Modern weapon to fight warming comes from ancient Indians

Here’s something you need to know before you read any further: I have no mechanical skills. None. The best thing about those impossible-to-open plastic packages for things you have to assemble at home is that they save me the frustration of struggling to put things together. I can’t open the hard plastic wrapping, so I don’t have to spend an hour reading instructions I can’t follow. There are times, though, when there is no packaging, and that’s when I get scared.

Last night, for example, I was putting wood in our fireplace, and as I closed the glass doors, one of them came off the track. I pictured cold air blowing down the chimney (even with the flu closed) into our family room. But a miracle happened: 15 minutes later I had managed to get the door back on. It was then that I noticed one small piece of charred wood in the otherwise clean fireplace. No, I didn’t open the door to clean it. What I did do was suddenly remember last week’s PressPac item on biochar.

Scientists are reporting that “biochar” — a material that the Amazonian Indians used to enhance soil fertility centuries ago — has potential in the modern world to help slow global climate change. Mass production of biochar could capture and sock away carbon that otherwise would wind up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Their report appears in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology, a bi-weekly journal.

Kelli Roberts and colleagues note that biochar is charcoal produced by heating wood, grass, cornstalks or other organic matter in the absence of oxygen. The heat drives off gases that can be collected and burned to produce energy. It leaves behind charcoal rich in carbon. Amazonian Indians mixed a combination of charcoal and organic matter into the soil to improve soil fertility, a fact that got the scientists interested in studying biochar’s modern potential.

The study involved a “life-cycle analysis” of biochar production, a comprehensive cradle-to-grave look at its potential in fighting global climate change and all the possible consequences of using the material. It concludes that several biochar production systems have the potential for being an economically viable way of sequestering carbon — permanently storing it — while producing renewable energy and enhancing soil fertility.

To read more, go to biochar. Image courtesy of iStock