Podcast appearances and mentions of Albert Bates

Adding biochar as a soil amendment creates an ideal habitat for beneficial microorganisms. Sitos Group CEO and Co-founder Mayo Ryan and PR, Marketing, and Communications Manager Jessica Bronner explain how biochar amendments improve disease resistance, plant health, pest resistance, water retention, and drought mitigation. The team explains three different ways to make biochar and why they have chosen to use the slow pyrolysis method to ultimately produce biochar for different soil types. Resources: REGISTER: February 16, 2024 Biochar in the Vineyard 56: Conservation Burning and Biochar 106: What? Bury Charcoal in the Vineyard? 167: Use Biochar to Combat Climate Change Burn: Igniting a New Carbon Drawdown Economy to End the Climate Crisis Carbon Removal FAQ Monterey Pacific Inc. New Science Says Biochar is Very Permanent Regeneration Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation Sitos Group Sitos Group Biochar Page Sitos Group Blog Sitos Group Social Channels: LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube United States Biochar Initiative Why ‘regenerative viticulture' is gaining ground among major wine producers Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - Donate SIP Certified – Show your care for the people and planet   Sustainable Ag Expo – The premiere winegrowing event of the year Sustainable Winegrowing On-Demand (Western SARE) – Learn at your own pace Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org.   Transcript Craig Macmillan  0:00  Our guest today are Mayo Ryan. He is CEO and co founder of the Sitos Group and also his colleague, Jessica Bronner, who is the PR marketing communications manager for the Sitos roup as well. Thank you both for being here.   Mayo Ryan  0:12  You're welcome, Craig. Hey, happy to be here.   Jessica Bronner  0:14  It's a pleasure.   Craig Macmillan  0:16  So what is the Sitos Group? What do you folks do? How did it start? I know the answers to these questions, but like why are we here? Today we're going to talk about biochar. But where are you focusing? What do you do?   Mayo Ryan  0:29  Well, you know, when we when we figure it out, I think we'll let you know but anyway, where we are today is Sitos Group is a California based biochar manufacture and carbon removal company and we got started two years ago. It was a really great collaboration between myself and our co founder Steve McIntyre. Steve is the owner, founder and owner of Monterey Pacific, which is a very large vineyard management company, based in solid California about an hour south of Salinas and Monterey  Pacific farms about 18,000 acres of wine grapes in the Monterey County and San Luis Obispo areas. Steve's a winemaker and has his own winery. And he started using biochar with his in house soil scientist Dr. Doug Beck. almost 10 years ago, Doug has spent a lifetime in Far East Asia perfecting and understand the use of biochar and brought it to Monterey Pacific. They've perfected that use. And so, Stephen Monterey Pacific along with Doug had the use of biochar and winegrapes down I started my journey into biochar in late 2017. Designing and building an almond processing company in Northern California, in that process wanted to do something different to the almond shell market is is really valueless. It's a valueless byproduct almond hole is used in cattle feed in that year, the price dropped by 75%. So we were looking for an alternative income source in the form of almond shell and the next year and 2018, Kathleen Draper and Albert Bates wrote this seminal book called Burn and oddly enough, coincidentally, Steve and I read the book The same year, and it's what got us into biochar was the big sort of lightbulb moment. And then in 2018, I think October it was the inner governmental Panel on Climate Change wrote its report about negative emissions technologies. And in my head, I put those two together and have really drank the biochar Kool Aid and never going back. This is a lifelong venture now. We got together a few years ago, a fellow graduate of the California ag leadership program, we're both graduates of that program got us together, Steve's headwinds where he knew everything there was to know about using biochar in agricultural setting. And I had the, you know, production technology side of it pretty well wrapped up his headwinds were my tail winds and vice versa, we got together and as I said earlier, it's a marriage made in heaven. We've had a really wonderful partnership over the last almost couple of years, we have a pilot plant up and running at Regen Monterey, which is Monterey County's Waste Management District, with this incredible staff there. And our partner in that project is Keith Day, who runs the compost operation, the Keith day company that runs the compost operation at region Monterey, and we've had a pilot plant up and running since early this summer. And yeah, things are going really well.   Craig Macmillan  3:04  So question for you, Jessica. How did you get involved with the Sitos Group?   Jessica Bronner  3:08  That is a lovely question. So Steve reached out one day and was like, Hey, I have a job opportunity for you. And he connected with mayo, and the rest was history. And I always joke that I never thought I'd be excited about dirt, except now I'm excited about chocolate ish, kind of st compound. But yeah, that's how I got into it. And I'm never looking back. I can tell you that for sure.   Craig Macmillan  3:32  And so I've got another question for you. Jessica because I think you might have a really great answer to this. We have other episodes on this topic, but just very briefly, what exactly is biochar and what are some of the uses for it?   Jessica Bronner  3:44  So biochar, what Mayo calls is a wonder drug. And I could not agree more. I really porous material, and it's actually a type of charcoal with a low ash content. So it's a higher carbon content. What sets it apart from charcoal is its porosity. So it's has a lot of pores inside of it. We call it the coral reef for the soil. So all of those pores and little rooms are kind of housing for the micro organisms, or the soil biota that we incorporate into it.   Craig Macmillan  4:16  Mayo, you had mentioned how you kind of got connected to it. What are some of the uses for biochar in agriculture?   Mayo Ryan  4:22  We're farmers at heart and I mean, you all of us are lifelong agriculturalists. So we really start the conversation about biochar from an agricultural perspective. It is a wonderful soil amendment and because of its porosity, as Jessica said, and the idea that it is this coral reef for the soil, all of the complex fungi and bacteria and the myriad other micro organisms that help us with our digestion and our immunity and our disease resistant, live in, in biochar, it's like long term housing for all of those organisms. And I mean, in a single handful of soil there are more micro organisms, microbial bodies and our human beings on the planet and and biochar is their long term housing. You know, it's a condo for them. And so they take up residence, and it just fuels all this great activity that all those organisms have when they interact with the plant this complex communication between microbial activity and the plant itself. And so it leads to increased fertility, plant health, disease resistance, pest resistance, a really good amount of moisture retention, so drought mitigation, you know, and you just go down a list like a, like Jessica said, I think it's a wonder drug because it has these almost unbelievable amount of CO benefits. It does so many good things. That's just on the on the agricultural side, what we think about at Sitos are these co equal benefits of soil health and carbon sequestration. It's a really effective shovel ready and efficient tool. First, full carbon seed, atmospheric carbon removal,   Craig Macmillan  5:50  You talked about carbon. So obviously, this is made from materials that are high in carbon, Jessica, what kinds of materials go into this process that we're going to talk about in a second, what kinds of materials go into making biochar?   Jessica Bronner  6:02  Well, ultimately, you can pyrolyze is the secret word that we're going to get into in a little bit, but you can pyrolyze any organic matter Sitos Group specifically, we are currently working with municipal wood waste. We tried working with some compost leftovers previously, and they were a little high in water content for us to make biochar in the moment. So now we're just using some wood residue from other wood materials that are lower in the water content, but you can pyralyze organic, any type of organic waste, if that's biosolids, if that's corn husks, if that's vineyard waste, or almond waste, we're looking to get into almond waste almond hole and shell later on down the road hopefully sooner than later. But anything organic ultimately, if it's going back into the agricultural application,   Craig Macmillan  6:51  So Mayo, there's a particular process we've called pyrolysis that's necessary to make this happen so that you don't end up with ash or charcoal is it's a different kind of a combustion Mayo, Can you talk a little bit more about pyrolysis and then we'll talk about how you actually do it.   Mayo Ryan  7:04  Our goal is to ultimately make various qualities of biochar for specific soil types. And so we want a machine that's adjustable, which is why we pick slow pyrolysis there are other means of making biochar one's called gasification. And that's what we have largely in California. These are these are really energy production facilities where energy is about 80% of the product and biochar is a byproduct. Fast pyrolysis is another way to do it. Slow pyrolysis is a little bit different. There aren't many manufacturers that equipment around the world, but I think we found a great one and that machines very adjustable. So we can through different throughput times different temperature rates, we can make biochar 's that have higher pH level than others or a higher cation Exchange capacity and ultimately hope to customize biochar for soil types but you know, it's a new process. This is our machine at Regen Monterey the pilot plant is the first of its kind in the country. We've spent a good long while investigating manufactures years actually at this and, and are really pleased with this. With this process. The machine was invented or designed by two professors and biochar, Johanna Sleeman at Cornell and Stephen Joseph at the University of New South Wales, to pretty eminent people in our world. And so far, we're really pleased with the design and hope to perfect it over the years. And, you know, get the most out of it that we can it's economic, it's fairly easy to operate. As Jessica said, it's feedstock agnostic, we can use a lot of different feedstocks, and it's transportable, we can put one in a 40 foot trailer and, and you know, it's not like we can hook it up to the back of a car and drive it around. But it is somewhat transportable.   We've had other guests on the podcast and I've had tailgates where we have had big piles of vines that we lit from the top and then hose down material at the end. I've talked to people about digging pits and burning stuff covered in the ground. We've seen some smaller kinds of units, kind of like a tank I've seen people doing and kind of an open trench. The secret to pyrolysis is it's the low edition of oxygen. Is that right?   That's exactly right. Yeah.   Craig Macmillan  9:08  So you're talking about a machine. So what is this machines, magical machine? What is how does it work? How do you get stuff into it? How does it burn? How do you get stuff out of it? How much can you do at a time? Does it take 10 people to operate it? I've just gotten super curious about this, because this is the first time I've really heard about this kind of technology.   Mayo Ryan  9:27  You make it sounds so mysterious, but it's really not all the processes you described, Craig are what stands out about them is that they're batch processes. We wanted something that was continuous. There's such an abundance of agricultural byproducts, waste and biosolids, and forest waste in California that we wanted something that we could start this machine or put two or three of them side by side and it was a continuous process. So the feedstock enters the machine in a in a trough at the bottom of the machine at a temperature say 150 degrees centigrade, the moisture leaves so we dry the feedstock going in and In it say 350 to 500 degrees centigrade, all of the non carbon materials. The volatiles, if you will in that feedstock, whether it's almond shell or biosolids, or wood waste go away from the feedstock. And what we create is this bubble of sin gas or production gases. And at those temperatures, those sin gases combust. That bubble of of flame, if you will, lives above the feedstock. And that heat is what pyralyzes that say 750 degrees centigrade, paralyzes the feedstock. And what paralyzation means is it literally means change by fire. And so that feedstock goes from whatever it was with whatever quantities of lignin, cellulose hemicellulose into almost a pure carbon, it's completely chemically transformed. And what you end up with is just because it earlier is this very porous material. One of the quality standards for biochar is the International biochar initiative, surface area standard, which is 500 meters per gram. It was hard to get my head around this, but that's the surface area of a football field in the size of a pencil eraser. And that just speaks to how porous and fragile it is. And if you were to take an electron microscope and look at one of the walls of those pores, it would look exactly like the original start. It's very fractal down to different degrees of magnification. And at that high carbon content level microbes break their teeth on it, you know, it's it's something that lasts in the soil for hundreds, if not 1000s of years, as farmers we are using the biochar, principally for soil health and Plant Health take that responsibility for using that biochar in an agricultural setting, you know, very seriously. And so we are, you know, we really think that that leads to a more durable and permanent carbon removal, but it's just as I said earlier, it's a wonderful, incredible wonder drug. It does so many great things.   Craig Macmillan  11:48  To continue, mayo what happens to the stuff that's not the carbon you said it volatilizes off, but what's its eventual fate in the environment?   Mayo Ryan  11:50  We essentially combust it and so the machine acts as its own thermal oxidizer, so everything that's not carbon gets lifted above the feedstock. The feedstock never actually catches fire all the sin gas and production cloud gases do above the feedstock and they're consumed right then and there. And so theoretically, you know, what comes out of the stack is very little heat, principally, we generate a ton of byproduct heat, but very little exhaust gases, little NOx little Sox, well under what you know, are the standards here. Everything that's as I said, Not carbon gets combusted within the chamber   Craig Macmillan  12:34  And gets broken down into less problematic. Compact.   Mayo Ryan  12:37  Exactly, yes,   Craig Macmillan  12:38  Question for you just the coolant, the biochar coolant. I'm hearing a lot about biochar. Obviously, there's a lot of people mixing up the Kool Aid. I'm guessing that your job is probably to sell the Kool Aid.   Jessica Bronner  12:49  My job is actually to educate people on what the Kool Aid is. Once they know it kind of sells itself going from there on. It's definitely breaking down the complex understanding of slow pyrolysis and biochar so if someone could understand it, who's new to the ag industry or carbon removal industry or any of that.   Craig Macmillan  13:13  So again with you, Jessica, so this material is produced, you folks are selling it to other folks selling it to different people, outlets, companies, municipalities.   Jessica Bronner  13:23  That is the future plan for now we have an offtake agreement set for this first pilot plant with Monterey Pacific. So actually, all the biochar we'll be producing in the years going forward will be going directly into the vineyards that MPI manages, which is terrific yay for Sitos, Group biochar. And then moving forward it will be available to sell to outside markets.   Craig Macmillan  13:46  What do you think those markets might be?   Mayo Ryan  13:47  I can go with that. You know, we're we're we're lucky in that biochar and wine grape vineyards is an established fact more or less. We can all stipulate the benefits of biochar in wine grapes largely due to Dr. Doug Beck and Steve's work over the last eight to 10 years. We're doubling down in the wine grape industry is is kind of a short term means of proving biochar is affecting agriculture. Next, we'll spend time educating almond and pistachio growers in the San Joaquin Valley about those same benefits. I used to work as pistachio grower relations guy for a large pistachio company. And you know, I'm convinced pistachios and biochar go hand in hand. But there are so many other uses. We can sequester carbon and concrete, you know line production for the concrete businesses one of the largest carbon emitters in the world. If we can get biochar and concrete we can significantly reduce by 20%. Perhaps the amount of lime going into concrete, we can create graphenes and graphite for use and batteries. The endless list of uses of biochar is really endless. We were starting in agriculture but there are a lot of opportunities for us as we build the business.   Jessica, are you you said you're doing the education and the outreach. You're teaching people what it is what kinds of methods tools, avenues are you using to communicate all this stuff?   Jessica Bronner  14:59  So far we've been very successful on LinkedIn. That's a great avenue for people to find out what we're doing where Mayo is every week speaking to different at different arrangements and educating people that way. With that we do a lot of public outreach. So we spoke at the Monterey Rotary Club and then the Cannery Row Rotary Club. So we had some good educational moments, we'll be having a biochar tailgate with a vineyard team coming up next beginning of next year. And then our website has a lot of information about biochar. We'll write blogs, if people have questions, they can submit questions on our website. We really want to be open book to the public and to people who are interested because educating oneself is kind of the most powerful tool that you have i We really value that and we want to create avenues for people to learn from their own standards. And then a website that we like to go to for information for the public to know about, they obviously probably already do if they know about biochar is the US biochar initiative USBI. They have a terrific website with a lot of knowledge and materials on biochar and application and agriculture and different settings.   Craig Macmillan  16:12  And just as a as a timestamp, this has been recorded in November of 2023. And so this Tailgate you mentioned, would be in 2024. For Mayo to you what what is the future look like? The big picture future do you think is going to be for this industry? This is a sounds like it's an industry are potentially a fledgling industry, maybe. But where do you see this going? You've talked about almond orchards and you've talked about municipal waste. What's the potential here on a big, big picture? You   Mayo Ryan  16:42  know, agriculture is facing a huge set of problems, which makes it just more and more difficult to meet this global demand for a secure and healthy food supply. And those problems are, you know, soil degradation and desertification, drought or moisture loss. You know, carbon emissions from agriculture is huge. We've got to fix that loss of biodiversity. And so, we believe that biochar is a way to transition conventional traditional ag into a regenerative ag set of practices, which would include things like cover cropping and minimum or no till on but but essentially at the highest level conversion from a chemical based farming regime to biological based farming regime and, and we want to facilitate that our vision of sounds embarrassing a bit, Craig, but you know, Steven, Jessica, and Alan and our wonderful operators who Swain said, Well, I'll want to sequester a million tonnes of carbon be a mega ton supplier of carbon removal by the end of 2030. It sounds crazy. When I say it, I get a bit embarrassed. But our friends in the carbon world are telling them that's not enough, we need to have much more larger ambitions, you know, we all need to be sequestering a billion tons by 2030. And we're you know, we're just a very small part of that. But that's our goal. That's what we want to have happen. That's what we're going to pursue over the next seven years is to take these plants that we have the goal of the pilot planet region, Monterey is to perfect a three machine design that will templatized and deploy throughout the Salinas, Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, I think in my lifetime anyway, you know, I don't have to look much beyond those regions for opportunities to make biochar and sequester in soil. But that's the plan and to you know, to do our best to facilitate regenerative ag and, and those regenerative site supply chains and remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as we possibly can.   Craig Macmillan  18:24  Jessica what do you have to add to that? What? What do you see? What's your vision?   Jessica Bronner  18:28  My vision for biochar is really lead the regeneration of the earth to the soil. I mean, I recently read, or am reading the book by Paul Hawkins called regeneration and mayo knows it very well. And I encourage everyone else to go and read it if they have not. But it ultimately talks about how are we supposed to thrive on a planet that's degenerating? And what can we do to regenerate that so we can continue to sustain life? Well, not just since sustain life, but to thrive, have life thrive on this planet? So future going forward would for biochar to Excel that regeneration of the earth of agriculture of supply chains of humanity? That would be that's my big end. I'll be I'll go through this.   Craig Macmillan  19:14  That's a good goal. Let's continue with you, Jessica. We're getting close to the end here. What is one thing that you would recommend to listeners or that you'd like them to take away regarding this topic?   Jessica Bronner  19:26  I mentioned it earlier, but really is just to educate themselves on biochar and sustainability and regeneration, because there's only so much you can do from here. So he or she say, but when you actually double down and find out what it is that you're passionate about, or maybe you're not passionate about for your individual self, I think that's really powerful. Like I said before, I had never knew that I'd be excited about charcoal or about agriculture, but here I am, like, never, never going back and I really attribute that passion to education. personal education me diving in and figuring that out so that's that's my biggest encouragement for people just curious about it is to read about it dive in jump in headfirst come down a rabbit hole and drink the Kool Aid.   Craig Macmillan  20:14  How about you Mayo?   Mayo Ryan  20:16  Know what I'm gonna shamelessly crib what Jessica stains it's get involved. I mean, if you're on our website and you find that that tab and that button all over, we have a little mantra internal saying it Sitos. It's not either or it's also and we have a very limited competitive view, we don't think there are such things in, in the biochar or carbon removal world as competitors, we need lots of Sitos' we need lots of other companies in this business as many as can can get involved. And that's it. You know, Friday, we hit a record. It's the first time we were over two degrees of pre industrial temperature, a third of this year was over 1.5 degrees, which was the Paris Climate Accord. It's here it's happening. And so my suggestion and my hope is that is that people just get involved educate, as Jessica said, and, and join us in this effort to save ourselves.   Craig Macmillan  21:03  Jessica, I am going to ocme back to you, where can people find out more about you and your colleagues and the Sitos group in general?   Jessica Bronner  21:11  Our website and click the Get Involved button and you send an email directly to me and I will respond to you ASAP. You can also find us like I said on LinkedIn, we have our social media platforms on Facebook and Instagram. We're thinking about launching a YouTube channel. You can go check us out right now and find some terrific vineyard application videos of biochar have been applied to some of the McIntyre vineyards, soils. But I would say email if you want to get direct contact with us. It's our first names with our last initial at Sitos.earth it is not.com We got fancy and put a dot Earth on there. So yeah, send us an email reach out. We're happy to chat set up a call and have a conversation. Well,   Craig Macmillan  21:53  our guest today has been Mayo Ryan. He is CEO and co founder of the Sitos group and Jessica Bronner, who is the peer Marketing Communications Manager for Sitos want to thank you both for being here.   Mayo Ryan  22:05  Delighted, Craig, thank you for having us.   Jessica Bronner  22:07  It was a pleasure for sure.   Transcribed by https://otter.ai Nearly perfect transcription by https://otter.ai

The Paris Arc comes to a exciting conclusion as we welcome to the show a renowned arbitration community voice – Diamana Diawara.  Diamana is the Director of Arbitration and ADR for Africa for the ICC.  She is also one of the leading advocates for African representation in the world of international arbitration.  Our conversation goes by in a blink and you don't want to miss this episode. Strap in, it's a fun one!   Time Stamps Opening Notes – :32 Interview Begins – 3:40 Personal Interest – 33:05 Closing Notes – 42:55   Books: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, Trevor Noah Autobiography,              Classic novels by Toni Morrison (Around 34:05) Music: Aretha Franklin, Disney (Frozen and Encanto),   SHOUT OUTS/References: Young Arbitration Forum (41:32, African Reps) The Arb Chat (43:30) Lucy Greenwood (43:50)   LINK Registration: CiArb Fireside Chat with Albert Bates, Jr. - https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GVFdegumSTW6-UQHEQzuAA   The ArbChat with Lucy Greenwood, Registration Link: https://teams.microsoft.com/registration/8OYVV2ZVHU6bdjyu4bZH4w,aTwxE6uDRU2hfwg9fxocpQ,bGPrTlH_s0uWMo9kZnyTdQ,Ra74gVdAnEKIhjEtcHXoaw,I_TPoPFQvU-HWH-epbSULw,mVsXOHebokyRXcWDPCv3Tw?mode=read&tenantId=5715e6f0-5566-4e1d-9b76-3caee1b647e3

Visit Our Sponsor: Foraged.Market Donate Directly: via PayPal -or- Venmo @permaculturepodcast   Want to listen to more conversations about Permaculture?  Browse the extensive archives of the show.  The guest for this episode is Mark Ervin of GreenGro Biologicals. He joins me to share his passion for terra preta soil and biochar and how he turned that love into an entrepreneurial business bringing a regenerative product to market. Along the way, he shares the difference between simply burning something and calling biochar versus creating a carbon-rich, mineralized biochar, the importance of nutrient ratios for sustainable growing, and much more. Resources More Information on Terra Preta and Biochar Terra Preta (Wikipedia) Biochar (Wikipedia) The Biochar Solution by Albert Bates Burn by Albert Bates and Kathleen Draper , Related Interviews Dr. Elaine Ingham - The Soil Food Web Eric Toensmeier - Drawing Down Carbon: Agroforestry and Climate Change Permabyte: Biochar, Gasification, and Woodlot Management Mary Johnson - An Introduction to Nutrient Dense Farming Connor Stedman - Carbon Farming - Soil Learn More

On EcoRadio KC for 11-29-21, host Terri Wilke has prepared a show about Albert Bates, a member of the intentional community and ecovillage movements. We wish this hour could be a real time interview with Albert Bates, however, he can’t zoom, because he lives beyond the digital divide, in the Global Village Institute's Cool Lab […] The post GETTING TO LITTLE – THERE'S ENOUGH FOR ALL OF US appeared first on KKFI.

In this best of series interview, Albert Bates, director of the Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology and author of "Burn: Using Fire to Cool the Earth," discusses how biochar can transform agriculture while simultaneously normalize our climate.

Thinking about a career in photography? Well, our experts are here to help. Albert Bates, Nelson Sanchez, Kedrick Johnson, and Trell Martin tell us about their journeys, advice for future photographers, and more! Join us on the Michael Finkley Show! #photography #photographers #passion #career #michaelfinkleyshow #inform #educate #inspire #subscribe #youtube --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/michael-finkley-show/message

In this interview, Albert Bates, director of the Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology and author of "Burn: Using Fire to Cool the Earth," discusses how biochar can transform agriculture while simultaneously normalize our climate.

Today's conversation was recorded back in the last few weeks before I left Guatemala when I had a chance to sit down with my good friend and fellow permaculture educator, Mordur G'ott, but we all call him Moli.Mörður or Moli is a permaculture pioneer in Iceland who has been travelling between countries to learn and share what he knows. In Iceland he has hosted multiple events and PDS's with legendary teachers like Albert Bates and Robyn Francis among others. In this session Moli and I speak about the more problematic aspects of the permaculture pedagogy that we've found in practice. As with any teaching methodology, permaculture can become dogmatic and even cult-like when practitioners take certain teachings as gospel and forget the essential aspects of observation, reassessment, and flexibility when techniques don't apply to your context. Moli offers great insights from his years as a permaculture educator and project coordinator on some of the aspects of permaculture that he feels need deeper explanation and clarification to help avoid pitfalls and misunderstandings, especially from people who are new to the concepts and often don't have any experience working directly with nature to draw from. Many of you may find that you disagree with some or all of Moli's conclusions or maybe know of elements of permaculture teaching that weren't mentioned in this episode that you think are essential to include in a conversation about the shortcomings or undesirable aspects surrounding permaculture. If that's the case, I would love to hear your opinions. You can comment in the threads below or email me directly at info@abundantedge.com. This is a controversial topic that I'm looking forward to exploring further Resources: Permavillage.net Reach out to Moli on Facebook Moli's Patreon For years now, I've been hearing feedback and questions from listeners of this podcast. Many of you out there have been piecing together your education. You've taken your PDC, you may have taken some other gardening or more advanced design courses, and though you're passionate about ecological work, many of you still lack the confidence to break out on your own and start working as professional designers. That's why I'm really excited to tell you about the new Digital permaculture design course, taught by Dan Halsey, the founder of Southwoods Ecological design and United Designers Intl. In just five days this online intensive will guide you through every part of the design process from client intake to the final presentation with specific focus on digital design and drawing. You'll also get a year of access to the Permaculture Plant Database, live interactive online classes, access to the United designers symbols library, files, professional templates and much more. This course is a fast track to working as a professional on the cutting edge of ecosystem regeneration and for a limited time, listeners of this show can get $100 off the course by entering the code AEpodcast at checkout. The course starts on July 29th so hurry to reserve your place at permacultureprofessionals.com And if you want to learn more about Dan Halsey and his work, checkout the interview I did with him about running a professional design company in episode 117 or by clicking the link in the show notes of this episode We need professional ecological designers more than ever. Sign up for the Digital Permaculture design course today at permacultureprofessionals.com

We emit 37 gigatons of CO2 every year. If we turned our agricultural waste alone into biochar, we could bring that number down by one or two gigatons. If we poured our roads with biochar and started turning waste streams like seaweed and municipal waste into biochar as well, we could get that number up to 50 or 60 gigatons of stored carbon annually. And that kind of net gain would get us back down to a safe level of 350 ppm of atmospheric CO2—in time scales of decades. Albert Bates is the author of several books on climate solutions, including Burn: Using Fire to Cool the Earth and The Biochar Solution. He is also a former environmental rights lawyer, mushroom farmer, brick mason and horse trainer. Albert cofounded the Global Ecovillage Network in 1995 and continues to serve as the organization’s representative in UN climate talks. He is also an advocate for the preservation of indigenous cultures and a leader in the movement to drawdown carbon with biochar. Today, Albert joins Christophe and Alexsandra to share his unique path from the courtroom to the ecovillage, describing how he came to study terra preta soils and get involved in the biochar movement. He discusses the pore structure of charcoal in the rich soil of the Amazon and explains why biochar remains in the soil for thousands of years. Listen in for Albert’s insight around the waste streams that could serve as biochar source material and learn about the ecovillages and cities that serve as proof of concept for using biochar to draw carbon out of our atmosphere and oceans!   Key Takeaways   [2:47] Albert’s path to reversing climate change  Attorney in Tennessee environmental justice case Won by proving climate change real + quit law Active in Global Ecovillage Network Interest in Brazil’s terra preta soils Integrate biochar into Ecovillage Movement    [9:05] The pore structure of charcoal in Amazonian soil Fractal (pits on walls of pores) Large surface area populated with biodiversity   [14:39] Why biochar remains in soil for thousands of years Very high temperatures change bond structure Chases off all other gases, carbon hardens into itself Difficult for microbes to digest (recalcitrant carbon)   [18:30] Examples of potential sources of biochar in waste Dead limbs from harvesting fruits Slash + sawdust from lumbering Old pallets/furniture scraps from mill Crop waste   [20:36] Problematic waste streams that could source biochar  Seaweed contaminating coast in the Caribbean Municipal sewage causing eutrophication of waterways   [22:42] The idea that not all biochar is created equal Designer chars w/ different qualities fit certain purposes Carbon cascade could generate a sequence of products   [25:40] How scaling the Ecovillage Model might influence biochar production Microenterprise hubs produce a range of carbon drawdown products Same basic process (pull carbon out of atmosphere and oceans)   [28:05] The roadblocks to harnessing waste streams for biochar Cost vs. price dilemma (can’t compete with fertilizer) Proof of concept realized through Ecovillage Network   [36:05] How Stockholm serves as a proof of concept for cities  Biochar used to rejuvenate trees, clean air, and water Reduce flooding + lock up carbon to meet Paris goals   [39:02] How listeners can learn more about biochar Experiment with making yourself, add to compost International Biochar Initiative + US Biochar Initiative   [43:27] Albert’s insight on the unique uses of biochar Charquila and charcolate Mud + biochar = bricks   Connect with Ross & Christophe   Nori Nori on Facebook  Nori on Twitter Nori on Medium Nori on YouTube Nori on GitHub Nori Newsletter Email hello@nori.com Nori White Paper Subscribe on iTunes Carbon Removal Newsroom   Resources   Collision Tech Conference International Biochar Initiative US Biochar Initiative Biochar 2019 in Fort Collins IBI Webinar Series Albert Bates Burn: Using Fire to Cool the Earth by Albert Bates and Kathleen Draper Mushroom People Global Ecovillage Network The Farm Wim Sombroek’s Research The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change by Albert Bates The Paris Agreement: The Best Chance We Have to Save the One Planet We’ve Got by Albert Bates Ecosystem Restoration Camps The EmerGENcies Programme

KMO is the host and producer of the C-Realm Podcast and author of the book 'Conversations on Collapse.' He describes himself as, "a recovering libertarian and Singularitarian." The C-Realm began in 2006 and since then he has conducted over 300 podcast interviews on topics ranging from organic farming and permaculture, peak oil and the collapse of industrial civilization, to psychedelic spirituality and drug policy reform. The roster of guests includes Bill McKibben, Dmitry Orlov, Albert Bates, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Charles A.H. Hall, Albert Bartlett, James Howard Kunstler, Derrick Jenson, Bruce Damer, Neil Kramer, and Dennis McKenna among others. http://c-realm.com

Todays guest is Albert Bates who we spoke to last year because he attended the COP21 Paris Climate Conference so he gave us the inside story on that in Episode 16. Albert also went to the latest Climate Conference, COP22 in Marakech and so he'll be sharing with us what the so-called world leaders are doing about Climate Change and many other environmental issues. The post Permaculture Realized Podcast Episode 28, Inside COP22 Marrakech with Albert Bates appeared first on Realize Permaculture Homestead.

Todays guest is Albert Bates who we spoke to last year because he attended the COP21 Paris Climate Conference so he gave us the inside story on that in Episode 16. Albert also went to the latest Climate Conference, COP22 in Marakech and so he'll be sharing with us what the so-called world leaders are doing about Climate Change and many other environmental issues. The post Permaculture Realized Podcast Episode 28, Inside COP22 Marrakech with Albert Bates appeared first on Realeyes Permaculture Homestead.

Albert Bates has been the director of the Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology since 1984 and the Ecovillage Training Center at the Farm in Tennessee since 1994 where he has taught sustainable design, natural building, permaculture and restoration ecology to students of more that fifty nations. Albert regales us with his charisma, discussing the miracle of biochar, which can trap carbon while building soil and reversing desertification. We tie carbon farming into the wider climate movement and talk about breaking the cycle of climate denial. Albert discusses the joys of communal living, the interesting relationship they have with money, and the fate of nuclear energy, and the importance of celebration amid the madness.

Superhero Academy Podcast Albert Bates - Sustainability Tech For full notes and key points, please visit LINKSOON Summary In this podcast, Marc Coppola, Lawrence and Nick interviews Albert Bates, a legend in terms of sustainability, or resilience, as he prefers to put it. He has had an experience in Tennessee as his post-graduate education on sustainability. What he learned in living in the farm was how to be creatively adaptable. You learn to adapt creatively to fill the needs from the minimum that you can use. We're going to have to be really creative really fast to be able to sustain 21st century technologies using less energy. We have to act now if we really want to become more sustainable or resilient. We need to cut back on consumer goods. We need to save more money in order to balance out the costs for more sustainable products. We've become so detached with the world that supports us. People are going to do what's easy and people are going to do what's most pleasurable. We need to advertise and educate people to make sustainability cool and sexy so they would support it and take action. Main Questions Asked • How did you start being involved in sustainability? [01:11] • Would you say that sustainability and adaptability are synonymous? [08:35] • What do you think should the average person be more sustainable or resilient with? [10:58] • What is your definition of sustainability or resilience? [11:39] • Do you think solar energy is the answer? Or wind? Or a combination? [19:48] • What are the things that we can do today energy-wise that will make us shift in the best possible way? [19:52] • Why isn't the technology of turning garbage into electricity, which can be seen in Copenhagen, replicated across the world? [23:22] • Can we change our economic system to motivate people to be more energy-efficient? [28:22] • What are your thoughts on the education side of things? How can we shift our education to make the change to sustainability happen? [38:43] • What are your thoughts on branding, such as making sustainability sexy? [39:30] Powerful Quotes • "You start to learn to adapt creatively to fill the needs from the very minimum you can use." - Albert Bates [10:40] Links Mentioned Sirius Ecovillage siriuscommunity.org Contact Information for the Guest, Albert Bates youtube.com/peaksurferalbert thegreatchange.com Come check out more of what we do on www.valhallamovement.com www.superheroacademy.net

Albert Bates discusses his new book, The Biochar Solution with June Stoyer on the Clean Energy View Radio Show.

Albert Bates is the author of the Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook:  Recipes for Changing Times and director of the institute for AppropriateTechnology since 1984 and the Ecovillage Training Center since 1994.  In this April, 2007 interview, he shares some of his recipes for living a sustainable and rewarding life during this energy-descent time. 

Albert Bates, an influential figure in the intentional community and ecovillage movements discusses his new book "The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times." Over the coming years we will need to move from a global culture addicted to cheap, abundant petroleum to a culture of compelled conservation, whether through government directive or market forces. Bates takes a positive, upbeat, and optimistic view of "the Great Change," promoting the idea that it can be an opportunity to redeem our essential interconnectedness with nature and with each other. Bates is a lawyer, author and teacher. He has been director of the Institute for Appropriate Technology since 1984 and of the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee since 1994.