Post by nuts on Aug 11, 2012 16:18:02 GMT -5
On the net you find many talking about making biochar for saving the planet.
Personally I think this is kind of scam.
A better way to reduce dependency on fossil fuels is less car driving,smaller cars less heating,no airco,reducing the dependendy on industrial technologie(all hungry in fuels and polluting)as much as you can.
All kind of engines are proposed for making biochar,from simple steel barrels to things looking like petrochemical plants.
Hardly any attention is given to to simplest device you can imagine:the heap.However this is allmost the only disposition that don't need industrial input.
This is very illustrating for the industrial deformation of modern thinking.Industrial input is considered as evident,allmost "natural".
Even if the industrial disposition is more expensif,less efficient,and,everything count, more labourintensive it's the first thing people will think of.
That's the modern industrial paradox:we want to create 'jobs'.
ok,enough preaching now,I'm just trying out what's good for the soil and the plants.Yes,I'm saving the planet too,but that's just a side-effect.lol
mainpoints of the method:
1 very slow smoldering of a heap
2 much clay and calcium incorporated
sawdust from a local sawmill,woodashes
liquid mud from my mini claypit with quicklime
With some dry grass and dry weeds and sawdust,I build layers well sprinkled with liquid dirt and ashes
roughly estimated 1/2 bucked dry ashes,1/2bucket dry quicklime,10 buckets sawdust,a cartain amount of dry plantmatter,maybe 4 buckets of dry clay, but that's very difficult to estimate in liquid form.
The pole in the middle is meant as kind of chimney,the heap was quite wet inside.
the heap ready for start
After one day of smoldering
after allmost 3 days..
Then I lost a bit of my patience,I turned it over,there were still wet areas in it.Then it heated quite fast,it even heated a bit to hot to my taste.Then I stopped it with water
And I ended with this heap of black stuff.charcoaldust wit blackened clay.In fact you don't really see that there is a lot of clay in it
an extreme closeup of the stuff
I don't know if I can put it in the garden directly
For the moment I start to incorporate it in compostheaps to enrich it with life and nitrogen.
That was it for the moment.
Personally I think this is kind of scam.
A better way to reduce dependency on fossil fuels is less car driving,smaller cars less heating,no airco,reducing the dependendy on industrial technologie(all hungry in fuels and polluting)as much as you can.
All kind of engines are proposed for making biochar,from simple steel barrels to things looking like petrochemical plants.
Hardly any attention is given to to simplest device you can imagine:the heap.However this is allmost the only disposition that don't need industrial input.
This is very illustrating for the industrial deformation of modern thinking.Industrial input is considered as evident,allmost "natural".
Even if the industrial disposition is more expensif,less efficient,and,everything count, more labourintensive it's the first thing people will think of.
That's the modern industrial paradox:we want to create 'jobs'.
ok,enough preaching now,I'm just trying out what's good for the soil and the plants.Yes,I'm saving the planet too,but that's just a side-effect.lol
mainpoints of the method:
1 very slow smoldering of a heap
2 much clay and calcium incorporated
sawdust from a local sawmill,woodashes
liquid mud from my mini claypit with quicklime
With some dry grass and dry weeds and sawdust,I build layers well sprinkled with liquid dirt and ashes
roughly estimated 1/2 bucked dry ashes,1/2bucket dry quicklime,10 buckets sawdust,a cartain amount of dry plantmatter,maybe 4 buckets of dry clay, but that's very difficult to estimate in liquid form.
The pole in the middle is meant as kind of chimney,the heap was quite wet inside.
the heap ready for start
After one day of smoldering
after allmost 3 days..
Then I lost a bit of my patience,I turned it over,there were still wet areas in it.Then it heated quite fast,it even heated a bit to hot to my taste.Then I stopped it with water
And I ended with this heap of black stuff.charcoaldust wit blackened clay.In fact you don't really see that there is a lot of clay in it
an extreme closeup of the stuff
I don't know if I can put it in the garden directly
For the moment I start to incorporate it in compostheaps to enrich it with life and nitrogen.
That was it for the moment.