Lehmann Bio-char Press Release at AAAS-2006

 

At the Annual Meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in St. Louis, MO, February 15-19 2006, a symposium was held on "Amazonian Dark Earths - New Discoveries". This is the Press Statement and the link to the Cornell Press Release of the our talk.

Cornell Press Release:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Feb06/AAAS.terra.preta.ssl.html

Press Statement:
"Terra preta is not a magic potion, but it has provided the decisive inspiration for the development of a new concept of soil management. The most important ingredient that makes terra preta so special is the high amount of charcoal or bio-char. Terra preta, as well as soils that we create today by adding bio-char, has two outstanding properties: (1) a greater ability to retain nutrients and increase soil fertility, and (2) greater organic matter stability than produced by any other known soil addition. Three opportunities arise from these unique properties: (1) stopping soil degradation and allowing sustainable crop production with minimal inputs (with all associated economic and environmental benefits) (2) reducing pollution of surface and ground water by retention of phosphorus and nitrogen in soil, and (3) mitigating climate change by providing a long-term carbon sink and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases other than CO2. If you consider adding organic matter to soil, it should be bio-char! Where does bio-char come from?: Multiple opportunities exist for combining bio-char production with biomass production or organic waste disposal that provide the initial economic incentive. For example, an emergent technology such as low-temperature pyrolysis produces energy from biomass with virtually no emissions,- and yields a bio-char by-product. This is an approach that combines biomass energy production without land degradation (since the bio-char is returned to soil) with the additional benefits of lowering water pollution and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This may be the only strategy to produce energy and be not only carbon-neutral (as with most renewable energies) but even carbon-negative. And if animal manures are used for this power generation, then we are also taking care of the disposal of a waste product that threatens drinking water resources as well as aquatic habitats. Such a technology has clear economic and social advantages and should be of interest for countries such as the US where new energy source development is an important issue. So, stay tuned. This may just be the beginning of a bio-char revolution."