Amazingly enough a bipartisan group of senators have come to an agreement and are sponsoring a new bill. Harry Reid (D-NV), John Tester (D-MT), Max Baucus (D-MT), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Tom Udall (D-NM) have introduced a proposal to promote research and funding for biochar production and technologies. The bill is titled “WECHAR” standing for “Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvest & Restoration Act of 2009”. As problems in western states are rising with invasive species, water efficiency, dead biomass fueling fires, and destructive pine beetles, an interest in biochar is rapidly growing. 1)
The bill states that the pine beetle has killed thousands of acres of standing forests creating an immense build up of dead trees that now pose as a serious fire threat. Additionally, it references salt cedar as an invasive plant species covering over a million acres consuming 200 gallons of water per plant each day. The bill intends to use these problems as a feedstock resource to produce biochar. Invasive species as well as dead biomass can be harvested solving many of these problems and then be used to create biochar. The biochar is to be applied back into the soil creating an even healthier landscape. Among many other benefits as a soil amendment, biochar absorbs both nutrients and water making it available to plant roots at all times. This should surely help restore the lush western landscapes we were once familiar with. 1)
Additionally, this bill provides benefits in a global manner. When plants decay they release the carbon captured during its growth process into the atmosphere. But if those same plants are used for biochar production, about 40% of the carbon originally in the plants will remain in biochar and be sequestered for thousands of years. Approximately one ton of biochar stores 3-3.6 tons of C02. Thus biochar is considered a carbon-sequestering agent helping to reduce the trend of climate change. 2)
In other news, an entirely different bill is also being pushed this week. The senate's environmental committee will take up an energy and climate-change bill that calls for stricter limits than those already approved by the house. The climate bill passed by the house calls for a 17% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. This new bill co-sponsored by Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) is pushing for a 20% reduction rate. 3)
1) Greenbang
-www.greenbang.com/as-west-dries-and-burns-us-senators-mull-biochar-bill_11927.html
2) Ecopreneur
-www.ecopreneur.co.za/2009/09/28/what-is-biochar-and-how-is-it-made/
3) Facts came from Jim Tankersley (LA Times)
-www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-climate30-2009sep30,0,128921.story
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