Betting on Biochar
When asked about the ways in which a little trick of heat and wood can help California’s myriad climate-related woes, David Morell doesn’t try to hide his enthusiasm: “It’s pretty magical.” Morell, whose 40-plus years in environmental fields has spanned time with the EPA and consulting work for the World Bank Conservation Foundation, is now heading the Board of Directors of the Sonoma Ecology Center and betting big on biochar.
The name “biochar,” sounding reminiscent of mega biotechnology companies, belies the stuff’s inherent simplicity: wood waste reduced into a charcoal-like substance through an oxygen-poor burning process called pyrolysis.
“Basically what you get is a physical structure of elemental carbon by driving off all of the other elements of the wood,” says Morell describing the pyrolysis process. Rather than entering the atmosphere as carbon dioxide as it would during conventional wood combustion, the carbon remains as a solid, sequestered and lined up for a host of further uses.
Workers from the California Conservation Corps assemble the kiln. Photo: David Morell.
Biochar contains “literally millions of little pores,” says Morell. “These pores act as little houses for microbes in the soil and they hold water.” When biochar is added to soil, as it was at the Oasis Vineyard in Monterey County, it can help improve soil health and water retention, further reducing the need for chemical fertilizers and irrigation.
“Think of it like a coral reef in the ocean. It attracts the little fish, and the big fish come for the little fish.” Morell is fast with analogies to describe the magic of biochar, and he offers up another for how it also mitigates pollutant runoff on roads: “It works like the activated carbon in a Brita filter,” catching particles and filtering them out. Caltrans is currently building a bioswale with biochar on the congested convergence of Interstates 680 and 880.
How to Use It?
Through a grant from Cal Fire, Sonoma Ecology Center is bringing a biochar production machine into California to be installed in Vallejo’s Mare Island. Before it can be brought west from Iowa, where it was manufactured, the Center has to ensure that air emissions test results are up to snuff and Bay Area air quality regulators will permit its use.
While pyrolysis doesn’t have the same degree of emissions as a traditional combustion fire would, it still has some, and starting the reaction requires a small amount of propane. Wood waste from fire prevention activities in California’s forests would also have to be transported to the Bay for it to be turned into biochar. However, Morell and the Sonoma Ecology Center are experimenting with portable machines called flame-cap kilns that can be loaded onto a pickup truck, assembled, and used on the same site where the wood was harvested.
Other Recent Posts
Seeding Citizen Scientists
Billy Krimmel decided to sow tens of thousands of native seeds around Davis and do everything wrong. Everything wrong, at least, by the standards of the professional landscapers.
Seeking Friends for the End of the World
Could making friends with your neighbors be the secret to climate resilience? “All my homies are locally-sourced, non-GMO and gluten-free,” writes Maylin Tu of Los Angeles.
New quilting project!
Share Your Story,
Add Your Quilt Square
Jocelyn Gama Puts the Hyphy in Multi-Hyphenate
Jocelyn Gama is a college student, activist, educator, athlete, model, and fashion designer. “I’m focused on helping my community heal,” she says.
Behind the Scenes in Game Design
KneeDeep interviewed Marcy Brown, master of “Death by a Thousand Breaths,” about what went into her thinking in designing a 90-minute, live action role-playing Dungeons and Dragons game called Cerulean Port City.
30 East Bay Partners Gel on Adaptation Path
On an overcast June afternoon at Bay Farm Island’s Veterans Court, Danielle Mieler explains that if it weren’t for low tide, water might be at her feet.
Burning for Action
The ironies pressed in on me: Here I am on a plane, helping to destroy the planet for a vacation, while reading Naomi Klein’s latest climate crisis book ON FIRE.
Polar Bears, Black Boys, and Orchids Center Stage
Durham’s play Polar Bears, Black Boys & Prairie Fringed Orchids is a story of not only wildlife conservation and low-flow toilets, but of police brutality, grief, and our relationship with the living creatures around us.
Refreshing Santa Clara County Rivers
Santa Clara’s National River Cleanup Day brought together 596 volunteers and resulted in over 25,000 pounds of trash collected. “It was one of the first times since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, when we could actually organize group cleanups,” says Valley Water’s Nick Ingram
Chasing the Fireline
In California, climate change has has left a collection of wildfire hazard zone maps, published 15 years ago, out of date.
“Biochar came to me because it integrates these different pieces — we take wood created from activities that reduce forest fire risk and we turn it into sequestered elemental carbon that improves soil, lessens agricultural runoff, and holds water to reduce water loss.”
While it remains to be seen how widely it can be implemented, it seems that Morell’s belief in the benefits of “magical” biochar holds its own water.
CCC workers rake out and extinguish the coals to save as much carbon as possible as biochar. Photo: David Morell.
