eggs & tea

For the past few weeks, i’ve been getting more and more excited about biochar – that is, biomass charcoal as a way of producing carbon-negative energy and improving soil. I really can’t summarize the whole field here – just take a look at the Biochar Fund, International Biochar Initiative, Biochar: the new frontier at Cornell, Terra Preta, Carbon Diversion. The article Black is the New Green, from Nature (2006) gives a good overview with pictures. This is really the closest thing to a world-saving technology i’ve ever found – and i can’t wait to try it out on our farm. I’m looking around for a source of quality-controlled char, emailing UH and asking everyone i know, spreading the word.

Despite the rapidly-increasing awareness among researchers, environmentalists and technocrats, apparently still very few people – including farmers – have heard of biochar. Global warming has reached the mass consciousness, but not any realistic solution. That may change soon.

Related posts:

1. Biochar news, terroir, local ag, collapse, stoves A collection of things i’ve recently found fascinating: International Biochar...
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3. Why to grow tea I saw this blurb on the Onion recently which made...
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This entry (Permalink) was posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 9:06 pm and is filed under biochar, crops, food, stuff, tea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response , or trackback from your own site.