The Otherfish Wrap: Micronizing the Char

Monday, January 1, 2018

Micronizing the Char

It sounds odd to say it, but the smaller the particles, the more habitable surface area the char will contain. The International Biochar Institute (IBI) has found that particle sizes less than 2 mm are best. These tiny bits are made up of many tubes which are the vitrified plant cells. Turns out, heating coals 'til they glow is like firing pottery. Not only does the material turn into something like glass, the particles lose half of their size as well. (The charring process shrinks parent material by half as the hydrogen and oxygen, tied up as carbohydrates, are driven off.) When the carbon is heated to between 450 and 500 degrees F (230-260C) in the absence of air, it is transformed forever. See the entry: "Making". This small particle size also allows earthworms the ability to consume the char and have it come out the other end enriched with worm castings!

This is what the structure of a particle of char looks like once turned to powder. This image is a scale model of what a 0.1mm (0.004 inches) piece of char would look like. This is still massive compared to most soil microbes. Many refer to char as being like condominiums for microbes. The moisture, nutrients and minerals we add to char are akin to stocking the refrigerators, mini bars and pantries of this massive complex for life.

Try as I might, some people just cannot comprehend this living zone under our feet. I understand that it will forever remain invisible, but we can understand what goes on there if we know how to look.

I have developed soils that were over 8% organics and when organics in soil get high, many weeds do not grow optimally, especially peculiar is quackgrass, which gets large underground systems that can't even put up a single leaf. It is almost like it is trying to grow toward poorer soil before it even tries to grow anything above ground. Remember though, 90% of the carbon added to the soil as compost is lost in one way or another, within four years.

Fully half of what we call soil is either air or water. Soil air, or soil atmosphere as some call it, has slightly less oxygen and nitrogen than above ground air and many times more carbon dioxide in it than air we breathe, again, a result of soil microbe metabolism. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is 0.04%. in soil it can be 0.25% In any case, depending on the water holding capacity of soil, saturation levels, and compaction, soils can range up to ten percent more air, or water, at intervals, it swings back and forth around 25% of each. Most of the remainder is mineral. Up to half of the material is just "dirt", a mineral complex waiting to become habitable. One might imagine parent rock as pure mineral without organic material added in yet. Often it is referred to as bedrock. Fertile soil, on the other hand has this once living carbon component that is residue of life. Soil tilth comes, in part, from this. Fungal hyphae exploit it and turn it into structural elements within the soil complex. The microbes who feed in, on and around these stored reserves flourish and give rise to other trophic levels.

Looking at just the tiniest section of the pie chart, the 5-8% which represents the organic carbon, dead plant roots, dead plant residue, dung, dead microbes and other life, etc. we see a community made up of billions of organisms per tablespoon. healthy soil is completely different than dirt. Just considering the tiny fraction of the soil we can control, component by component, further investigation reveals this:

Soil microbiome in healthy soil is diverse and contains all these interactive elements. So many epiphitic and filial relations exist between members of the soil community, it is difficult to diagram them all. Each trophic level can concentrate minerals, nutrients and, sadly toxins, to tenfold increase above background levels in their tissues. All parts of this system provide vital resources for other trophic levels. Unlike above ground life, every creature or plant can feed on the others, making them top predators.

I was challenged by a friend to create a diagram of the carbon cycle and this is just my first stab at it. Soil carbon as I have diagrammed here, is mostly living or recently living. The tiny bit of carbon biochar adds is less than a single percentage. The rest of the life that goes on, the biome, the active living tissue of billions of microscopic organisms per tablespoon of soil, once consumed or used as resources for sustaining amoebae, ciliates and/or flagellates, however these same soil organisms can feed on the tissues of any of the representatives from any and all other trophic levels.

90% of organic carbon added to soil leaves within the first four years, so if you compost, never wait five years to add it to your garden beds or crop producing fields. Soil life depends on dead roots, dead leaves, manure and other organic matter, typically the sorts of things we throw into our compost bins, typically food that would smell bad within a few days. This is exactly the kind of stuff that soil microbes love. without a constant supply of nutrients, like us, they wither and die.

What makes biochar different is that vitrified carbon, pyrolized carbon, lasts forever. The organisms who use it for housing don't eat it or digest it, they just use the surfaces within it for habitat. That is, why making the surface area available, by making tiny particles, is worth the effort. Unleashing the power of char takes place when the material is crushed to powder. If you ever see a charred log in the woods, it is almost always virtually sterile. Nothing will grow on it. When the particles are tiny, it becomes possible to saturate it with nutrients and food for life. In a large chunk, there is comparatively little surface area exposed to air, water and nutrients.

My feedstock for making char is primarily sawdust. I live in a forest products state and have virtually unlimited amounts of it free. It is expensive to transport away. Making char from sawdust yields small bits that do not need to be crushed to powder or small grains. Perhaps you think it lazy, but really, it is efficient. If there are agricultural areas near sawdust anywhere on Earth, the highest use for them is char production! Get on this human beings, let's make this happen!
<2mm 2mm="" a="" again="" ahead="" am="" and="" becomes="" but="" can="" char="" charred="" clogs="" coffee="" could="" crushing="" difficult="" doing="" dust="" equipment.="" for="" full.="" get="" grinder="" hammer="" hand="" handling="" hard="" i="" if="" is="" it="" large="" material="" me="" mill="" moisten="" more="" of="" p="" particles="" pretty="" quantities="" quickly.="" requires="" respirator="" single="" sub="" terrible.="" than="" the="" thing="" to="" turns="" use="" work="" you="">
When I heard that there is as much surface area in a chunk of char a third the size of a sugar cube to equal the area of a soccer pitch, my mind was completely and utterly blown. Looking at it another way, a handful of the stuff has fourteen acres of surface area. Again, mind-blowing. I'm nearly ten years in to my experience with biochar and my mind is still blown when I consider it! When you factor in the ability of microbes to flourish in and on the char, it has even more power to transform soils for the better. Water holding capacity is increased not only because char holds six times it's weight in water, but once colonized by the microbial community, that amount increases because the microbes hold water in their cells as well.

<2mm 2mm="" a="" again="" ahead="" am="" and="" becomes="" but="" can="" char="" charred="" clogs="" coffee="" could="" crushing="" difficult="" doing="" dust="" equipment.="" for="" full.="" get="" grinder="" hammer="" hand="" handling="" hard="" i="" if="" is="" it="" large="" material="" me="" mill="" moisten="" more="" of="" p="" particles="" pretty="" quantities="" quickly.="" requires="" respirator="" single="" sub="" terrible.="" than="" the="" thing="" to="" turns="" use="" work="" you="">
<2mm 2mm="" a="" again="" ahead="" am="" and="" becomes="" but="" can="" char="" charred="" clogs="" coffee="" could="" crushing="" difficult="" doing="" dust="" equipment.="" for="" full.="" get="" grinder="" hammer="" hand="" handling="" hard="" i="" if="" is="" it="" large="" material="" me="" mill="" moisten="" more="" of="" p="" particles="" pretty="" quantities="" quickly.="" requires="" respirator="" single="" sub="" terrible.="" than="" the="" thing="" to="" turns="" use="" work="" you="">When I began, I tried everything to crush the nuggets of char I made. In addition to being dusty as all get out, there were no good ways of doing it. I drove a large vehicle back and forth across a big burlap bag, lined with a plastic bag to catch as much of the char powder as possible, after about twenty times of driving over it, about a quart of use-able char was produced, the rest remained big pieces. I tried a hammer and made some small bits, but many bigger chunks went flying. I even tried a large mortar and pestle, which worked, but is not nearly as romantic as it appears in those movies they show in anthropology class. There is a reason that mills figure greatly into most local lore. Once you didn't have to pound or grind wheat to flour, by hand, things were golden! The tool of choice that I have settled on for smaller areas, garden beds and smaller, is to use a hand grinder for coffee. You can change the fineness of the grind and sub 2mm is easy enough to get with it. You just have to slowly feed chunks into the feed auger, which requires paying some attention to, but, if you are the person cranking the handle, you should not hurt yourself too badly. Please, please, please, do not breathe the dust!

<2mm 2mm="" a="" again="" ahead="" am="" and="" becomes="" but="" can="" char="" charred="" clogs="" coffee="" could="" crushing="" difficult="" doing="" dust="" equipment.="" for="" full.="" get="" grinder="" hammer="" hand="" handling="" hard="" i="" if="" is="" it="" large="" material="" me="" mill="" moisten="" more="" of="" p="" particles="" pretty="" quantities="" quickly.="" requires="" respirator="" single="" sub="" terrible.="" than="" the="" thing="" to="" turns="" use="" work="" you="">

Finally, for larger acreages, you can utilize a hammer mill to crush char. Especially if you have acres to enrich, but only logs and large chunks of wood to char. It can be done, but do not breathe the dust! Always wear a respirator if you are going to be around char dust! Another caveat of the hammer mill that is if you try to use water to keep the dust down, the workings will get gummed up. Always remember, what seems tiny to us is cavernous to the microbes we are helping to thrive in the soils we are building.

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Becoming Change Agents

Over the last half century, I have received comments like "What?" As if people could not understand basic fact. "Are you nuts?", carrying the implication that my reality is fiction. "That will never work.", as if they have forgotten that our history is studded with impossible tasks that we got done by sheer force of will and tenacity. It seems that as the American dream has slipped further and further from the reach of the common man, (and I mean hu-man and woman)we have forgotten what made America (and by this I mean these United States of America)great. Oddly enough, the things that have come naturally to me that have been violently opposed, questioned and denied any sort of consideration have nearly always come to pass after a generation or so. Being aware back in the seventies that one day water would be sold just like soda pop, but for a higher price was pure science fiction.People laughed, but today Coca-cola rushes in to "save" people from devastating floods and water contamination with their bottled Desani water. "Better than" ordinary water they claim and therefore the price, higher than soda seems justifiable. Our relationship to water has been changed forever because the substance necessary for life has been transformed into a commodity by those who seek to profit from the availability and purity of the "product". This commodification has led Coca-cola to purchase rights to the water in the Ganges and I'm sure that they have their eyes on the Great Lakes, as a potential "property" as well. The longer we stand idly by, hands in pockets, the harder it will be to wrest control from the deities of commercialism. Talking the talk for decades, I have noticed an ever increasing realization that "Hey, Tony was right." That thing you said about climate change back in the seventies sounded like an impossibility back then, but hey, now we all see the truth of the matter. The ruling class of millionaires transforming themselves into billionaires at our expense is hazardous for our democracy. The rapid increase in energy being expended to wrest the last drops of oil from shale and tar sands is a net loss of energy, even though production continues. We must all speak with one voice about the rapid changes that are occurring. The art and science of sustainability have been reduced to one word, green. Never have so many clung disingenuously to a single word that seems designed to cover all manner of sins perpetrated upon the Earth, her people and the marketplace. Even the marketplace of ideas seems to have become commandeered by the same people who brought us the Exxon Valdez catastrophe, Tepco's Fukushima Diiachi melt down and the oil spills that are ruining forever vast acreage across the heartland, as well as the Mississippi River. When BP advertises that their initials stand for "Beyond Petroleum", it only means that they are sucking up as much government subsidy as we offer for "research" into technologies that have been around for 100 years. The highest number of passive solar homes in the U. S. were built in the 1930s, because people knew that the sun was a reliable source of heat energy, especially during the times of day that most people are active. I have seen these homes and they are still saving energy and precious fuel many decades later. The people who got behind the Main Line in Philadelphia knew that only having one car and using mass transit for their daily commute could help them to save the money to educate their children, keep their homes up and to live a better lifestyle for less. Nowadays, corporations have their insidious tentacles into us so deep that transit of any kind threatens their profit margin. We all end up subsidizing their expensive and lavish lifestyles borne on the backs of the environment, and our future generations. We each need to talk about these and other issues that have been covered up for generations, so that the level of awareness rises above the level that Fox News wants us to fall to. The race to the bottom has only produced a new cadre of couch potatoes. Tee-vee glotzers as Nina Hagen called them. We may need to join hands with others, march in protests, hold signs, blockade places of business that continue to ransack the commons and destroy our birthright for their greed and profitability. Walk, bike, carpool and combine trips to reduce consumption of fossil fuels. Insulate, buy efficient equipment. Teach your children and do not take no for an answer. All truth goes through three stages. First, it is vehemently denied, then it is questioned and finally, if we are around long enough, it is accepted as self-evident. Becoming agents of change requires a new set of values, as new language to speak of the things that we are up against and a tenacity similar to that which allowed us to complete the Erie Canal, build the transcontinental railroad and the interstate highway system. We can pull ourselves out of the depression, but it will take more focused effort and co-operation than the billionaires can buy. We must not let them buy our silence, because in silence lies complicity.

Earth Religions Gaining Converts

"Neo-tribal, Animist, Pagan seeks fellow searchers to sanctify human interaction with the planet. Meeting eight times per year, at the quarters and cross quarters near Green Bay, Wisconsin." "Naturalist and Shaman in search of community, willing to heal for food. Experience includes feng shui, hand fasting, earth energy work, gardening for health and personalized healing rites." "Herbalist Elder willing to share in-depth knowledge of native medicinal plants with people who have a range of illnesses from acne to arthritis, bronchitis to bloating, and cardio-vascular disease to cysts." "Permaculture landscape designer with a penchant for earth worship willing to travel to help create the right sacred grove or stone circle. Serious inquiries only. Contact on the new moon for best results." These are just a few of the next generation of personal ads that people will be sharing if current trends continue. In fact, each could be posted by me! After nearly fifty years of paying attention, many of my insights have led to truths beyond books, the encyclopedia, beyond what colleges and universities deem valuable, and beyond the strictures of many old belief systems. Many who have grown up in the new age era have gone beyond the sidewalks of organized religion and have found new ways to explore their spirituality. Along with our new politics, the new economic realities and the utter failure of systems to control or further the moral standing of many in our culture, more and more Americans are looking outside mainstream religion for a meaningful relationship with the planet, one another and our communities. Underlying the climate change issue is the business as usual issue. Power brokers of the past hope to continue to grow their wealth and power in the future, but the people are beginning to wake up to the facts. Especially the greed and deception that has been rampant in our culture. Religious groups that are apolitical are losing their grasp on their adherents. Complacency is no longer a tenable position to hold. Social change, economic change, environmental change and the harmonic of spiritual change are all related. Some, wanting to discredit the movement toward change try to gloss over the hippy culture's preoccupation with Peace, Love and "tuning-in". They remind us of the evil sounding parts, "turning-on" and "dropping-out". Even though some hippies just wanted the "free love" for the resulting "meaningless sex", many truly had the welfare of others in the forefront of their minds throughout the sixties, seventies and still hold the dream in their hearts. Remember, these old hippies are now turning seventy! The Rainbow Family of Light and Love still exists. This tribe retreats into nature to reestablish ties to the planet. Yoga centers abound in most US cities. When I was a child, there were relatively few spread across the country. Paganspace.net has grown to over 26,000 people in just over a year. It is a wonderful social networking site for adherents of a variety of earth religions. Alternative energy and conservation is becoming the norm. Even the indigo children are coming of age at a time when massive change will be required to avert catastrophe. The air is tainted with toxic compounds in most American cities, our water carries carcinogens and pharmaceutical drugs. Food laced with corn, oil, sugar, anti-biotics, chemical residues and corporate welfare subsidies is presented right next to organic and whole food. Choice is becoming a moral imperative, informed choice is essentially our only hope of surviving into the future. Why should we not scrap the religions of the ancestors who brought us to the brink of desolation? As open-minded as we have become, there are still a few who cling to the big three religions, but as more and more people develop empathy for the planet as a whole, the earth exploiting belief systems that flowed from them are being rejected. A new way of seeing the world demands a new way of worship, sanctification and service. National Public Radio had a wonderful program on this sea change in public opinion. The author of a book called "Deep Green Religion" spoke quite cogently on this very topic. I am looking forward to reading his tome on this epic trend that has the power to unseat the necrotic grasp that established religions have on the spirit of our nation. Anyone who has spent much time in nature will know that the direct experience of God/esses creation far surpasses the power of any temple to move us, to inspire, educate and release us from our mundane existence.

When I made the commitment to publish seven posts per month over seven years ago...

I never intended to self-publish news and information, current events stories or as many personal stories as I have. When I started, over seven years ago, seven posts a month seemed as if it might be too few, but I found out, this is a huge number of posts to write. Some news heavy posts have taken days to write, many hours to research and sometimes weeks of switching things around to get the flow I look for. I have worked hard to keep this site free and free of advertisers, please help with what you can afford. If you really want to help the cause, I accept contributions from individuals only, much like Bernie Sanders. My run for Congress is to represent the people of Northeast Wisconsin (WI-08) Like or share any of my posts on your favorite social media source. It is long past time for action. Science has known what needs doing for fifty years it is time to get on with it!

The Otherfish Wrap

Monday, January 1, 2018

Micronizing the Char

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Becoming Change Agents

Earth Religions Gaining Converts

When I made the commitment to publish seven posts per month over seven years ago...

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