"There are many ways for you in order to obtain the money you require to live the life that you are accustomed to. When a little bit of extra funds is needed, obtaining effortless no fax payday advances from straightforward faxless direct payday lenders can remain what you need.

Though these kinds of cash advances are actually getting almost all manner of bad press, they do provide several positive aspects. To start with, no fax payday loans are much easier to get, merely because they don't require a lot of paperwork and most of them don't demand a credit check. This means that no matter what shape your credit is in, you will probably find a way to obtain this form of payday advance from particular providers.

Another thing to know is the reality that direct lenders will need to be much easier for you to work with, because they are willing for getting your trade, and are going to become willing to work with you in different situations. Therefore, to lots of people, this might remain the type of cash process that you are looking for.

Even if payday advances from payday loan direct lenders are going to be a lot easier to get, there are a couple of things to remember as you are searching for them. Something that you'll like to remember is that although these payday loans are going to be easier to obtain they are going to be far more expensive.

This is because, first, it is a money-making business. Secondly, it is considered high risk lending as there are actually no credit rating checks and virtually anyone with a pulse and an occupation can obtain approval. Some thing that you need to decide, consequently, is whether or not the cash which you'll be getting can prove to be worth the higher fees and greater interest rates that you'll must pay."
no fax payday loan

Dr. Johannes Lehmann to Give Biochar Seminar

Friday – 20 August 2010, 1:00 – 4:30pm
Burlington, Vermont
Sheraton and UVM Conference Center
870 Williston Rd., S. Burlington, Vermont 05403 (802) 865-6600

See A Furture for Biochar in Vermont (pdf) announcement for detail

The ʻBiochar Vermont Initiativeʼ has asked Professor Lehmann to focus his comments on this question:

Is the strength of what is thus far known about biochar sufficient to initiate a significant investment to study the manufacture, use and efficacy of char applications TO RESERVE A SEAT AT THE SEMINAR, YOU MUST PAY IN ADVANCE
Cost is $20 per person. Please make checks payable to: ‘Biochar Vermont Initiative’, c/o
Thom McEvoy, 705 Spear St., S. Burlington, VT 05403. Registrations WILL NOT be confirmed,
but those who pay in advance are guaranteed a seat. If you’re feeling lucky, we will accept
registrations at the door but the price is $25 per person.

read more

Jock Gill, Summer 2010!!

See the attached pdf file for printable Char-B-Que Instructions in Gorgeous Full Color Detail!

Also see Char-B-Que: Carbon Negative Backyard Cooking

Basic Elements -- these are the elements required to convert a Weber unit to a carbon
negative Char-B-Que.
The B stands for Biochar. Total cost: $0.00
two cans -- these will be turned into iCan TLUD stove units
For more pictures of other experiments: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jockgill/

Hint: Measure the circumference of the can. Divide that by the number of holes you
want to have in your design. Use that result as the distance between hole centers.
Mark the hole centers as per the above and then make your holes.

Hint: Always make small pilot hole first and then work your way up to bigger and bigger
holes made with larger and larger tools. A set of graduated nails and spikes works
great. When in doubt, start with fewer and smaller holes. In general, primary air holes
will be smaller and secondary air holes will be much larger. The number of holes you
use and their sizes, and locations, has to be tuned for draft conditions, fuel type, fuel
form factor, and fuel size.

Perfect Char-B-Que Chicken. Juicy. Tender. No smokey taste. And no burned bits at all.Skin was also very crispy.
Cooking time: about 45 minutes. The right iCan had more primary air holes, 21, and burned out at 40 minutes.
The left iCan was complete at 48 minutes. It had only 15 holes for primary air. Tuning is important.

Biochar from the wood pellets in the iCan TLUDs at the end of the Char-B-Que. The biochar, which will be mixed with compost and then added to gardens as a soil amendment is how carbon that was in the wood pellets is sequestered. The long term sequestering of the carbon from the biomass is what makes the Char-B-Que "Carbon Negative".

Josiah Hunt, Landscape Ecology July, 2010

Biochar Trials

In 2009 Landscape Ecology was awarded a grant to produce biochar amended compost and observe plant growth responses.  Instead of conducting the growth trials ourselves we donated the material to a series of local Ag businesses to conduct in their systems.  Fertilizer use and such vary with the different systems.  There are still more results coming in and a few we have yet to follow up on being that many of the recipients were late to apply the material and are just now getting results.  We will have several more in coming weeks including palms in nursery, wetland (flooded field) taro, and more of the tomato/cucumber series.

See the attached pdf for more detail.

½” minus hardwood biochar

All biochar used in these photos was produced by Landscape Ecology in an open pit method explained in greater detail at Biochar Hawaii’s website: http://groups.google.com/group/biochar-hawaii?hl=en
The feedstock is mixed tropical hardwoods gathered as scrap from local sawmills.
Some analysis are shown in the attached pdf

Biochar Compost

Composted with coconut and guava chips and horse manure. Allowed 4 months to mature. Maintained a temperature of 135oF on average. Approximately 40% biochar by volume when applied. Biochar was never mechanically ground. Too wide a C:N was found in compost as seen in initial trials. C:N ratio was corrected for later other trials.
Bioassay done by Professor Jonathan Awaya of UHH shown in next slides.
Nutrient analysis of biochar compost available by request.

Hugh McLaughlin, July 2010

This is a nice series on growing your food "close to home" which also features Hugh Mclaughlin giving a nice presentation about making biochar and incorporating it into your garden.

Grow More Closer to Home, produced by Barry Hollister

Introduction:

Making a "Better Burn Barrel" a straightforward Biochar Kiln

Incorporating the Biochar into your garden

Josiah Hunt, July, 2010

Josiah has a background in Agroecology and Ecology, and he has been working both in landscaping, and in making Biochar. See his web site for more details http://www.landscapeecology-hawaii.com/

His work is also noted in the July-August 2010 Audubon Magazine Field Notes: Please Smoke

read more

Erich J. Knight, March 2010, updated July 2010

Biochar 2010:U.S. Biochar Initiative Conference,


Conference Proceedings are now Available Online

hosted by Iowa State University on June 27–30.

More info: http://www.biorenew.iastate.edu/events/biochar2010.html

read more

Ben Discoe, July, 2010

I have now done tests with a pit, and contrasted with the retort.

For information on the retort see: http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/content/small-kilnretort-my-farm-ahualoa-hawaii and http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/message/11011

Since the retort had issues, i looked for a way to get larger capacity and fewer parts to wear out. The idea: a pit lined with concrete blocks, which can be covered with a piece of sheet metal and soil.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/EvSIQ36xHXUHXEOCR25lMA?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/81X5Ru49kaupg3ZTI10m7g?feat=directlink
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/pJk62bETLpcn1fkRt17Igg?feat=directlink

The blocks make a hard flat surface that's easy to unload, and cleanly separate the char from the soil. It works surprisingly well. As with jaywfitz's method (http://sensiblesimplicity.lefora.com/2010/04/28/biocharterra-pretta/#post13), wood is added gradually, the pile builds up and the bottom is oxygen-starved so it pyrolyses. When the pit is full, it is covered and left for a day to cool down. The next day, there is some incompletely-charred wood at the top of the pile, but this is not a problem, it's simply put aside and added to the next burn.

No water is needed to control or put out the fire.
Because temperature never gets that high at the walls, the blocks don't crack.
It's less picky about the size and shape of the wood, because an open fire is simpler than packing a retort.

It's difficult to judge how much ash is present (and hence the level of efficiency due to consumed feedstock), but it doesn't look like much ash at all. In fact it's possibly, even likely, more efficient than the retort, in which ~50% of the wood (which is outside the retort) is burned to ash.

A small pit of 16 x 24 x 32" (7.11 ft3, 53.2 gallons) yields around 16-17 gallons (loose chunks and fines) of char. It takes 33 CMU blocks to build. It took 40 minutes to load, fire and cover. The next day, it took 55 minutes to uncover, unload, and sift/sort the result using screen frames into 1/4"-, 1/4-1/2", and 1/2"+. These times, especially the unload/sorting, could definitely be improved by streamlining the process.

It should be possible to scale up significantly - e.g. a 24 x 32 x 48" pit (48 CMU blocks) should produce ~50 gallons per burn. I'll be trying that next.

-Ben
http://ahualoa.net/ag/notes_biochar.html

Larry Kershner/Farm News news editor, July, 2010

When David Laird, standing in a corn test plot, said Tuesday evening that biochar not only repaired damaged soils for crop production, but was also a key component in long term crop sustainability in fertile soils, a murmur rolled through the listeners.

He pressed on.

"The idea of the biochar is to maintain soil quality, while maintaining yield."
(emphasis added)

...

He said biochar is applicable for redemption of sandy, depleted, eroded or damaged soils. He said there is also application for urban areas where bulldozers have compacted the topsoil.

"We anticipated seeing benefits (of biochar) in depleted soils," Laird said, "But we're seeing that in better quality soils, biochar becomes a component in maintaining a sustainable system."

To be used, biochar should be incorporated into the soil of a garden or farm field. It should be mixed in gently so as to prevent killing worms. Biochar could make-up five percent to 10 percent of the soil when the job is done, but it should not all be mixed in at once. Two or three years of adding smaller amounts seem to work better.

Read the Full story here: http://www.farm-news.com/page/content.detail/id/501355/The-next-crop-revolution-.html?nav=5005

read more

USBI, June 2010

US Focused Biochar Report: Assessment of Biochar's Benefit's for the USA

From the Forward
Biochar is a charcoal carbon product derived from biomass that can enhance soils, sequester or store carbon, and provide useable energy. Lessons learned from Terra Preta (an ancient human-created soil type in Brazil) suggest that biochar will have carbon storage permanence in the soil for many hundreds and possibly thousands of years.2 Biochar is produced by subjecting biomass to elevated temperature, extracting energy in the form of heat, gases, and/or oils while retaining a large portion of the original biomass carbon in a solid form (charcoal or char). The relative percentage of solid carbon retained vs. the amount and form of energy produced is a function of the process conditions. The resultant solid carbon becomes biochar when it is returned to soils with the potential to enhance mineral and nutrient availability and water holding capacity, while sequestering carbon for on the order of a thousand years...

Well designed renewable energy (RE) technologies such as energy efficiency, solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, and biomass driven projects are needed to ensure a diverse portfolio of sustainable solutions to meet our energy demands. These RE technologies offer opportunities to produce energy that is carbon neutral, whereas biochar offers the potentialto be carbon negative. Biochar as a method of carbon management is also widely scalable in size and flexible across soil type and usage making biochar deployable worldwide. ...
The following report addresses six critical topics:

1. Agroforestry
2. Energy Co-Products
3. Reclamation
4. Sustainability
5. Green House Gas Accounting
6. Green House Gas Markets

Each of these areas will continue to develop over time with research and application but the information presented in this report serves as a resource for those becoming involved or continuing to be involved in the exciting development of biochar. USBI encourages readers to consider how they might add to this body of biochar knowledge and contact us for suggestions and contributions

read more

Hugh McLaughlin, June, 2010

CHAB Camp 2010: Hands-on Development of “Combined Heat And Biochar” Devices
(CHAB = Combined Heat And Biochar)
(Camp = learning, making & demo-ing)

When: Mon, Aug 8th to Friday, Aug 13th, 2010

•   plus Welcome BBQ, Sun, Aug 7th @ 5 PM
•   plus “CHAB Demo Day”, Fri, Aug 13th

Note: NOFA (Northeast Organic Farmers Association) Summer Conf starts 2 PM, 8/13

Where: NESFI (New England Small Farm Institute)
  Belchertown (western Massachusetts, 10 miles SE of Amherst)
Visit http://www.smallfarm.org for further information and updates.

Lead by: Drs. Paul Anderson, Tom Reed & Hugh McLaughlin

Focus: Understand and make devices that produce BOTH Heat and Biochar. These are “participatory activities” for serious study of retorts, TLUD gasifier stoves, etc. to solve real world problems.

read more

Ron Larson, June, 2010

Jason Aramburo has just received a nice honor (and some funds) from the group "Echoing Green". See a 1.5 minute video

Jason's regular "re:char" newsletter is available at http://www.re-char.com/

There is some more information there - including this Bloomberg site with another competition Biochar advocates can vote on http://images.businessweek.com/ss/10/06/0608_socialentrepreneurs/20.htm

Re-char (Jason as founder) is one of the few Biochar groups emphasizing char combined with a biofuel. Still interested in developing countries mostly. Good to see this variation and that hardware sales are underway.

Jason - congratulations on all of the above.

David Yarrow and Jim Welch, June 2010

Last summer, Jim Welch built a rocket stove on a concrete pad in my backyard to make biochar in a 55/30-gallon nested kiln & retort. this first test of a hybrid biochar burner was a great success, despite a few troublesome difficulties with the process, beginning with having large, still-moist logs of red pine timber for feedstock.

This spring, Jim scaled his experiment down to a 5-gallon retort nested in an 18-gallon kiln, with a shoebox-size rocket stove to fire up the retort. last saturday jim brought his modest unit to my biochar workshop at Saratoga apple, and gave us an inspiring demonstration of how simple, effective and easy pyrolysis can be:

Read more at http://www.carbon-negative.us/JWelch/

read more

From the IBI June Newsletter

China Biochar Network (CBN)

The China Biochar Network (CBN) was officially inaugurated June 12, 2010. The CBN is comprised of more than 20 organizations within China, which are universities, institutes of China Academy of Science, and local agricultural research institutes. They come from Anhui, Beijing, Chongqing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Hunan, Hubei, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Shanxi, Shengyang, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Yunnan, and Zhejiang, covering most of the country. The China Agricultural University (CAU) will be the headquarters of CBN.

The CBN will carry out experiments on biochar's effect on soil processes. The experiments will focus on the ecological impact of biochar, yield and quality of vegetable and fruit under biochar application, and grain production with biochar. The CBN will also pay attention to the carbon balance in biochar production and application.

The CBN will be an organization to serve all CBN members on information exchange, project cooperation, method development, and training. The objective of CBN is to develop biochar technology in agriculture and environment protection in China. It will be a center of biochar research and related topics. For more information, please see:
http://www.biochar-international.org/chinanetwork

Ben Driscoe, June, 2010

I gave a 40-minute talk on biochar recently to the Kona Coffee Grower's Association (here on the island of Hawai'i).

10 minutes of it got uploaded: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42gr_1whjc8

It covers the basic carbon cycle, biochar's agricultural use, interaction with nutrients and microbes, reversing fossil fuel use, appropriate sources of renewable biomass.. my sources of information are, basically, this mailing list, and my own experiences making and using biochar.

I also gave the historial terra preta story, talked about various ways to make char, interaction with compost, how to charge with various nutrients including urine, and other stuff that didn't make it into the 10 minute clip.

-Ben
Also see Ben's super awesome Biochar Notes page: http://ahualoa.net/ag/notes_biochar.html

Art Donnelly, SeaChar.Org June, 2010

It was not quite 9 months ago, when I sent out an email to a small group of collaborators, with a Subject line that asked the question: "How do we get biochar stoves to Central America?" Of course, like the punch line to the old vaudeville joke, the answer is "lots of hard work". I could not have imagined 9 months ago was how rewarding all that work would feel. I want to share that feeling with all of you.

I recently returned to Seattle from Costa Rica's famed coffee producing area the Santos Zone. This was my second trip since mid- January. I have been continuing my work as a technical consultant to a clean stove/biochar project. Proyecto Estufa Finca (Farm Stove) was initiated by organic coffee farmer Arturo Segura http://www.solcolibri.com/ and the members of the local citizens group APORTES.

The goal of the Estufa Finca/ Costa Rica project is to provide safe and affordable alternative cooking technology to one of the most vulnerable populations in Central America. Each year over 100, 000 migrant agricultural workers enter Costa Rica to harvest the coffee and cocoa we enjoy. This population of families most often live without access to clean water and sanitation. They typically cook on smoky and inefficient wood fires.

The effects of this daily exposure to high levels of carbon monoxide and soot fall most heavily on women and young children. Respiratory disease is a leading cause of sickness and death in this population. This situation mirrors that of millions of families in Central America. This toll is not only felt in terms of human health, but also in it's contribution to deforestation and climate change.

I am very pleased to announce that in cooperation with the recently formed local woman's group of APORTES (the Givers), SeaChar.Org is now helping to build and distribute the clean burning, biochar producing, Estufa Finca biomass stove for the Central America market. These elegant, efficient stoves, which are designed in Seattle and made in Costa Rica, are now available for $40 US. (plus shipping) We recently had the assistance of TLUD stove inventor Dr. Paul Anderson http://www.hedon.info/Micro-gasificationWhatItIsAndWhyItWorks and a $1500 tool and materials grant from a Bloomington-Normal Illinois, Rotary Club . This has allowed us to put together a temporary workshop, where three women can work and to stock supplies for 65 stoves. The initial goal of our joint Seattle/ Costa Rica project is to reach the estimated 1,500 seasonal agricultural workers homes, with a clean, safe efficient cook stove. A donation of $40 pays for a stove for a coffee pickers family.

The women's owned stove workshop is located in Santa Maria de Dota, Costa Rica. Working from patterns, guides and jigs, which we developed as a team, the women can produce completed stoves and stove "kits". Working with partners like Santos Tour http://www.santostour.net/ , the kits are being assembled and paid for by visiting student volunteers, during one-day "Stove- building" workshops. APORTES organizer and workshop leader Carolina Abarca, is getting stoves built and Estufa Finca global ambassadors. These are high quality appliances, assembled with simple hand tools and rivets. The completed stoves are tested and then donated to the Proyecto Estufa Finca, to be leased for home placement with migrant coffee picker families. The Estufa Finca is both fuel flexible and fuel efficient. These easy to use TLUD-style, stoves burn with 65% lower emissions of carbon monoxide and soot, than a traditional, open three-stone fire. They convert dry biomass waste into a clean gas flame and valuable charcoal. Interest and demand for both the stoves and workshops are growing. We are getting inquiries from around Costa Rica and around the world. The potential for widespread good and a vibrant woman's owned business seem imminent.

To realize this potential is going to take your critical early support. Your investment of time, money or expertise at this early phase will ensure our success. The Seattle based non-profit, Seattle Biochar Working Group, is providing carbon negative technology development, testing, training and fund raising assistance for Proyecto Estufa Finca. You can make a tax deductible donation using PayPal at http://www.seachar.org/ or contact art.donnelly@seachar.org for information on how to buy stoves and to learn how you can help us reinvent fire.

Pura Vida,

Art Donnelly
SeaChar.Org
Proyecto Estufa Finca
--
"it's time to get positive about negative thinking"

James Joyce, June 2010

Mackay-based company, Black is Green, was named a finalist in the Innovation in ClimateSmart

Technologies category of the Queensland ClimateSmart Sustainability Awards, at the awards ceremony on Friday night in Brisbane.

On the eve of World Environment Day, the recognition was for BiG’s efforts in developing a patented technology to convert plant and animal wastes into valuable biochar and energy.

Biochar is an agricultural grade of charcoal which provides a host of environmental benefits when applied to soils. These include reduced fertiliser run-off, improved water retention and sustained increases in soil carbon content. Biochar is increasingly recognized for its potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously providing commercially attractive benefits to land users. Influential Australians such as Tim Flannery, Malcom Turnbull and Don Burke are some of the prominent supporters of biochar.

BiG’s BiGchar technology addresses the challenge to make biochar production economically viable, by making the systems mobile or relocatable, more productive and more efficient than the technologies currently used. BiG’s achievements in these key areas are attracting worldwide interest.
Black is Green co-director Dr. James Joyce commented: “We were pleasantly surprised to have been chosen as one of three finalists from a list of forty Queensland companies, many of whom are recognised leaders in the field of sustainable technologies.”

The Premier’s ClimateSmart Sustainability Awards were established to recognise the achievements of Queensland communities, businesses and industries in reducing carbon emissions, taking action to abate climate change, and improving business sustainability.

Further details on BiGchar technology and BiG’s current activities are available at its website http://www.bigchar.com.au , or by email on contact@bigchar.com.au .

Rob Lerner, May, 2010

From Rob's Biochar Blog: http://biocharlog.blogspot.com/
Also take a look at his Captioned Slideshow: http://picasaweb.google.com/bajarob/RockinRocketRetort#.

read more

Magh biochar retort

View more presentations from Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy.

Magh Bichar retort - 1 is a simple low-cost biochar making retort. In this design a two hundred liter steel drum is used. The top and bottom portions of the drum were cut open. One of the lids is used for covering the open side. The biomass is dumped into the drum and lit at the top and more biomass is added while it is still lit to fill it up to the brim. In TLUD condition the flame continuous. After some time the intensity of the flames lessen. Now the lid is placed over the flames and using soil the lid is sealed, so that no smoke is seen leaking out. Now the smoke appears at the pipe, which is attached through a connecting pit at the bottom of the drum. Leave it for more than 12 hours. The biochar continues to form and also the retort cools down. This second situation is the downdraft condition.

Note: Precaution should be taken to keep oneself as far as possible from the flames. The efficient production of the biochar also depends on the producers experience. For more details see http://maghbiocharretort.blogspot.com/

Magh Biochar Retort is demonstrated to the community under the GSBC Project. GEO is implementing the project with support of GoodPlanet, France.

David Yarrow, May 2010

Using Biochar in Soil

Preparation & Application

Biochar’s ultimate purpose and destination is soil, and improves almost any soil, especially with low rainfall or nutrient deficits. Adding char to soil makes this strategy carbon-negative, effective to reduce greenhouse gases and thus mitigate global warming.

Biochar improves soil by three critical services:

1. Sponge to soak up water, hold and slowly it release to soil
2. Storehouse to adsorp nutrient ions for exchange to biology
3. Substrate to provide habitat & refuge for soil microbes

However, fresh, raw char in soil can retard plant growth for one or two years. For optimal response with minimal application char requires processing to prepare it for use in soil.

In North America, biochar is a new soil additive, so procedures to add it are under-developed and experimental. This document details guidelines and instructions to prepare and use biochar in soil, with a database to evaluate results and improve practices.

Read More http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/content/using-biochar-soil
or download as a pdf http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/files/UsingBiochar.pdf

read more