Backyard Biochar

Wilson Biochar Workshop Tour of the Great Plains

Here is a report my on my Biochar Workshop Tour of Nebraska and Kansas during the last week of March.

 

Heather Nobert of Nebraska Forest Service was a wonderful host and we had a great time road-tripping through the Great Plains, eating lots of steak, ribs and cabbage rolls - yum! Salad was also had...

 

I saw first hand the problem of eastern red cedar (a juniper) encroachment on rangelands. These are native trees, but the lack of regular landscape burning makes them hard to control. The state forestry services in Nebraska and Kansas are desperately searching for beneficial uses for this woody material, but it is hard to utilize in a sawmill because the bole is short and the tree is dominated by lots of gnarly branches. Of course those branches are perfect to use in a Flame Cap Kiln or other pyrolyzer.

 

Eastern red cedar will quickly takeover rangelands if not controlled.

 

My trip was made possible by a USFS Wood Innovations Grant that supports the Great Plains Biochar Initiative. Heather Nobert and her partners had the super idea to also offer a small grant program to encourage innovation in biochar production and applications. More info at their website here: https://nfs.unl.edu/great-plains-biochar-initiative

 

 

We started with a full day workshop in Ord, NE, close to the middle of the state. About 25 attendees included many farmers and some sawmill owners. We started with a morning lecture of two 45 minute segments: Part 1 on how biochar works and on applications; Part 2 on flame carbonization theory and technologies. I emphasize using "found objects" as kilns and it was fun to see the light bulbs go off in these farmers' heads as they realized they already have everything they need to make biochar (can I use a side dump trailer? what about a feed trough? a grain bin????)

 

During the morning lecture, they also brought in two groups of junior high and high school kids - about 40 of them, who sat in the back of the room and LISTENED! That was the most well-behaved group of teenagers I've ever seen.

 

In the afternoon we did a kiln demo at the Valley County Fairgrounds in the arena. My first biochar rodeo! We learned that eastern red cedar pyrolyzes very well. It was dry, for one thing, a welcome change from the usual wet, green brush people want me to pyrolyze in Oregon. Here are some pictures and a neat time-lapse video that Heather took:

 

With help from some young participants, we bagged up the biochar we made and distributed it to the workshop attendees.

 

The next day we were back in Lincoln for a brown bag lunch presentation at the University. Also well-attended with about 30 people, including some researchers and energy companies interested in biochar use in anaerobic digesters, among other applications. 

 

On Thursday, Dave Bruton of the Kansas Forest Service hosted another full biochar workshop and demonstration with more than 60 people attending. The high interest level surely had something to do with the "David Yarrow" effect. David spent several years in Lawrence doing a lot of biochar education and demonstration projects. Read about his work here: http://www.dyarrow.org/biochar/

 

It was a cold windy day, but hard to get all 60 of us around the biochar bonfire!

 

 

In the afternoon, I warmed up inside at the annual Tree City USA awards presentation. I was the invited speaker for the afternoon, and I shared information about biochar and trees as well as some history of Biochar in the 19th Century. 

 

I am grateful to Dave Bruton and Heather Nobert (pictured below) for doing such a wonderful job of presenting these workshops, hosting me, and taking me to the Free State Brewery in Lawrence, KS. The plaque on the wall tells the story of John Brown, the abolitionist who led the resistance to slavery in the Free State of Kansas and elsewhere. 

 

On my last day, Heather and Dave took me to visit Missouri Organic Recycling in Kansas City, MO, where they are now making a superior compost from yard waste, using minerals and biochar, according to advice from David Yarrow. Touring the compost yard and talking to compost masters, Kevin Anderson and Stan Slaughter, I found that they are very happy with the changes biochar can make to the composting process. Not only does biochar aerate the compost, reducing the requirement for turning (and diesel fuel!), but the compost also finishes faster and has more fungi. Cool beans!

Warm Heart Biochar Troughs - Versatile and Efficient Biochar in Thailand

Kudos to the Warm Heart team for developing a series of trough-shaped Flame Carbonizers designed to work with a diverse array of feedstocks available to small farmers in Thailand and elsewhere. These kilns are similar to the pyramid shaped kilns except they are elongated into troughs in order to accommodate long stalks, branches and stems without the need for cutting. They are brilliant for bamboo!

Warm Heart has done a wonderful job of not only matching kiln design to feedstock, but also of creating and documenting the stoking techniques needed for efficient production with diverse feedstocks, especially light weight materials like rice straw that can ash very quickly if not properly fed to the kiln.

Warm Heart has also provided dimensions and welding details for constructing the kilns. That warms my Open Source heart!

Some pictures below, but make sure you visit the Warm Heart site for all the details: http://warmheartworldwide.org/new-type-fc-biochar-production-unit/

The Warm Heart Trough Flame Carbonizer

Stoking corn stalks

Stoking rice straw using the "drag method"

Wet blanket quenching method - very innovative!

Stoking bamboo in a longer, narrower kiln

Quenching bamboo biochar

Dimensions

Welding details

Flame Carbonizers for Biochar: In Practice and Theory

Here's a presentation I gave at the Char Production Gathering at Aprovecho in August. Tried to compile everything I have learned about Flame Cap Kilns and other simple carbonizers for making biochar.

Backyard Biochar in Cave Junction

We fired up two of the Oregon Kilns in a suburban setting in Cave Junction last Saturday - real Backyard Biochar! Had lots of help so it was a smooth run. We ran out of feedstock, or we could have made a lot more biochar. Here's a video:

Checklist for a Biochar Burn

Here's a checklist of things you need to consider when planning a biochar burn:

• You need a water source, first of all, both for safety and for quenching the char. 
• Several shovels and rakes for spreading and cooling the char when it's done.
• Old steel roofing material is helpful for spreading and cooling the char without getting dirt or other contamination.
• Dry wood. A moisture meter is helpful. It's not very efficient to use wood that is more than 20% moisture. 
• Safety - Helpers should all have leather gloves and wear cotton or wool clothing that won't melt. These piles can put out a lot of heat! It is good for at least one person to have a fire helmet and a face shield. 
• You may need to get a burn permit from the local officials. 
• Ignition - I use a propane weed burner type torch for ignition, but all you need is a match if you have plenty of dry kindling. Light it on the top. 
• Make sure the kindling is somewhat densely packed so it will sustain a flame and allow the flame to move down to the lower layers. It seems slow to start but pretty soon you'll find the whole pile is ablaze. 
• Use a wind screen if conditions are breezy. Even if wind is not a factor, a wind screen will help hold in heat for a safer and more efficient biochar burn.

Biochar at Daisy Hill Farm

Daisy Hill Farm owner Meadow Martell was happy that we made a big dent in a multi-year accumulation of old grape vines, blackberries and other woody waste. Meadow covered the piles back in the fall with used truck tarps from Sharp's Tarps in Grants Pass (a great resource, people!). As a result, the wood was stayed dry - mostly between 15% and 25% moisture and was suitable for biochar production. A small crew of neighbors showed up to help and share in the biochar bounty. Meadow will use the biochar in compost and in the chicken yard.

It was a misty morning down by the Illinois River (Cave Junction, Oregon)

We load the two kilns full with loose packed grapevines and light the top

Once the initial charge burns down to glowing coals, we add more, in layers

We lit these at 9:30 in the morning. by 1:00 pm we have added the last layer

At 2 pm the last layer has burned down and we are ready to quench

Meadow hoses down the char

Total harvest is more than 2 cubic yards of biochar

Work in Progress: Design Guide for Flame Cap Kilns

Flame Cap Kilns come in many different shapes and sizes. They all seem to work quite well, but there are some fine points of design that will help users determine the most appropriate configuration. Parameters to consider include feedstock type, available materials and cost. Keep in mind that large round cone shapes can be more expensive to fabricate in small welding shops than pyramid or trench shapes. On the other hand small cone shapes may be easier in some cases. Tubes can often be found ready-made. Look for other ready-made containers like small dumpsters or old tanks. You also need to consider how you will quench and unload your char. More on that later.

This Flame Cap Kiln Design Guide is a work in progress, but I want to share it now because I am getting busy with other projects and I don't know when I'll be able to get back to this to make it more complete. You can download the Flame Cap Kiln design guide, or just take a look here: 

 

UBET Kiln Designs

I am working with a group of innovators in Oregon called the Umpqua Biochar Education Team. They have come up with some super simple, very productive biochar kilns. The first one is called the "Ring of Fire" - it is a Flame Cap Kiln made with old roofing steel. As you can see, it can handle some large slash type of material. UBET member Don Morrison provided these pictures of his operation using forest slash material. It's probably the cheapest, most efficient small-scale biochar production tech I have seen yet. To make it work, you need to be able to seal the bottom of the kiln, and you need plenty of water for quenching. We are not using these kilns in a forest setting, mainly because it is too hard to seal the bottoms on rough ground. Here are the pictures:

More pictures here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/113563255252052826854/DonMorrison?authuser=0&feat=directlink

 

New Flame Cap Kiln Design from Hans Erkin

I really like this kind of approach using low cost materials. No need to spend a lot of money for backyard biochar! Very innovative!

Making Biochar in the Snow

Making biochar in the snow. This Flame Cap Kiln is 14 ga (1.9mm) steel and it weighs less than 200 lbs. It's an inverted, truncated pyramid with a bottom base of 122 cm (4 ft), a top base of 152 cm (6 ft) and sides 66 cm (26") high. Capacity is 1.2 cubic meters. Cost $600 to make in Oregon, USA.