Phs.Org:Where does charcoal, or black carbon, in soils go?Here is a report on a study of where charcoal in the soil goes. The report says it doesn't stay in the soil, it dissolves and enters the water, eventually the ocean. The researchers say we need to carefully study the results of adding biochar to fields until we fully understand the effects.
Bill Gill
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especially for new products like drugs or nanotech stuff, it's important "we fully understand the effects," but... biochar is natural.I
will read this link later,
but in general:
There is currently a large effort to quantify and characterize the various effects that char has on many biological and chemical interactions ongoing within the soil. This is especially important for finding economic uses, as well as for qualifying how policies can be formulated to utilize biochar for moderating atmospheric CO2 levels.
I think I won't be surprised by these results (in the link) though, since I've heard of chars, which are tens-of-thousands of years old, being found in ocean sediments. Like everything in the soil, a lot of it will eventually find its way to the oceans. But not
all of anything finds its way to the ocean.
Some of everything gets incorporated into the lower layers of a soil profile--assuming it is a profile that avoids complete erosion, and weathers normally. Most soil components have a sort of "half-life" which varies depending upon properties and conditions.
But the most important point is....Char is a normal component of soils. Globally, to some degree, for almost 500 million years since soils first began forming, chars have been a part of normal soil composition. All terrestrial evolution has occurred with char as a part of the background, baseline environment. This explains why char seems intelligently designed to benefit life; life simply evolved to take advantage of char's many unique chemical and physical properties.
I think it is important to understand this point above, since all the "scientific" specifics and studies make it seem as if biochar is some new, highly-technical, idea/product. It takes new, highly technical methods and techniques and concepts to understand how soil carbon fits into the global carbon cycle, but soil carbon itself--in the forms of chars (biochar), humus, and black carbon, is as ordinary and as old as dirt.
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Another point to remember:It is very difficult to study soil carbon, since it is a part of a broad biophysical continuum, rather than existing as discrete pools of easily characterized chemicals. Chemists prefer more easily characterized stuff, as do most scientists. So....
Our long lack of understanding, regarding this recently recognized, complex ecosystem regulator, has led us to develop many unsustainable agricultural practices; practices that also have then lead to unsustainable economic and psychosocial ideologies. Many of today's problems with poverty, hunger, disease, and violence can be traced to this fundamental lack of understanding, istm.
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One unique perspective to add, onto the above basic understanding, is how civilization has "recently" changed the natural, background or baseline, input of chars into the soils on a global scale. The book,
Vestal Fire by Stephen Pyne, covers this very well; as when it discusses "Le Code Colbert" from 1669, iirc--one of the first attempts to control fire on a national level.
Biochar is a way to restore that natural balance, providing the long-evolved benefits of fire's byproducts; but without the inconvenient side effects of an actual, on-site fire.
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