Australian Opposition Supports Agrichar

by Natasha Chart · 2009-01-29 10:35:00 UTC
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Sugar cane farm, Phillipines; by bredgurAustralian opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull has been doing his extra credit reading and is promoting agrichar for his country's soil fertility and carbon sequestration needs. Bombdiggity!

Agrichar (often referred to as biochar) is biomass that's been burned in low or no oxygen, a process called pyrolysis. Without oxygen, instead of offgassing as carbon dioxide, carbon compounds in the biomass (animal waste, sugarcane litter, just about anything that came from a living thing) turn into charcoal. After some initial breakdown, this black carbon char is stable for hundreds to thousands of years, and can significantly improve a soil's organic matter profile.

The International Biochar Initiative sees a combination of pyrolysis-generated energy and char fertilization of soil as a key potential wedge in fighting global warming. There are already private companies working on highly efficient, cookstove-size units that would serve two purposes for small farms, with the benefit that batches of char would probably be manageably close to the fields they were meant to be added to.

Mix small-scale, widespread pyrolysis with local food sovereignty and the return of the small farmstead, and that's got virtuous circle written all over it. Glad to see a politician notice, even if he is in a minority.

(Photo credit: bredgur on Flickr.)

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