, checkpoints, and electronic entry portals that define the
fortified white world. (03/16/09)
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