On 18 Jan 2020, at 11:22 am, Stephen Joseph <joey.stephen@...> wrote:

But Rick patents have to really show innovation or then all that happens is the industry is stymied and a lot of money is wasted on litigation.

Here is another couple of Japanese handbooks.  I have a lot more

Regards

Stephen

On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 11:10 AM Rick Wilson via Groups.Io <rick012=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:

Frank, 

(thanks for sharing your website and story, very impressive achievement!  We loved Tasmania visiting often when we lived in Melbourne, Freycinet Chardonnay from the East Coast is my favorite wine!)

I agree that open source information certainly can help those positioned to go off the grid and leverage and deploy these biochar and AG technologies at a localized scale. Assuming of course you can make sense of the thousands of academic papers on the subject, and have the time to do so.  If you can, you should do it. In your words, Climate Action = race with time. 

But I don't believe that self sufficiency, like you have achieved, as commendable as it is, is practical for most of the earth's population. 

The impact of Climate change will be too big and will happen fast, with most people living in cities (think, what happens to the 2.75M people in Miami as groundwater starts to flood the sewers from rising sea waters, probably before I retire).  These people can not start farming to feed themselves.  They will be displaced. Needing a big industrial AG complex, and innovations that do not exist today.  Relying on investors that require the guarantee of patent protection to justify their risk, in the end, preventing starvation.  

For instance, patents are why we have breakthrough drugs, so the companies can justify the financial risk of developing them. You would have have cholesterol medicine, antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, etc, with open source.

Rick

On Thursday, January 16, 2020, 10:28:33 PM PST, Frank Strie <frank.strie@...> wrote:

RE: “No patent. No money.  No industry. No solution.”

Hello all,

This subject about the classic “Patent protection”(Cards to the Chest) touches on the very question of reason WHAT motivates us and WHY are we are even involved in the first instance in the whole Biochar, FiltrationChar, FeedChar, ConstructionChar, and specialised DesignerChars topic.
If it is about Carbon Climate Action = a race with time, if it is about assisting less fortunate people and communities in problematic situations to leap frog out of such misery, is it to have tools and methods that assist satiation and hygiene, hunger, food quality, air quality, water quality ,  hydrology, landscape restoration, pro-active flammability risk reduction upcycling of wastes, etc …, the open source information availability spreads very fast without delay, As a classic example we have seen it happen in the revolutionary spread and success of the Kon-Tiki style deep cone, flame curtain kilns, as it spread to,  was copied and modified in more than 70 countries in 3 years since 2014.
The way the Ithaka Institute and Associates (like myself) handled this urgent topic and the  way we shared and exchanged our findings and observations was due to our attitude and priority to make things open source so that carbon action happens in as many places and by as many people as possible. This has and is assisting industrial scale mobile and stationary plants become reality.
One fundamental ethical, cultural principles my close associates in Austria, Germany, Nepal, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the USA …, have become to understand and support this guiding priciple:
“Knowledge is the treasure that keeps growing in value by sharing it” – everyone has the chance to contribute and take it further for everyone’s benefit it its. I get far more benefits (in most cases) from sharing, collaborating and assisting others than to have my pride and self interest in the foreground. What goes around, comes around as we have this one Earth, the time is ticking fore very single one of us. This is my 13^th Year of full time Biochar action in some form and 16 years since Prof. Bruno Glaser in Germany  first responded to my questions from under Down Under in Tasmania.
Frank
www.terrapretadevelopments.com.au/products

 

 

 

From: main@Biochar.groups.io <main@Biochar.groups.io> On Behalf Of Laurent Chabanne via Groups.Io
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2020 4:01 PM
To: main@Biochar.groups.io
Subject: Re: [Biochar] Tom Miles is forwarding an email to you

 

Rick, I totally agree with you: patenting is important to raise money, even if the patent is not really easy to defend.

 

Patents are useful for a lot more things than just protecting IP.

<Charcoal Handbook1.pdf><Charcoal Handbook2.pdf>

On 18 Jan 2020, at 11:22 am, Stephen Joseph <joey.stephen@...> wrote:

But Rick patents have to really show innovation or then all that happens is the industry is stymied and a lot of money is wasted on litigation.

Here is another couple of Japanese handbooks.  I have a lot more

Regards

Stephen

On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 11:10 AM Rick Wilson via Groups.Io <rick012=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:

Frank, 

(thanks for sharing your website and story, very impressive achievement!  We loved Tasmania visiting often when we lived in Melbourne, Freycinet Chardonnay from the East Coast is my favorite wine!)

I agree that open source information certainly can help those positioned to go off the grid and leverage and deploy these biochar and AG technologies at a localized scale. Assuming of course you can make sense of the thousands of academic papers on the subject, and have the time to do so.  If you can, you should do it. In your words, Climate Action = race with time. 

But I don't believe that self sufficiency, like you have achieved, as commendable as it is, is practical for most of the earth's population. 

The impact of Climate change will be too big and will happen fast, with most people living in cities (think, what happens to the 2.75M people in Miami as groundwater starts to flood the sewers from rising sea waters, probably before I retire).  These people can not start farming to feed themselves.  They will be displaced. Needing a big industrial AG complex, and innovations that do not exist today.  Relying on investors that require the guarantee of patent protection to justify their risk, in the end, preventing starvation.  

For instance, patents are why we have breakthrough drugs, so the companies can justify the financial risk of developing them. You would have have cholesterol medicine, antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, etc, with open source.

Rick

On Thursday, January 16, 2020, 10:28:33 PM PST, Frank Strie <frank.strie@...> wrote:

RE: “No patent. No money.  No industry. No solution.”

Hello all,

This subject about the classic “Patent protection”(Cards to the Chest) touches on the very question of reason WHAT motivates us and WHY are we are even involved in the first instance in the whole Biochar, FiltrationChar, FeedChar, ConstructionChar, and specialised DesignerChars topic.
If it is about Carbon Climate Action = a race with time, if it is about assisting less fortunate people and communities in problematic situations to leap frog out of such misery, is it to have tools and methods that assist satiation and hygiene, hunger, food quality, air quality, water quality ,  hydrology, landscape restoration, pro-active flammability risk reduction upcycling of wastes, etc …, the open source information availability spreads very fast without delay, As a classic example we have seen it happen in the revolutionary spread and success of the Kon-Tiki style deep cone, flame curtain kilns, as it spread to,  was copied and modified in more than 70 countries in 3 years since 2014.
The way the Ithaka Institute and Associates (like myself) handled this urgent topic and the  way we shared and exchanged our findings and observations was due to our attitude and priority to make things open source so that carbon action happens in as many places and by as many people as possible. This has and is assisting industrial scale mobile and stationary plants become reality.
One fundamental ethical, cultural principles my close associates in Austria, Germany, Nepal, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the USA …, have become to understand and support this guiding priciple:
“Knowledge is the treasure that keeps growing in value by sharing it” – everyone has the chance to contribute and take it further for everyone’s benefit it its. I get far more benefits (in most cases) from sharing, collaborating and assisting others than to have my pride and self interest in the foreground. What goes around, comes around as we have this one Earth, the time is ticking fore very single one of us. This is my 13^th Year of full time Biochar action in some form and 16 years since Prof. Bruno Glaser in Germany  first responded to my questions from under Down Under in Tasmania.
Frank
www.terrapretadevelopments.com.au/products

 

 

 

From: main@Biochar.groups.io <main@Biochar.groups.io> On Behalf Of Laurent Chabanne via Groups.Io
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2020 4:01 PM
To: main@Biochar.groups.io
Subject: Re: [Biochar] Tom Miles is forwarding an email to you

 

Rick, I totally agree with you: patenting is important to raise money, even if the patent is not really easy to defend.

 

Patents are useful for a lot more things than just protecting IP.

<Charcoal Handbook1.pdf><Charcoal Handbook2.pdf>

On 18 Jan 2020, at 11:22 am, Stephen Joseph <joey.stephen@...> wrote:

But Rick patents have to really show innovation or then all that happens is the industry is stymied and a lot of money is wasted on litigation.

Here is another couple of Japanese handbooks.  I have a lot more

Regards

Stephen

On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 11:10 AM Rick Wilson via Groups.Io <rick012=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:

Frank, 

(thanks for sharing your website and story, very impressive achievement!  We loved Tasmania visiting often when we lived in Melbourne, Freycinet Chardonnay from the East Coast is my favorite wine!)

I agree that open source information certainly can help those positioned to go off the grid and leverage and deploy these biochar and AG technologies at a localized scale. Assuming of course you can make sense of the thousands of academic papers on the subject, and have the time to do so.  If you can, you should do it. In your words, Climate Action = race with time. 

But I don't believe that self sufficiency, like you have achieved, as commendable as it is, is practical for most of the earth's population. 

The impact of Climate change will be too big and will happen fast, with most people living in cities (think, what happens to the 2.75M people in Miami as groundwater starts to flood the sewers from rising sea waters, probably before I retire).  These people can not start farming to feed themselves.  They will be displaced. Needing a big industrial AG complex, and innovations that do not exist today.  Relying on investors that require the guarantee of patent protection to justify their risk, in the end, preventing starvation.  

For instance, patents are why we have breakthrough drugs, so the companies can justify the financial risk of developing them. You would have have cholesterol medicine, antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, etc, with open source.

Rick

On Thursday, January 16, 2020, 10:28:33 PM PST, Frank Strie <frank.strie@...> wrote:

RE: “No patent. No money.  No industry. No solution.”

Hello all,

This subject about the classic “Patent protection”(Cards to the Chest) touches on the very question of reason WHAT motivates us and WHY are we are even involved in the first instance in the whole Biochar, FiltrationChar, FeedChar, ConstructionChar, and specialised DesignerChars topic.
If it is about Carbon Climate Action = a race with time, if it is about assisting less fortunate people and communities in problematic situations to leap frog out of such misery, is it to have tools and methods that assist satiation and hygiene, hunger, food quality, air quality, water quality ,  hydrology, landscape restoration, pro-active flammability risk reduction upcycling of wastes, etc …, the open source information availability spreads very fast without delay, As a classic example we have seen it happen in the revolutionary spread and success of the Kon-Tiki style deep cone, flame curtain kilns, as it spread to,  was copied and modified in more than 70 countries in 3 years since 2014.
The way the Ithaka Institute and Associates (like myself) handled this urgent topic and the  way we shared and exchanged our findings and observations was due to our attitude and priority to make things open source so that carbon action happens in as many places and by as many people as possible. This has and is assisting industrial scale mobile and stationary plants become reality.
One fundamental ethical, cultural principles my close associates in Austria, Germany, Nepal, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the USA …, have become to understand and support this guiding priciple:
“Knowledge is the treasure that keeps growing in value by sharing it” – everyone has the chance to contribute and take it further for everyone’s benefit it its. I get far more benefits (in most cases) from sharing, collaborating and assisting others than to have my pride and self interest in the foreground. What goes around, comes around as we have this one Earth, the time is ticking fore very single one of us. This is my 13^th Year of full time Biochar action in some form and 16 years since Prof. Bruno Glaser in Germany  first responded to my questions from under Down Under in Tasmania.
Frank
www.terrapretadevelopments.com.au/products

 

 

 

From: main@Biochar.groups.io <main@Biochar.groups.io> On Behalf Of Laurent Chabanne via Groups.Io
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2020 4:01 PM
To: main@Biochar.groups.io
Subject: Re: [Biochar] Tom Miles is forwarding an email to you

 

Rick, I totally agree with you: patenting is important to raise money, even if the patent is not really easy to defend.

 

Patents are useful for a lot more things than just protecting IP.

<Charcoal Handbook1.pdf><Charcoal Handbook2.pdf>

On 18 Jan 2020, at 3:50 pm, Geoff Thomas <wind@...> wrote:

Rick, you are displaying a point of view, and it is true that in the area of IP, everything is personal, as innovation, let alone creativity is very rare.

However times have changed from the traditional point of view, and indeed what has changed?  - Leibnitz invented Calculus, so I believe, Tunnels can not be built without calculus, so Leibnitz is building Tunnels to this day, - but not patented, - probably just as well , otherwise the Patent holders, - by now a mulltinational organisation with a neo-Liberal rent seeking point of view, would be charging so much that Tunnels would be un-affordable.

We now live in a world in a state of self destruction caused by unrestrained greed, people trying to find the answers through their own given talents and selflessness find it difficult to be heard, only people with money get heard, - we have to stop believing that Rick, - this forum is a testament to that.

Also, fundamental attitudes have changed over the last few hundred years, we now no longer live in the age of Truth, we now live in the age of The Good.

Good is more flexible than truth, and it applies to specific situations, so each invention is a specific situation.

Some inventions that may inconvenience the super rich, must get out, or most of us will die, - even the stupid super rich.

How we nurture new knowledge and inventions is a sacred thing, - it cannot be left up to traditional organisations like Patent offices, filled with Bureaucratic politics assumptions and corruption, it can only be nurtured by the actions of committed groups of interest, imho, such as the several forums world wide exploring the new ideas coming up. - Cheers, Geoff Thomas.  

On 18 Jan 2020, at 11:22 am, Stephen Joseph <joey.stephen@...> wrote:

But Rick patents have to really show innovation or then all that happens is the industry is stymied and a lot of money is wasted on litigation.

Here is another couple of Japanese handbooks.  I have a lot more

Regards

Stephen

On Sat, Jan 18, 2020 at 11:10 AM Rick Wilson via Groups.Io <rick012=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:

Frank, 

(thanks for sharing your website and story, very impressive achievement!  We loved Tasmania visiting often when we lived in Melbourne, Freycinet Chardonnay from the East Coast is my favorite wine!)

I agree that open source information certainly can help those positioned to go off the grid and leverage and deploy these biochar and AG technologies at a localized scale. Assuming of course you can make sense of the thousands of academic papers on the subject, and have the time to do so.  If you can, you should do it. In your words, Climate Action = race with time. 

But I don't believe that self sufficiency, like you have achieved, as commendable as it is, is practical for most of the earth's population. 

The impact of Climate change will be too big and will happen fast, with most people living in cities (think, what happens to the 2.75M people in Miami as groundwater starts to flood the sewers from rising sea waters, probably before I retire).  These people can not start farming to feed themselves.  They will be displaced. Needing a big industrial AG complex, and innovations that do not exist today.  Relying on investors that require the guarantee of patent protection to justify their risk, in the end, preventing starvation.  

For instance, patents are why we have breakthrough drugs, so the companies can justify the financial risk of developing them. You would have have cholesterol medicine, antibiotics, chemotherapy drugs, etc, with open source.

Rick

On Thursday, January 16, 2020, 10:28:33 PM PST, Frank Strie <frank.strie@...> wrote:

RE: “No patent. No money.  No industry. No solution.”

Hello all, 

This subject about the classic “Patent protection”(Cards to the Chest) touches on the very question of reason WHAT motivates us and WHY are we are even involved in the first instance in the whole Biochar, FiltrationChar, FeedChar, ConstructionChar, and specialised DesignerChars topic.
If it is about Carbon Climate Action = a race with time, if it is about assisting less fortunate people and communities in problematic situations to leap frog out of such misery, is it to have tools and methods that assist satiation and hygiene, hunger, food quality, air quality, water quality ,  hydrology, landscape restoration, pro-active flammability risk reduction upcycling of wastes, etc …, the open source information availability spreads very fast without delay, As a classic example we have seen it happen in the revolutionary spread and success of the Kon-Tiki style deep cone, flame curtain kilns, as it spread to,  was copied and modified in more than 70 countries in 3 years since 2014. 
The way the Ithaka Institute and Associates (like myself) handled this urgent topic and the  way we shared and exchanged our findings and observations was due to our attitude and priority to make things open source so that carbon action happens in as many places and by as many people as possible. This has and is assisting industrial scale mobile and stationary plants become reality. 
One fundamental ethical, cultural principles my close associates in Austria, Germany, Nepal, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the USA …, have become to understand and support this guiding priciple:
“Knowledge is the treasure that keeps growing in value by sharing it” – everyone has the chance to contribute and take it further for everyone’s benefit it its. I get far more benefits (in most cases) from sharing, collaborating and assisting others than to have my pride and self interest in the foreground. What goes around, comes around as we have this one Earth, the time is ticking fore very single one of us. This is my 13^th Year of full time Biochar action in some form and 16 years since Prof. Bruno Glaser in Germany  first responded to my questions from under Down Under in Tasmania.
Frank
www.terrapretadevelopments.com.au/products

 

 

 

From: main@Biochar.groups.io <main@Biochar.groups.io> On Behalf Of Laurent Chabanne via Groups.Io
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2020 4:01 PM
To: main@Biochar.groups.io
Subject: Re: [Biochar] Tom Miles is forwarding an email to you

 

Rick, I totally agree with you: patenting is important to raise money, even if the patent is not really easy to defend.

 

Patents are useful for a lot more things than just protecting IP.

<Charcoal Handbook1.pdf><Charcoal Handbook2.pdf>

Mark, who are you replying to? - and how?

Hi Mike

My view of the “Biochar Opportunity” is that it is it is presently being driven by “Producer Push” and is seriously lacking in “Market Pull”. Someone once said “If you build it, they will come.” I would thus suggest that “If you build Markets for biochar, Customers will come.”

Biochar is not a panacea. It is useless unless it can partially or totally remove a limiting soil deficiency. Simply adding biochar to an “unknown soil” is nothing but guesswork.  Additionally, the problem is more complex, in that “every biochar is different”. Furthermore, it is well known that unless a biochar is “precharged” in some manner, growth and yield results are likely to be inferior to the control plot.

I would suggest that “Scientific Biochar Market Development” must start with two basic requirements:

1: A soil analysis, quantifying its nutrient  and “physical property” deficiencies

2: A biochar analysis, quantifying the degree to which it can economically resolve the various soil deficiencies.

3: A determination of the remaining deficiencies, and an estimate of “existing nutrient capture” that the biochar creates.

4: A determination of other nutrients that must be added, to bring soil quality up to an acceptable level. (eg., organic matter, compost, trace elements, macro nutrients, enzymes, bacteria and fungal additives, etc)

With such factual information, it would be easy for a Soil Technician to prescribe the correct biochar and the necessary additional ingredients, and their quantities to make the soil acceptable to the Farmer/Grower.

With such an approach, Rick’s observed “Biochar 50% Success, 50% Failure Rate” could be remarkably improved.

Does this “hang together” for you? How could this approach be improved upon?

Best wishes,

Kevin

Posts on this forum and current biochar production and sales show that many people who know when and how to use biochar.

# Yes indeed! However, I would suggest that if many more people knew when and how to use biochar, the producers would be hard pressed to keep up with the demand.

Several use biochar and soils analyses as tools to guide or monitor their practice.

# “Several”, in my view, is the problem. I would suggest that those who do not use soil biochar and soil analyses as tools to guide and monitor their practices are simply guessing, and that they are the ones who get the poor results.

Some are more successful at pricing, quality, and delivery than others. Some biochar businesses are more successful than others because of factors unrelated to the product and use.

# As I see it, the problems are not with the production, quality, and delivery of biochar, but the lack of “Market Pull” to order and use their products.

 We find that it is more common that people are totally unaware of biochar and its uses.   

# “Bingo!!”… Market development is the required solution to the problem.

Recent analyses of many research projects demonstrate that the odds are better than 50:50. See Dr. Bruno Glaser’s (2019) 20 minute presentation on “Biochar research – State of the art” on the IBI website https://biochar-international.org/  (Note Dr. Glaser’s cautions regarding measuring the quality of meta-analyses.)

# Such a study would be expected to be done by people with a generally scientific approach, based on soil and biochar properties. Less “blind guesswork” would be employed.

Or study a recent  meta-analysis of the relationship between characteristics of biochars and soils:

Combined effects of biochar properties and soil conditions on plant growth: A meta-analysis

Effect of biochar/soil properties on plant productivity response (PPR) was examined.
Grand mean of PPR was estimated to be 16.0% regardless of biochar/soil conditions.
PPR varied from −31.8% to 974% under different biochar/soil combinations.
Design of functional biochar according to initial soil conditions is needed.

# EXACTLY!

Biochar application in agricultural soils can be highly beneficial to plant productivity. However, how plant productivity response (PPR) [% change of plant yield from control (without biochar application)] to biochar application is affected by biochar properties, soil conditions, and their combinations is still unclear.

# EXACTLY!

Therefore, a meta-analysis based on 1254 paired comparisons from 153 published studies was conducted. The grand mean of PPR was estimated to be 16.0 ± 1.3%, regardless of biochar/soil conditions. Meanwhile, a large variation of PPR from −31.8% to 974% was also observed under different biochar or/and soil conditions. Specifically, biochar properties including pH, cation exchange capacity (CEC), contents of carbon and ash, bulk density, and soil conditions including texture, pH, CEC, nitrogen content, and C/N ratio significantly affected the results of PPR to biochar addition. Furthermore, the liming effect, improvement in soil physical structure, and increased nutrient use efficiency were suggested as the key mechanisms for the positive PPR in biochar-amended soils. Moreover, PPR could be significantly affected (strengthened or weakened) by the combined effect of biochar properties and soil conditions. Overall, the application of biochars with high ash content (or low carbon content) into sandy soils or acidic soils is highly recommended for increasing plant productivity. This meta-analysis will provide helpful information to elucidate the combined effect of biochar properties and soil conditions on plant growth, which is critical for developing engineered biochar with specific functionality to promote plant production and food security.

# EXACTLY!

Biochar application in agricultural soils can be highly beneficial to plant productivity. However, how plant productivity response (PPR) [% change of …

SCIENCEDIRECT.COM

Combined effects of biochar properties and soil conditions on plant growth: A meta-analysis

Biochar application in agricultural soils can be highly beneficial to plant productivity. However, how plant productivity response (PPR) [% change of …

Science of The Total Environment

Available online 15 January 2020, 136635

In Press, Journal Pre-proofWhat are Journal Pre-proof articles?

Yanhui Daia HaoZheng Zhixiang Jiang BaoshanXing

Received 2 November 2019, Revised 5 January 2020, Accepted 9 January 2020, Available online 15 January 2020.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.136635

# I would suggest that implement the above sound observations and recommendations would led to strong “Market Pull” for biochar.

Best wishes,

Kevin

Tom

Hi Mike

My view of the “Biochar Opportunity” is that it is it is presently being driven by “Producer Push” and is seriously lacking in “Market Pull”. Someone once said “If you build it, they will come.” I would thus suggest that “If you build Markets for biochar, Customers will come.”

Biochar is not a panacea. It is useless unless it can partially or totally remove a limiting soil deficiency. Simply adding biochar to an “unknown soil” is nothing but guesswork.  Additionally, the problem is more complex, in that “every biochar is different”. Furthermore, it is well known that unless a biochar is “precharged” in some manner, growth and yield results are likely to be inferior to the control plot.

I would suggest that “Scientific Biochar Market Development” must start with two basic requirements:

1: A soil analysis, quantifying its nutrient  and “physical property” deficiencies

2: A biochar analysis, quantifying the degree to which it can economically resolve the various soil deficiencies.

3: A determination of the remaining deficiencies, and an estimate of “existing nutrient capture” that the biochar creates.

4: A determination of other nutrients that must be added, to bring soil quality up to an acceptable level. (eg., organic matter, compost, trace elements, macro nutrients, enzymes, bacteria and fungal additives, etc)

With such factual information, it would be easy for a Soil Technician to prescribe the correct biochar and the necessary additional ingredients, and their quantities to make the soil acceptable to the Farmer/Grower.

With such an approach, Rick’s observed “Biochar 50% Success, 50% Failure Rate” could be remarkably improved.

Does this “hang together” for you? How could this approach be improved upon?

Best wishes,

Kevin