Green Your Head

Holy Exploding Pig Poo, Batman!

Pig bang theory: Hog manure explosions vex scientists

After several years of research, scientists have been unable to pinpoint the cause of fiery and exploding poop on Midwest pig farms.

In the past five years, about 30 to 40 "manure foam" flash fires and blasts have been reported, University of Minnesota researchers say. One explosion was so powerful it leveled a barn in northern Iowa, killing 1,500 pigs.

Exploding pig poo at large pig barns in the midwest - what a terrible problem. First of all, pigs should not have to live like this. But one reason for the increasing size of these pig farms is the lack of good options for managing their manure. Because of the stench, nobody wants one of these pig farms nearby, so they consolidate to more remote locations. A better option would be to have small, humanely managed pig barns distributed around the landscape. For one thing, that would allow easier use of locally generated food waste as pig feed. That's another huge problem - we waste 30%-40% of our food and send it to the landfill where it generates methane and warms the planet.

Biochar could help control the odor and gas emissions of pig manure - or any kind of manure or biological waste. More on this later..

It's showtime for soil biodiversity

Nice artcle in the NYT: The Hidden World Under Our Feet. To restore soil biodiversity, it recommends to "avoid synthetic chemicals". Good idea!

Here's a quote:

A 2003 study in the journal Ecosystems estimated that the biodiversity of nearly 5 percent of the nation’s soil was “in danger of substantial loss, or complete extinction, due to agriculture and urbanization,” though that was most likely a very conservative guess, since the planet’s soil was even more unexplored then than today, and study techniques were far less developed.

That means that species critical to some important functions could have already disappeared or be on their way out. That’s why the global soil assessment is a matter of some urgency.

There are numerous threats to soil life. Modern tillage agriculture is a big one, because it deprives soil life of organic matter it needs for food, allows it to dry out and adds pesticides, herbicides and synthetic nitrogen. Soil “sealing” from the asphalt and concrete of suburban sprawl destroys soil life, as do heavy machinery and pollution. Even long-ago insults like acid rain still take a toll on life in the soil by having made the soil more acidic.

THE problem is global. In nearly half of Africa, for example, overgrazing and intensive agriculture has destroyed topsoil and led to desertification.

Cone Kiln yield - about 35 gallons

The volume of the cone kiln is about 35 gallons (or about 4.5 cu ft). The yield of biochar pretty much equals the volume. I usually have to toss out a few brands (incompletely charred pieces) but not many. One secret to maximizing the yield is to finish off the burn with small stuff like twigs or a couple of buckets of wood chips that burn quick and hold in the heat to finish charring the bigger pieces. Of course the volume of char is reduced by half at least (have not measure it yet) when I run it through the compost shredder to turn it from chunks to powder. Anyway, here is what 35 gallons of chunks looks like:

EZ Biochar - The Japanese Cone Kiln

I love my Japanese Cone Kiln. I had a welder make it for me 2 years ago, but I did not understand how to use it. I finally figured it out about a month ago and it is so easy! It is basically just a cone-shaped fire ring - a truncated cone. All you do is start a small fire in the bottom, and once that is all burned to glowing coals, you add small stick wood or branches on in layers. Each time the wood gets black and starts to ash, you add another layer. The layers underneath continue to cook out tar and gas, but they don't burn because air is excluded. When the cone is full you quench it with water. If you like, you can throw a grill on it and cook your dinner before you put it out.

It takes about 2 hours of very easy work. You can do other chores (like splitting wood) while you watch the fire. And the yield is very impressive. I start with two 6 cu ft wheelbarrows full of 2" kindling wood. I end up with about 5 cu ft of nice, crumbly biochar (water quenching really helps make your biochar hydrophilic).

Compare this with my JRO (Jolly Roger Oven) TLUD and my retort kiln, both using 55 gallon drums:

My JRO TLUD takes about 45 minutes when loaded with big wood chips. The yield is about 2 cu ft. Finding, screening and drying wood chips is a pain. And the tall stack of afterburner and chimney is hard to handle for me (at 5' 2" I need a step ladder).

My retort kiln takes about 2 hours to complete. The yield is about 1.5 cu ft and I usually use about one full wheelbarrow load of wood to fire it, sometimes more. The feedstock prep is similar to the cone kiln, although I can use any size wood to fire it.

See why I love my Cone Kiln?  Here is a video clip and some pictures:

use the heat to cook dinner

After quenching - lots of biochar

Here is a report on the Japanese "Cool Veggie" program that uses these cone kilns to make biochar for small farms in Japan: A Rural Revitalization Scheme in Japan Utilizing Biochar and Eco-Branding: The Carbon Minus Project, Kameoka City.

Terra Preta Sanitation at Home

How did the indigenous Amazonians create their miracle black soil? No one knows for sure, but it seems obvious that human waste - poo and pee - were important ingredients in the brew.

The ancient Amazonians were ahead of us in many ways. We have embraced the Amazonian practice of adding charcoal to soil. When will we also adopt the practice of gifting our own excreta to the soil microorganisms? Can we call ourselves an advanced civilization when we still engage in barbaric practices like pooping in our own drinking water? 

Personally I have not pooped in my drinking water for more than 20 years. I have a two-hole “composting” outhouse with two separate compartments at my remote home in the woods. About every 5 years when one compartment of the vault gets full, we switch to the other hole. We alternate sides so that the composted poo is stored for nearly 10 years before it gets applied to soil. It has been stored so long that there are not likely to be any pathogens left. 

When I built my biochar workshop down in the village, however, I had a problem. The building code in my area requires an expensive septic with a sand filter – lots of plumbing and pumps that don’t work when the electricity goes out. What are people supposed to do – poop in a bucket?

Actually, pooping in a bucket is the answer as far as I am concerned. Following the guidelines established by Dr. Ralf Otterpohl of the Hamburg University of Technology, I set up a lactic acid fermentation system for my poo. Terra Preta sanitation is big in Germany, which figures, since they have a lot of sauerkraut juice available to use. Lactic acid fermentation is what produces yummy foods like sauerkraut, yogurt and Asian pickles. Pickled poo may not be “yummy” but it has one great virtue – it eliminates the poo smell. That’s right, pickled poo does not stink. It doesn’t smell wonderful, but it’s really not offensive. So you can keep your bucket indoors right in your bathroom and no one will complain.

The buckets in my bathroom. Note the plumbing for a flusher if I ever need it. I hope I never do.

Here’s what my system consists of:

• Two buckets – for pee and poo - with nifty spin on lids (I get them from a company called Gamma Seal). You want these because the buckets need to be tightly sealed and regular bucket lids are hard to pry off – especially when you are in a hurry and really need to “go”.

• A bag of bokashi. I can buy bokashi in my local garden store. It is a mix of organisms developed in Japan that includes lactic acid fermenters.

• A supply of biochar. I make my own in various small kilns and stoves.

• A place to empty the results. The poo is destined for my orchard. The pee goes in the compost. 

The poo bucket up close. White mold is a good sign. Green or black mold would be bad. You can see an avocado peel in there along with a nice fresh, bokashi-covered poop. There’s no smell, really!

 

Spin-on lids are essential for easy access and tight sealing.

To use my system, I start by filling the poo bucket one third full with biochar. Each time I use it, I add a big handful of bokashi on top of the poo. The bokashi I use is a dry bokashi that has been cultured with bran husk and molasses. If you cannot find bokashi in your area, make some homemade sauerkraut and add it along with some sugar or sweet food scraps (like apple cores) to the poo bucket. You need a sugar source because apparently the lactic acid bacteria cannot live on poo alone (not a surprise, really). After I close the lid, I give the bucket a shake to mix the contents a bit.

I fill the pee bucket about three quarters full with biochar chunks. The pee will just fill in all the spaces in and around the biochar. You want plenty of biochar because there is a lot of odor to absorb. I don’t use bokashi in the pee, but I may try it. Professor Otterpohl says it will help retain the nitrogen in the pee.

I don’t use a toilet seat because the special spin-on lid comes with a heavy rim that you snap on to the top of the bucket. This is comfortable enough to sit on, but you may want to have a better seat for yours. Separating pee from poo is usually not hard. When pooing, some pee may show up, but that’s not a problem. It would be worse to get poo in the pee bucket because that goes directly into the compost for the garden with no further treatment. Adjust your strategies accordingly.

Researchers in this field are looking at bucket based systems for less developed countries and for refugee situations. They have found that lactic acid fermentation for four weeks kills most bacterial pathogens. Six more months of vermicomposting should take care of the rest. The jury is still out on parasite eggs, but one study in the Philippines that looked for worm eggs after this regimen could not find any.

Now that my worm boxes are going well, I will start adding pickled poo to their diet. And I’ll add plenty of biochar and shredded leaves to keep the C:N ratio up – apparently pickled poo is a strong dish for worms and it’s best to dilute it with a bit more carbon. After a emptying a worm box, I will store the results for 6 months and then I will feel pretty safe using the material on fruit trees and flowers. I may store it for another few years before using it in the veggie garden. My feeling is that we have been way too selfish with our personal produce. Instead of feeding it to the fish – who really don’t want it – lets give it to the soil.

For more information, visit Professor Otterpohl’s site at www.terra-preta-sanitation.net

Launching my Biochar eBook Store with the first title!

"Make Your Own Biochar Stove - Quick & Easy" by Biochar eBooks on Ganxy

The perfect mobile biochar machine - maybe?

 

This sure looks good to me. So simple - a well-insulated container, a clean afterburner, a small water tank for quenching, a light-duty loader for materials handling, and an engine for hauling the container. No feedstock processing other than cutting to length. The standard practice here in Oregon for fuel load reduction treatments is open piling and burning. The cost difference between that practice and this process would be in the capital equipment and cost to haul it to the site, yarding or forwarding the logs to the landing and loading them into the kiln. The cut to length is essentially the same.

The biggest cost difference is this: it takes a lot more time to process the material into biochar than to run around and light several hundred piles that all burn at once.

But the benefits are: eliminates smoke pollution (including climate killing black carbon), the biochar product (sells for $200 - $300 a cu yd), and the carbon sequestration benefit. In Australia, the climate benefits are starting to be worth money. This should work.

Oh, and one more benefit that rarely gets mentioned. This will CREATE JOBS! Green jobs are real and very much needed. We are not meant to just sit around on our butts all day surfing the Internet and watching TV while the world burns. We are meant to do something about it.

Here is the missing piece for full-on biomass combined biochar and power system with CCS. But instead of pumping CO2 into the ground with unknown consequences, you feed it to plants. The biomass boiler must be a gasifier or pyrolysis unit that makes a biochar co-product. The combined system will emit very little CO2. Waste heat could warm the greenhouses in winter. Every temperate zone neighborhood should have a system like this that provides carbon-free electricity and vegetables for the neighborhood. Small is beautiful!

Technology uses biomass emissions as greenhouse plant fertilizer

By Luke Geiver | April 26, 2012

• 
  ProSelect's technology allows bioenergy emissions to be reused as plant fertilizer.
  PHOTO: PROSELECT GAS TREATING INC

ProSelect Gas Treating Inc. has released a carbon capture technology that can capture and repurpose flue gas emissions created in a biomass heating process. The system allows greenhouse operators to fertilize their fruits and vegetables with carbon dioxide captured from the biomass emissions.

The technology, called GC6, was officially unveiled at the SunSelect Produce greenhouses in Delta, British Columbia earlier this month. The system works by capturing the CO₂ from the 14 MW Vyncke biomass boiler. The flue gas is filtered out and cooled before entering an absorber tower within the GC6 system. Using an organic solvent, the CO₂ is stripped out of the gas stream and stored in a buffer tank, while the excess vapor is released into the atmosphere. When the greenhouse needs CO₂ fertilizer, the solvent in the tank is heated and released into the greenhouse. A monitoring system oversees the CO₂ stream entering the greenhouse, venting it out if a high level of pollutants are detected.

Chico News Review interviews me about biochar

 Kelpie Wilson, IBI communications editor and Chico State engineering graduate, inside a soil pit on the banks of the Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon River. The dark top layer is the terra preta soil that was created by indigenous inhabitants who added biochar to the soil for thousands of years, greatly improving its productivity.

http://www.newsreview.com/chico/carbon-down/content?oid=6304312

Click here to read the article

 

The Dome School Biochar Garden

Yesterday was the Takilma Folk Faire, sponsored by the Takilma Community Association and the Dome School. Here I interview teacher Katherine Roncalio about the school's Biochar Garden. Katherine explains how the school uses biochar, compost and urine to grow beautiful plants.